Without You (excerpt)

Sonja Blonde

   – So, what do you think of Liam’s new girlfriend? – Lisa asked.
   John looked around and his eyes moved to their neighbour, who soon overcame the divorce and had already moved in together with his new partner.
   – Of Melanie? – he asked back in an indifferent voice as he was sitting down with a tray in his hand at the table of the fast-food restaurant. He placed the requested hamburger in front of each member of the family, and poured the French fries on a common tray and placed it in the middle of the table.
   – She is a really fine-looking girl – he remarked –, she has a very attractive look and I don’t know what perfume she uses, but it’s especially arousing.
   The bite got stuck in Lisa’s mouth. She did not expect this answer. In fact, she did not really want to hear any answers. She could also see how decorative the new neighbour was, who went for a jog in the morning, was well-groomed, and whose clothes were pretty. Even now, she was wearing grass green overall shorts with spaghetti straps matching perfectly her platinum blonde hair and green eyes. Her hair and nails were always in the right shape, which made Lisa envious, and she kept promising herself that she would also pay more attention to her appearance. She usually ran into Melanie when she was picking up the old people’s shopping bags. Her neighbour was going to get some fresh bakery products then, wearing a perfect outfit and she even made sure that her shoes and bag matched her clothes. All this early in the morning for a roughly fifteen-minute shopping session. In the vast majority of cases, Lisa pretended not to notice her, and sincerely hoped Melanie would not see her in her stretched T-shirt and shorts rolling up on her thighs, either. As she had to do some cleaning and washing-up at her patients, she preferred to wear clothes that she did not feel sorry for. At times she thought that she might even change clothes, but in the end, she always convinced herself that it was unnecessary to put on pretty clothes “for that short time”.

   – Then go and sit down there with her if she is so attractive – Lisa growled, then put three pieces of French fries into her mouth.
   – You asked me – John got upset. – What was I supposed to say? That she’s ugly? Why do you ask me nonsense if you are offended then? You’re so annoying now.
   Lisa started to eat her hamburger through tears. She glanced angrily at Melanie, who was reluctantly picking at some salad with her fork.
   – As if salad in a fast-food restaurant was so healthy – she whispered angrily, while she was trying to push back the onion rings falling out of the hamburger bun into their place.
   – Are you still talking to me?
   – John, please, stop! Don’t have a row with me in front of the kids…
   – You are having a row with me because jealousy has driven you crazy again.
   – John, please…
   John angrily tossed the crumpled up wrapping paper of the hamburger in the middle of the table.
   – Why are you annoying me all the time…

   They were eating the usual Saturday night dinner in silence. Lisa did not enjoy the meal. She realized that she had not been really jealous before. She had noticed many times earlier how some women looked at her husband, but John had never shown interest in anyone when he was with her. Her husband always pretended not to notice the longing looks. She knew that he loved to flirt, but he had never said that a woman was pretty or attractive. And that someone was arousing…! She would have scratched out the eyes of the woman John was referring to with such words. At least, she had thought that so far. Now, that he told her so easily that the smell of that chick was arousing, she completely went blank.

   By the time they got home, Lisa realized why those particular words had hurt so much. Namely, John had never said her anything like that. The only compliment she had heard from him was, “if I look at you, I get it up”.
   It’s another matter that John got it up from virtually anything, anytime.

   She tossed and twisted in her bed for a long time, but she could not fall asleep. She saw Melanie in front of her eyes in her green dress with her metallic nails. What kind of perfume can she use that even her husband finds arousing? Both John and she bought their perfume in the drugstore, they could not afford more expensive ones. Her husband usually characterised the scents she used as “not bad” and “good”. John’s nose was not really sophisticated, he usually chose perfume for himself based on its price. And he said it was arousing!