You would think that’s what would happen next, right? That he'd grovel, tell me it was a mistake, that he loved me and that his fling meant nothing?
Not in this story, folks!
I opened the door to the front room, my anger spilling over, and ready to demand, well, something – any form of apology, some explanation, a reason, just anything! But, there he was, my sad f**king version of Ron Jeremy still pumping into that over-processed Barbie in the budget rendition of Debbie Does Dallas.
Did I not even exist? As if he was still doofing the blonde, carrying on regardless after the love of his life had just caught him in the middle of vaccinating another gal with his meat injection!
Lord have mercy! Who and what have I been with for the last three years?
Like a curtain signalling the end of a performance, a red mist descended over me, and the inner queen bitch I had nurtured and relied on all these years reared her fabulous, if not slightly psychotic, head and screamed,
"You are such a dickhead, Nathan! Are you seriously going to continue boning her while I’m here, while I’m packing to leave you?"
He was. That was evident by the fact that he was still wheezing profusely and struggling to hold her legs-a-kimbo at the perfect angle in the air. Nathan had terrible asthma and any over-exertion caused him to sound like a kettle brought to the boil.
"Mmm… aww,” wheeze, “… baby… aww… shit,” wheeze, “… yeah… there… slap me hard, that’s it! Like that...” wheeeeeeze…
What? Slap me? That’s new!
Nathan then proceeded to flip the twig into a wheelbarrow position and resume the vigorous pummelling, avoiding any eye contact with me standing frozen in his line of sight.
"Arghhh, you know what, Nathan?" I bellowed over the grunts. "You, are a waste of time; you are selfish, arrogant and for the record –” I swiftly turned to Miss Humps-A-Lot, " – not that good in the sack, so knock off the fake orgasms, Blondie. His dick's way too small to deserve those kinds of noises!” With a cough and splutter, Shade Platinum Blonde 01 kindly turned down the pipes.
In hindsight, it was probably not the most productive thing to have done, but I had a sudden urge to turn to my massively unfaithful boyfriend and ask, "Nathan, out of curiosity, why did you never use the Kama Sutra moves on me?"
He looked me dead in the eye and replied with a cold smile. "That's easy, Hunny Bun. Elephants don't manoeuvre too well."
Well, on that note...
After taking the dignified high road of flipping the middle finger at the protagonists of the blue movie currently being enacted in my, no, my former living room, I made my way out into the cold, dark street, dragging my suitcase with me. I crammed it into my little banger of a car and decided on a walk. I needed to clear my head, bloody hell, not just clear it, I think only a good old lobotomy or an extensive course of ECT would be the only thing that could erase the last thirty minutes from my frazzled brain.
I set off wobbling down the road in my work-appropriate moderately high heels and laughed at the fact that the contents of my life were currently all stuffed into a rusty Nissan Micra.
How could this be happening to me? It was all going so well and to plan: move to the city – granted it’s only Newcastle-Upon-Tyne and ten minutes from home, but it was what I'd always wanted. I planned to get a good job, make good money and enjoy my well-structured, traditional, normal life. There was not a part of the plan that involved my less-than-monogamous boyfriend power-driving a stick insect!
Could this day get any worse???
It had all begun with being late for work: another jumper off the Tyne Bridge had caused a huge tailback. Then I walked into school and boom – parental attack! I received a bollocking from a student’s mother for supposedly introducing her child to the 'Dark Arts'. Yep, the Dark Arts. After setting a book report on a Young Adult thriller novel (that was written specifically for use in schools, may I add), the horror-filled face of Mrs. Reilly blindsided me as I made my way into my classroom.
Apparently fictional vampires and wizards taint the sanctity of blood, encourage magic and give children impure thoughts that could result in evil behaviour. Naughty Ms. Munro, swaying the youth of today to the dark side with child-friendly and demographically-appropriate English literature. Just call me the modern day Darth-friggin’-Vader of the English private school system!
Then the day had concluded in spectacular fashion with Nathan having his unfaithful fun on my much-loved sofa; the one saving grace was that we had at least paid for the Safeguard coating and the love-fluids currently being spilled on the chocolate-brown upholstery could be easily wiped away.
Every cloud...
I bowed my head and let the sorrow wash over me. I had never been one to wallow in self-pity, but given the day’s events and finding out that my ex was a closet exhibitionist who couldn't stop nailing his tramp for two minutes to kindly explain what the f**k was happening to our relationship – I mean that’s unheard of, surely? – I was going to allow myself a short reprieve and have a pity party for one!
So with a sombre gait, I meandered down Northumberland Street and the many dark and dingy roads of central Newcastle, trying to come to terms with the fact that my life had just been flipped on its head.
After ten minutes of aimless wandering, I tilted my head and smiled in confusion at where I had ended up. The cinema. My mother would bring me here every Saturday growing up to see the current 'picture show', as the oldies called it.
I walked to the grandly decorated foyer and looked at the walls plastered with posters of current films and all their stars. I moved from poster to poster and studied the actors and imagined their lives. I bet they didn’t have a care in the world. They had it all – fame, fortune and the job of their dreams.
Lucky bastards.
What did I want to be? What were my dreams? It was so long ago since I’d thought about that sort of thing, I couldn’t actually remember – how sad is that?
I walked back outside and tipped my head to the sky. Then, like a crazy person, spread my arms and began to sob, begging the gods for a sign of what to do next, where to take my life.
I waited in silence, the only sound coming from my heavy breathing. Nothing. No shooting star or flash of divine intervention, just the sound of a bottle being smashed in the rowdy pub across the street.
With a huff of a laugh at my desperate cry for a mystic solution, I took one last look at the theatre and flinched as a light bulb on one of the poster frames popped, almost in my face. Even slightly less illuminated, I could see that the man on the poster was perfect – muscles, tattoos, brooding expression and pure gorgeousness. I bet right at that moment he was living in a million-dollar mansion somewhere, making love to some Amazonian goddess, not a care in the world.