Ever since the first time we'd met, he'd always put me on a pedestal.
“Can I get down off this pedestal now?”, I asked him. “I'm not really enjoying it, and you only seem to be using this to look up my dress.”
“I wouldn't call it a pedestal”, he said. “It's really more of an upturned bucket”.
Ever since the first time we'd met, he'd always put me on an upturned bucket.
This was the first time I'd seen him since leaving our relationship. Lots had changed. He'd joined the Nation of Islam, and formed an indie-pop band in London - I now referred to him as “my ex, Jason X, from the xx”.
A week later I was sat across a table with someone I had just met, in an entirely chance meeting.
“All I'm saying is, if you ever meet this fucker, stay the hell away”, she said. “Sure, you might think that when you're deep-throating him, the shit might be able to focus on you for a fleeting second - is that too much to goddam ask? But later you find he's got six sluts in the bathroom – and he's Tweeting two during! When a man asks for anal, always make sure there's mirrors. And when you fly on holiday to LA, the fucking freak dumps you at the airport.”
“Sure thing”, I replied. “It's your turn.”
“Oh. Two pluspowers on Blastoise, plus weakness to water, 120 damage, your Charizard's dead. I win again.”
“Damn”, I said, and kicked over the table. I wasn't angry, those were just the house rules. And then I realised. Her ex. My ex. The ex. Jason X, from the xx, at LAX!
“That cunt!”, I yelled. Two six year-olds looked over and tutted. Sure, he'd told me about her. He'd claimed never to have slept with her, let alone dated her, but the story lingered in the back of my mind.
It explained a lot. All those unscheduled 2am lectures. Those increasingly generic texts to “Baby” (and the ones in two languages. Then the “delete as appropriate” era). That bag of used condoms (He'd lied: there was no such Blue Peter appeal).
And then there was our whole first year. The excuses. His mum's “doctor's appointment”. His mum's “chemotherapy”. His mum's “funeral”. It was one thing after another, with him. Why couldn't he just get his story straight?
Everyone comes with a warning sign. A brief history of some guys I know:
The Ex: A cheater.
Tiger: A cheater.
Gill Sans: He had it written on his face from the start. (For the last three weeks, he actually had “I'M CHEATING ON YOU” written on his face. Sometimes girls just ignore the signs. When I found out, it really hurt. But then, I guess he meant it to hurt. I don't know why else he'd write it there.)
Simplified Arabic (the lobotomised Iraqi): Not a cheater, though he did own books written by other women, and occasionally smiled at waitresses.
So, I traipsed back to The Ex's flat, my mind still brim-filled with thoughts. He put on a Vin Diesel movie. Halfway through he flipped me over and started doing me from behind, keen to put the hot love-kebab of his penis into the longing, hungry mouth that was my vagina. I started thinking aloud.
“Have you cheated on me?”, I blurted out.
“What are you talking about?”, he said. “I love you. I'd move halfway round the world for you.”
“But that's exactly the point, isn't it?”, I told him. “Only half. I need some sort of real commitment.”
“But you can't get further than halfway round the world”, he said. “The globe being a spherical object, once you're more than halfway round, you start coming back. In fact, were I to move all the way round the world, that might well end up being no distance at all, which is hardly romantic.” He was trying to talk himself out of it, again. To blind me with science, like so many men I'd come across.
It was then now or never: I decided, while having the sex during xXx, to make Jason X, from the xx, my ex-Ex.
“Fuck you”, I told him. “I just can't believe that, after man after man coming to abuse my trust, I was finally beginning to open my heart to you, when suddenly I find out that you're just as bad as the rest of them. I just don't get it! All of you men, it's like you're all after the same thing, and you just think I'll put up with anything! What do you think I am? Stupid?” After that, I pulled his cock out of me.
I turned around. In a flash of panic, I saw him hurl his BlackBerry behind the cushions. Twitter! I let out a scream of rage. When men want it from behind, always make sure there's mirrors.
