Once More with Feeling

I dropped the dirty clothes in front of our washing machine, and then crouched down to sort through them. Too often before important pieces of paper or even money had gone through the washing machine, hidden in pockets, and been ruined, therefore I now always checked all pockets before throwing clothes into the machine.

They were Dan’s favourite jeans, tatty and old and faded, he would preen when he wore them because of the flattering way they hugged his groin and buttocks. They were filthy, as if he’d been rolling around the garden in them. In the front pocket was a neatly folded piece of paper, its edges creased over. Against my better judgement, I quickly unfolded it and read the handwritten, sprawling words on it:

“Dan,
I can’t wait until next Tuesday. Last night was fucking amazing, my arse is still on fire from the banging you gave me. I’ll come around to your place at half-six, next Tuesday. We can’t meet at my place because my flatmate’s being an arsehole again.
I can’t wait.
Kris.”

Tuesday nights I always worked late, running the Men’s Health Clinic at the practice where I worked, spending the evening with a parade of middle-aged men worrying over their health. I wouldn’t get home until late each Tuesday; often so late that Dan had already gone to bed and fallen asleep.

Kris was a thin and very blonde party boy who worked in Dan’s office. He always seemed permanently hung-over or spaced-out, as if always coming down from the previous night’s clubbing and partying. He certainly didn’t like me, the few times I had met him he’d snarled distaste towards me and oozed indifference towards Dan.

I held the note in my hands, crouched there on our kitchen floor, and just stared at it. I had no desire to destroy it, only hold it and remain looking at it. It meant only thing one. After all the tears, arguments, emotional fallout and promises, Dan’s repeated promises to me, he was back to screwing around. After each time before he promised me it would be the last time, and his most recent promise had seemed to be his last one. It was nearly a year since he was last unfaithful, a fling at a work conference that carried on after he returned home, and since then he had seemed to keep his word. This note now made his last promise into another lie.

I didn’t feel angry or hurt, just a creeping curiosity. Kris was nearly twenty years my junior, could barely string together two sentences of speech together, so what was the attraction for Dan? Was it only sex? Was there more?

I brought the note up to my face and smelt the paper. There was the smell of Dan’s crotch, that distinct and sharp odour, mixed in with the vague odour of stale ink and dull paper. No smell of sex or aftershave or any erotic taint.

Tuesday was only two days away; could I get someone to cover my clinic? Could I slip home unnoticed? Could I spy on Dan and Kris? What would I see? Could I do it? Could I...?

Again I brought the note up to my face and inhaled deeply. I felt a warm and erotic thrill creeping over me, certainly not what I would have thought my reaction would be this time.