Ache (ebook)

Argumento de Ache (ebook)

Where love ends and obsession begins is a thin line blurred by too much drink and too many drugs. Girls come and girls go and what they mean is precisely nothing. London, Paris, it?s all the same ...

What happens when you?re approaching thirty, halfway down the wrong career path, and the girl of your dreams is giving you nightmares? Our anti-hero lurches from one unsatisfying liaison to another, fixated on the only woman he can never really have. Reeled in and cast aside, things that used to hold importance ? job, family, travel, romance ? are rendered meaningless as the one thing he longs for continues to elude him.

After all, what good is getting on with life without the person that completes you?

Im holding Lollipop86 s purse and standing at the bar of Whites in Covent Garden while she urinates. I use this time to compose questions to ask in case our pool of conversation is drained too quickly. I look around the room for inspiration. Everyone here is immaculate. Straws stretch from crushed ice in cocktail glasses, penetrating pink lips. I imagine how short a distance theyd be able to walk in such sharp shoes.

I take my wallet out of the pocket of my jeans and look through the few notes I stuffed into it from the cashpoint on the way here.

A possible question to ask if things start going terribly: exactly how much money do you make?

My date takes her purse and her wine and escorts me through the pack. Somehow she finds a table for the two of us, cluttered with empty glasses and plates. I take it upon myself to locate a tray and stack the crockery onto it, moving it to the bar while Lollipop86 drapes her black suede coat and velvet gloves over the back of her chair.

She starts telling me about her job in HR and explains how much she loves doing something so worthwhile . She asks me about my job so I tell her Im a teacher of English as a second language. She uses this revelation as an opportunity to tell me she went to an all-girl boarding school. She shows me a picture of the house her uncle owns in Tuscany and recites well-rehearsed anecdotes of all the summers shes holidayed there.

I cant deny shes beautiful. She has immaculate skin and subtle waves in her yellow hair. She speaks with a soft musicality played by the thoroughbred nature of her roots.

She is from good stock.

I watch her lips move and mirror her in every way possible.

She likes to sing and dance and the last show she starred in was her local am-dram companys adaptation of Oklahoma! in which she played one of the leads. I ask her to show me the accent she adopted for the show and she pitches to me this lazy American drawl that draws attention from surrounding tables. She shows me the picture of her as Dorothy, the same one she uses on her profile, and she looks better in it than I remember. I tell her my housemate calls himself an actor and when she asks me what the difference is between being an actor and calling yourself one I cant help but laugh, and its a genuine laugh, and it makes me feel good in a way I havent felt for a long time.

Were halfway through the time she fluffed her lines at a school play when my phone starts to vibrate. Jess is calling. Lollipop86 s lips are moving but I can no longer understand what shes saying. Its now beyond the realms of possibility for me to be able to process her words. Her stories have been demoted from amusing to meaningless.

I cut her off mid-sentence and hold a finger up to indicate a minute. I walk outside, slide open my phone and say hello . Jess sounds sad. I ask if shes OK. She says no and calls Marcus a bastard . I ask where she is and she gets angry and says: What, do you want to come over and stick it in me? Make everything all right again? She says all men are the same then hangs up.

I try to call her back but my efforts are diverted straight to voicemail.

An idea projects itself onto the inner canvas of my skull: girls are inherently evil.0