Trinity - Ch. 4: Ela Again
Ela
"And at the coming of dawn All prisms are touched by that bright finger That laces together the spheres of Being, That fathers the green forces, The withering, And the plasmic grief."
Heraclitean Fires (Anon.).
So you've pulled me back onto Literotica asking for more? I've told you the broad outlines of what happened after the Big 3 - I've spilled a few beans. So you want to zoom in there and take a really good look at the rest of the can, right? OK then - but only a few. I guess I kinda promised I'd tell you more, sooner or later.
I keep a journal now anyway. That helps a lot with some of the details - life's getting a bit complicated, see? I wasn't sure whether to get a Black Book or a Red Book. Nope, too many of those knocking about. Then I saw what I wanted - a Crimson Book. Yeah, that would do nicely. I'm not strict about daily entries - I haven't the time. I just use it for 'major' events (major to me at any rate). No dates either. I never quite remember, they're not important, and anyway, I want this account to read like a story, not a diary.
As it turned out, this whole idea wasn't the wisest of moves, but I didn't know that then.
After Rob had gone, the next couple of weeks were sheer fucking hell. Paul would lie beside the bed, night after night, sodden with booze and weeping away. He couldn't bring himself to lie on the bed. We got about two hours of sleep a night - out of pure exhaustion. The he moved in to the spare room, but still lay there crying all night. It was too much - I was beginning to look like shit. All right, I was also beginning to see I'd really hurt him, but what could I do about it? I had to do something about it though. This just couldn't go on. But then I went and did something really stupid.
"Look," I told him, "if you can't stand the sight of me at the moment, why don't you go ring up that dark chick you've always fancied - you know, Maria. Go give her a decent bang if you think it'll make us even." I must have been out of my fucking mind as I said it, but you see, I'd had enough.
And so he did - right there, from our apartment. I tried to keep busy in the kitchen while he was on the phone, trying not to listen. He came back smirking.
"Hey, guess what? I've a date with Maria tonight."
There was a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.
"So what are you guys gonna do?"
"Don't know," he replied, matter-of-fact. Then: "We'll just 'play it by ear' - 'see how it goes', just 'let things take their course' - as you damn well know," he added with deadly emphasis, stressing each phrase coldly and carefully.
He went out about 7 - and didn't come back at all that night. I was burning up inside from sheer misery. And d'you know what I did?
I knew where she lived. She rented a room in this great big, old-style Colonial house. Yep, I went out there about 2 in the morning and stood outside the house, looking up at the windows. I wasn't sure which window was hers. One of them still glowed inside, dark orange, behind the curtains. There then, I decided. Yup, he was up there all right, his cock buried up to the hilt in that treacherous cunt of hers. I tried not to think of what his body looked like, lying between those long, pale thighs. But I couldn't put the image out of my mind. What were her tits like? Was her terrific black hair spread out over the pillow at this moment as he lay on top of her? What did she sound like as she came to orgasm? Was she as noisy as I was? Try as I could, I couldn't hear anything. People passed by, looking at me curiously. I must've looked like a fucking idiot, pacing back and forth out there on the street at that time like a robot. After another hour or so of self-torture, I gave up and went home. Watch it, I thought. You're getting as bad as he is. The hell with her tits. I touched mine. Tit for tit all right.
He came home about 9 that morning, radiant. I looked at him, head lowered, my voice almost breaking.
"So what was she like?"
"Fucking terrific!" he said, stretching his arms out, like he'd just had a real heavy workout.
"What are her tits like?" I couldn't help myself.
"Small - but they don't half stick out."
"How old's she?"
"Nineteen."
"You bastard."
I pressed him for details about the room where they'd fucked. He was only too happy to oblige - the boot was on the other foot now. Apparently she had this great satanic-style bedchamber, pentacles, candles, incense and all that crap. She had this weird tattoo thing as well, just above her ass, some kind of pentacle thing and another on the inside of her thigh, a snake crawling up towards her cunt. An amateur suburban witch then, or some third-rate Buffy wannabe. All this crap seemed to turn him on. He called her his 'dark angel'.
"God! Fucking on that bed was really something," he said, stretching his arms again and grinning.
"Oh really?" I said, smiling sweetly. "Bet it's not half so much fun as fucking on a waterbed, believe me!"
I watched him wither before my eyes. Touché!
I'd hoped, stupidly, that he'd give her one good balling and get her out of his system. Then we could start rebuilding our lives. But no. A couple of days later he went off again and didn't come back all night.
"Look," I said. "All right, I shouldn't have gone out that night and let Rob fuck me. I'm sorry, I really am - I can't undo it - there's nothing else I can say. But it's all over between me and him. Meantime you've got your own back all right. Why did you have to go back to her for more?"
"You keep needling me about that fucking waterbed."
I sighed. Oh God! Why did I ever have to open my big mouth about that fucking thing? What the hell did it matter, anyway?
"Look, I don't give a shit where you shove your cock at the moment. Just don't fall in love with anyone else, that's all."
So then he went off for a month to UCLA on some research project and I was left alone. Damn! We'd have been out there together if none of this had happened.
But to be honest, I was glad to have him out of my hair for a while. Maybe he'd get decently laid out there, forget about the witch-bitch, and we could start over again when he got back. I kept as busy as I could. I'd try not to mope about in the apartment or lie about on our thoroughly polluted marriage bed. I'd plenty of friends if I needed company. A number of girls, a guy called Jeff who was into computers and who fancied me one hell of a lot - we had this sort of flirtatious thing going on - just playing around though, nothing serious. Then there was this philosopher-type called Dave, a bit of a nerd, really, and this couple, Alan and Marie, who lived on the first floor of a house further up the street. Marie was one hell of a looker - my mirror image - if you know what I mean - but dark. I kinda fancied her. I hadn't had any lesbian experiences, but looking at her, I often thought there could be a first time for everything. Yep, she looked a lot like that witch-bitch Paul was fucking, and with her name and all, you may be wondering.
There were also a number of people from 'ze old country'. I'd hang around with them from time to time talking the old lingo, but I didn't want to keep too close to them - I didn't want to be branded as some kind of 'immigrant'. There'd been that Welsh guy - you know, the poet - Dylan something or other. I don't know any of his stuff, but apparently he'd said something like' land of my fathers? My fathers can keep it!' I sort of felt that way too.
But try as I did, I still couldn't fight off the depression I felt taking hold of me.
I went down at the shop one morning, just buying stuff for myself. I was so fucking miserable. Dave was there. He lived in a bachelor-type apartment a couple of floors below us in the building. He lived alone, and as far as I knew, didn't have a girlfriend. He was a well-built, blond, blue-eyed guy who did a lot of working out, good-looking in a vapid sort of way. I liked him OK. He was really quite 'fit' all right - in every sense of the word - but like I said, he was a bit of a jerk, that is, not really my type of jerk at all. It had never even crossed my mind to get it on with him. He was doing philosophy like I said, and classics. We'd have these real heavy sessions with Paul from time to time over coffee. You know - Kant, Spinoza, classical stuff and all that.
I hadn't seen him for some time - at least since before the Great You-Know-What. He came up to me along one of the aisles as I stood there stupidly in the middle of it, mouth open, brain washed out by thirty-six different brands of washing powder.
"Hey, Ela, how's it going?" he asked.
"OK," I replied indifferently, trying to smile and failing miserably.
"You don't sound so good - not the Ela I know. You sure you're OK?"
"Well...no..." I faltered, "but it's nothing, really..."
"Want to pop round to my place for some coffee this afternoon and talk about it?"
No, I didn't want to talk about it, but I agreed to pay him a visit. What else was I to do - I didn't feel up to working on the paper I was doing at the moment. I didn't really want to talk about Socrates either, but I could use some company, I thought. God knows what Paul was doing out there on the West Coast anyway.
I went down there late that afternoon. His apartment was one floor below us, at the far end of one of the corridors.
"Want a 'real drink'?" he asked. "You look as if you could use one."
