50 Reasons to Say Goodbye by Nick Alexander Read Free Book Online

…” He pauses. “Shall we go to your place?”
    I choke on my beer.
    â€œYou want to,” he says.
    He’s right – it is exactly what I want to do. I look around the bar to check that no one has seen this – not that I really know anyone yet anyway – then I give him my address. He has a Harley, he will follow.
    At home I frantically thrust dirty washing into the laundry basket, but before I can make any impact he’s here, the same face staring into another black and white monitor. I buzz him up and make one last desperate attempt at tidying – I straighten the bedcovers.
    He closes the door, pulls off his motorcycle jacket and his t-shirt. “It’s so hot,” he says.
    His chest is covered in swirls of dark hair.
    I pull two beers from the tiny refrigerator and we sit on the sofa. Frederic seems relaxed; he undoes his belt, opens the buttons and starts to stroke himself. We sit on the sofa, we roll together and we kiss. His mouth is deep and wet and warm. His lips seem too soft, and I wonder briefly if he has silicon implants.
    We have sex – it’s wild. We throw each other around the bedroom. I wonder if all French men are like this. It’s more like aerobics than sex, and I feel as though none of this has anything to do with me, as though this is just a part I am playing in a cheap porn film.
    We ring the changes, do everything on my basic repertoire and some more, then we both come together in a long pumping orgasm. He kisses me, then we share his last cigarette, pulled from the pocket of his discarded jeans.
    â€œStay the night,” I say.
    â€œI can’t,” he says. “I have to go back, I’ve got a plane to catch tomorrow morning.”
    My eyes widen. “
Tomorrow!
” I say. “I mean I knew … But you didn’t say tomorrow!”
    As I watch him dress, I try to get a handle on how I feel. The sex was so good I’m having trouble being objective.
    He looks at me, strokes my chin, and kisses me. It seems a shame to end it there.
    He says, “Don’t worry.”
    We swap numbers.
    He says, “I’ll call you tomorrow when I get home.”
    From the balcony I watch him ride away. I raise my hand and he waves back.
    I am happy for a while – I play some music, stare atthe moon, and smile.
“I will feel no guilt,”
I tell myself.
“Take the joy wherever it is to be found,”
I say.
    Quite consciously I try to push the worries, the doubt away. But slowly the moment evaporates and I am left feeling emptied and dreadful.
    I wake up feeling depressed and decide to call him to leave a cutesy message on his answer phone, but I’ve made an error writing down his phone number.
    So I wait for him to call, all day, all week.
    I try the number twice a day but it’s always wrong.
    Then after two weeks I wonder about the motorbike.
“If he flew from Paris, then where did the Harley come from?”
    Only when friends arrive for their summer holidays a month later do I completely forget him.
    I take them to Vence, half an hour from my apartment.
    We choose a bar for lunch and we sit.
    The Mediterranean sun beats down, prickling our skin despite the canopy.
    A waiter appears in the doorway behind me. “Bonjour Monsieur-Dame,” he says. “Are you having lunch or just drinks?”
    The voice is rich and smooth; I know it and turn. I say, “No!” I say, “Shit.”
    â€œAh Non!” he says. “Merde!”
    Frederic grins at me as though this is funny. I shake my head at him –speechless. We move to another restaurant.

My German Heroin
    The party is heaving, maybe eighty people are milling, dancing, and drinking their way around the white-walled, loft apartment.
    The difficult part is over; we have stood in the empty room, stared unnerved at the row of chairs along the lounge wall, remembered awful school discos, but now we have got through it – people