DAILIES

SIXTY SECONDS

By Keith Jordan

Wednesday, May 16th. 4.39pm

Coleslaw scented under arms. Sweat pumping. Guilt festering in my gut like a bag full kittens.

Jenny stands by the coffee machine, six foot some of pure statuesque loveliness, looking like an erotic greek sculpture breathed to life by some sick dark art and smeared in flesh and hair.

I glide up to her like a lovelorn assassin; ready to deliver the bullet of truth I know will crack her fragile heart in two.

“Jen” I whisper in the loudest singing voice imaginable, “We need to talk”

She turns to face me, eyebrow raised, hair wafting to and fro like a Vidal Sassoon advert. Slowly her gaze falls to my heaving man bosom. A look of fear rippling across her eastern European visage. 

It takes me a few moments to realise that now may not be the most appropriate time to fidget with my left nipple. Mumbling my apologies I remove my hand from my undershirt and wipe the milk from my fingers with a single brush down the front of my jeans.

Resuming eye contact, I take a breath and continue.

“I went out on a date last night.” I spit, the confession spilling out of me in a jolting high pitched pig squeal, “With a girl. A real live girl… one what’s not imaginary.”

Jenny doesn’t react. Her face is a blank mask. Clearly she is too stunned, too wounded to respond.

We stand there staring at each other for what seems like an eternity. Finally she parts her lips as if to speak.

“What has that got to do with m—“

“Don’t talk” I hiss, driving my marmalade encrusted index finger up into her lips and silencing her semi parted mouth hole; so pink, so perfect. “Just let me get through this, please.”

Her eyes widen in a mixture of terror and trepidation, I double check my fly is up so as to alleviate any fear of physical threat.

Sadly, the zipper is down.

With an apologetic nod, I whoosh it closed and continue--

“It just happened, okay? It just… God this is so hard.... I know that you and I have a bond. A special, terrifying bond of lust and longing and stolen moments in pantry’s with hair smelling and ankle oogling—But that’s over now! I can’t spend my life waiting around for you to realise that I’m the man you’re gonna marry.  I want someone to be there for me when I get home at night. Someone to tell me how beautiful my stretch marks look in the morning. Someone to feed me grapes on long summer evenings by Mister Crinkalby’s orchard. I need love now, dammit. NOW!”

Dumbfounded isn’t the right word to describe the look on Jenny’s perfectly symmetrical face, but it’s the only one that comes to mind.

“Don’t you cry,” I blubber, a melon sized lump rising up in my throat, “Don’t. You. Cry… Just know that, whatever happens… I want us to always stay friends. Like Superman and Wonder Woman, or Batman and that kid he used to touch up”

I place a gentle kiss on the front of her hand, stealing one last lingering squeeze of her fingers in the process, remembering all the times I’d day dreamed about them constructing sandwiches for our children on school nights as I practised my naked air guitar in the dining room mirror… Jenny’s hair tied up in a bun, summer dress a bright lilac lattice work of floral design trimmed in crimson silk, sea breeze wafting through the kitchen window and carrying the sweet scent of may flowers from the modest plot of garden we’d spent the spring break seeding together.

Jenny reefs her fingers from from my grasp with an almighty jerk, snapping me back to reality.  It appears I lost time again. Just how long have I been drooling on her knuckles?

“You’ll find someone else, I know you will.” I lie, “Maybe not someone as funny or as charming as me, but someone all the same… either that or you’ll die a lonely spinster, like Jessica Flether or Cliff Richard… Look, regardless of whether you find someone or not, you’re definitely going to die, so you know, take comfort in that.”

Her eyes are dry when I turn to walk away.

Such a tall, brave woman.

I try not to swing my hips too much as I exit… she’s already suffered enough.