When I opened the lounge room door she was there on the couch, icing her crotch with a pouch full of blueberries. Nothing needed to be said, but she spoke.
“When do you want me to leave?”
“Whenever I feel like a smoothie.”
I left her to her treatment and went to have a shower. It was Valentine’s day and my eyes hurt.
The INTP is above all a thinker and his inner (private) world is a place governed by a strong sense of logical structure. Every experience is to be rigorously analysed, the task of the INTP’s mind is to fit each encountered idea or experience into a larger structure defined by logic… The drive to understand things that are not yet understood is a very powerful force in the life of an INTP… Indeed, most primary interests of an INTP are things which he cannot fully understand, usually because they are highly complex or have some exotic, mystical element that does not yield to analysis…
I stared at the tiles of the shower stall as my housemate’s pubic hair formed a mesh over the drain. Ankle-deep, I winced as hot water ran into the two scabrous channels that intersected beneath my shoulder and decided to buy her wicket-keeping gloves. Maybe I’d even get cute and scream ‘HAHWWUZZAT?!” in a Pakistani accent next time she came. I made a rather clever ball-tampering quip to myself that probably wouldn’t get a laugh in public then drew a snail in the condensation on the door. I was terrified and besieged by thoughts of 2021.
“I’ve taken away Clinton’s lolly privileges…”
“Oh come on, he’s…”
“This is not open for discussion.”
“I just…never mind. Do you want the Muggacino or the Cup-accino?”
“I told you I have a funny tummy at the moment! No wonder he has no attention span, he gets it from his bloody father…”
“I…OK. Forget it. Just forget it. I’ll go wait in the Lanos.”
I’ve always considered love a selfish concept in that you can only ever love someone insofar as they make you feel less dismal about yourself. Perhaps I did just ‘want you to be happy,’ but a series of rigid provisos prohibiting foreign excursions, champion footballers and hens’ nights would definitely be placed on this happiness and my accompanying misery. I don’t believe anyone is completely altruistic, and continue to question why people put themselves through each other. I turned the cold water up and realized I was humming ‘Sussudio.’
“Hi there! You’ve got_two_new messages. Message received: Thursday, March 24th,2008 at_four_thirty-three_AM:
….FUCK OFF, I’LL WALK HOME….heeeeeey…me again. Look, it’s cool…it’s cool, I don’t expect you to pick up it’s just…I’LL FUCKING WALK! sorry, Tom has his dick out but like…I just want you to know that yes, I’m arrogant, yes I’m a prick, yes…OK I forget what precisely I said to you, but it was something to do with me being the greatest writer of the past seven-thousand years, and I stand by that, I really do but…I dunno, you’re OK and…ARRHHH JESUS CHRIST GET IT OFF MY NECK….HAHAHA YOU’RE FUCKED!!!”
To return the call, press zero…”
I stepped out of the shower and towelled off, then went to work with the Gillette. I always find it hard to concentrate on shaving, as the walls of my bathroom are painted with orange stars set against a purple background – the handiwork of a prostitute who used to operate out of the house back in the early nineties. The guy at our local bottleshop told my housemate a client gassed himself in the garage after his advances were rebuffed, and it made me a little glum to know that even Johns have calcified spirits. I nicked myself, felt queasy and went back to my room half-bearded.
potatoes
blu-tak
hat
fancy yoghurt
apples
worcestershire
present
She was in bed, and I climbed in next to her and felt the rivulets on my chest evaporate against her back. I contemplated farting – just for something to talk about – then opted against it. She stretched out and caught me in the throat with an elbow.
“Fuck! Sorry…”
“No problem.”
“Your eyes are watering…”
“I’m…thinking about Far Away Home. The golden retriever…in the ditch…”
“Mmm…”
We lay there for a while as the pedestal fan rotated back and forth over us, her hair up my left nostril while I choked on Garnier. I pulled a strand from my mouth and asked:
“Do you know about Arturo Gatti?”
“Who?”
“Arturo Gatti. The boxer.”
“Never heard of him.”
“He was a fucking jet. His nickname was ‘Thunder’…he wasn’t a brilliant boxer, really, but he’d attack the whole fight. Always throwing punches, even when he could barely stand. Very entertaining. He had three fights with this American guy, Micky Ward, that were all classics. In the second…I think it was the second…he hit Ward so hard he broke his hand. Ward got up, though.”
She didn’t seem particularly interested, but let me continue.
“Anyway, I think he retired with something like fifty wins. He won the Ward fights 2-1. He was pretty highly respected as one of the toughest guys in his division.”
“That’s…lovely? And…”
“He died last year. He was Murdered.”
“How?”
“Well, there’s been no verdict yet, but the cause of death was asphyxiation…remember, this was a pretty hard guy…”
“Mmm…”
“But the police found his blood all over the strap of his 5’4 wife’s handbag.”
“Where are you going with this?”
“Where’s your handbag?”
“In the car.”
I looked her in the eye.
“I tried to bake you a cake but it caught fire. I apologise.”
“You’re such a fucking weirdo.”
She rolled over and put her foot against mine and just before I went to sleep I swear I heard her fart.
Alasdair Beer is a three-time university dropout, a comedian, a welcher, a jaded boys' school toff, prematurely balding, adequate as a lover, inadequate as a man and afraid of his own blood. He's also a brilliant son-of-a-gun who uses the written word like a surgical saw, chopping themes off at the knees.
He also says you can have his couch. 
