My Saturday

My Saturday was already mapped out, and included a couple hours of lying around in bed before I had to do anything much. Most Saturday mornings if I was alone in bed, I might or might not, well - what do you do when you're alone in bed and you know there won't be any interruptions? Get a little self-indulgent?

Let's back-pedal a little here.

When I'd first met Bella, way back when, she'd been struggling in the stairwell to carry groceries upstairs on a day the elevator had inconveniently broken down. Being the neighborly sort that I am, I offered to help. She offered me iced tea, and we sat at her table, discovering a mutual love for British television comedy, and quoting lines back and forth in excruciatingly bad accents. Two hours disappeared into the Bermuda Triangle that day, and we wanted to talk more, though lunch with her mother was calling her, and the laundromat was calling me. I said I would probably go downstairs to the bar on ground level for a drink later, and I could knock on her door on the way past to see if she was around. I did, and she was, and five hours disappeared into a whirlpool. By the time we staggered up to her door, snickering, we'd become such friends that I wondered how I'd ever gotten by without her. Maybe because we shared an immediate compatibility based on humor, I really didn't notice too much what she looked like. We were too busy with instant in-jokes that meant nothing to anybody else. I introduced her to my friends, she introduced me to hers, but we had such a brain thing going on no-one got me the way she did, and I knew it was mutual. She has a very expressive face and I was continually fascinated watching her every thought and feeling flit across it in rapid-fire speed. I got an honest-to-God hit every time her eyes met mine in silent recognition that we understood one another's obscure references. Despite all that, if anyone had asked me, "Is Bella Swan pretty?" I'd have been stumped for an answer. Animated, yes. Unique, yes. Pretty? I never noticed.

But when she'd wailed at me about the lack of sex in her life, something in me had stirred. And when she mentioned "breasts" that something had started turning somersaults. The B word undoes me. Luckily, it's not that often used except medically, and I am not so sicko that its use in a medical context sends me into a frenzy. Most girls say tits or boobies, and I say yes please yum yum, and I can stay in control of myself. But Bella had said "breasts", and even worse, had preceded it with the word "my". I was pole-axed.

And because of it, my Saturday morning was not going exactly as planned. I'd thought I'd peruse the morning papers, catching up on world news, watch some crappy tv, and idly enjoy a little wood-polishing before tackling the rest of my day. Instead, I was in the death-like grip of a paralyzing guilt, completely unable to polish said wood, because the image that kept flashing into my mind's eye was that of my friend, my friend, who was somehow sacrosanct and inviolable and untouchable. Because why? Because we'd never even admitted that she was a girl and I was a boy, and we were both heterosexual. We'd never gone there. Heads only, nothing below the chin. Why had the topic never come up? Oh shit fuck, something's up now. We'd both played dumb, that's why, skirting the issue. Don't think of skirts. Shit. It was just so easy and nice to have a friend who was a girl without having to deal with the will-we-or-won't-we complications you always get.

Well, so much for that, Ostrich-boy. Those complications are here now.

I was still unrelieved, and still berating myself for unseemly thoughts when my phone beeped.

How embarrassed am I? she texted.

I don't know. 7 out of 10? I sent back, probably way too quickly.

Try 11. I'm really sorry. I overshared

What was she referring to? Telling me about the desert of her sex-life, or putting her hands on her breasts in front of me? The first was bad enough. The second had left me under extreme duress.

Don't worry about it

Because, dear Bella, I was already worrying enough for both of us, believe me.

Thx for being such a good friend

Friend? I scowled. You've screwed the friendship, Bella.

I spent the day frustrated all to hell, and the rest of the week, too, and I didn't have an outlet, and I didn't have anyone to talk to. Any of my mates would have advised me to sleep with her, and would even have asked why I hadn't already. Because! Just because! Apparently, amongst my circle, it wasn't common to have a completely platonic friendship with a girl. Yeah, well, your loss, buddies. Or does the question of sex always have to come into the picture, and be dealt with, one way or another? Had I just been in denial? I wished my libido would go away, quite honestly, and leave me in peace so things could go on as they had been. Me and Bella, ha ha ha, la la la, ra ra ra. I fucking liked her, and then she'd gone and gotten my dick involved.

The next weekend I didn't message her to meet downstairs, and she didn't message me. I needed some recovery time, and perhaps she did too. If we left it long enough we could both pretend the episode had never happened, and go back to how things were in the good old days.

Someone at my work had a farewell party on the Friday as they'd been headhunted for a job elsewhere, and there were drinks at the office. Lots of drinks. The woman who was leaving had given me some speculative looks on more than one occasion, and on Friday she pulled me into the photocopy room, murmuring something about a special send-off. She was older than me, elegant and immaculate with never a hair out of place, and now she wanted me to mess her up.

I could have, and I knew it would have been good, but I didn't. I graciously declined, unwinding her arms from around my neck and kissing her lightly on the cheek, wishing her all the best in her new role.

And then I went home. Just on the off chance, I put my head around the door of the bar on my way past. Dimitri, the most regular patron in the history of regular patrons, called me in for a drink, but I was looking for a certain person with Cousin It hair, and couldn't see her.

"Not tonight, D," I said, but he'd already ordered me a drink. Cuervo. Bestower of the best out-of-body experiences known to man and available over a counter. Legally. Also the most grievous thief of brain cells known to man, and the cause and source of the world's most debilitating headaches. The gift that gives three times.

Another quick scan of the bar as I slid onto the barstool next to D revealed no diminutive brunette in need of a hairstyle and wearing clothes from the XXL rack when she's XXS. Dyslexia much, Ms Swan? Why don't guys want to date you? Because of the way you hide yourself?

Oh my God, I'd just had a revelation. Bella, I want to talk you. Through a tequila haze.

I sent a message, but before I knew it I was discussing homewares and recipes with Dimitri, and the tequila kept turning up right in front of me.

Three o'clock I floated up the stairs since I was too drunk to work the elevator, and I passed Bella's door. I thought it was her door. It was someone's door anyway. I could have knocked on it, but if it had opened I'd have fallen in, and I wouldn't have been able to get up again.

So I saved that ignominy for getting to my own apartment. My key miraculously fit in to the lock, and I congratulated myself that I wasn't too drunk to get something hard into a tight space. The innuendo wasn't lost on me.

I woke hours later to find I'd fallen asleep on the floor, with an emphasis on the falling, and I didn't just have the headache from hell, I was sore all over.

And I had fucking dreamed of Bella Swan. One of those dreams, oh yeah. You know what I mean. She wants you, you want her, you're together somehow, somewhere, the clothes come off, you're both right there, you're on the brink, you're just about to … oh God, oh God ..."Do you like my breasts?" she says, right before she disappears into a cloud of fucking nothingness, leaving you aching.

She wasn't only tormenting, she was haunting me.

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