"I love you, Ivo."

I grimace. I imagined it would be easier to hear drunk but it isn't any better slurred at me than it is said sober. His breath smells horrible and the feel of his arm around my waist is constricting and unwelcome.

"You love me, right," he asks.

I tell him I do and I am thankful for the alcohol now as it means I can at least say it half convincingly and he will believe me. I don't know why I don't love him, really. He is pleasant company and I find him attractive sexually. Perhaps I am too logical for any romantic sense of love. In all the literature I've studied at school those idealist writers talk about true love. That feeling of complete oneness with the world and with another person. Unconditional and unending. I know it is at odds with my love of science and nature but I do want that. At least once in my life so I can say I have truly experience what it is to be of this species. To be a thinking, living and loving creature. But it is not that easy, it seems.

I'm glad of the sight of the front door as my 'beloved' sways next to me. I have to use every ounce of patience not to get angry at him. He is not in any form endearing to me in this state. His eyes glazed over and his words garbled into broken and uneven sentencing. Is it me or is it him? I don't want to hurt him but at the same time I don't want to be forever responsible for his feelings. He has a lot of them. Too many all at once for my taste.

Silently I help him to the bedroom and watch as he struggles to undress himself. He is a mess and the thought of how embarrassing this whole night has been makes me cringe.

"You want me to fuck you," he says with a smirk.

"No thanks."

I've resigned myself to a night on the sofa and another day in classes with a sore neck. Better that than...well. Other things. I stand and watch for a little while after he falls into a temporary coma across the bed. I find myself whispering 'I don't love you' like some form of chant. Part of me hopes his subconscious hears it and acts upon it before I will have to. This isn't fair on him. I'll tell him tomorrow that it's finished. I know it will hurt him but it's for the best. He'll get over me and then we can forget all of this ever happened. I don't know why I thought I could have a relationship anyway. If I can't be honest with anyone else about my having a relationship I should at least be able to be honest in the relationship.

I'd end it tomorrow.

"What you thinking," Tim asks me quietly.

We're laying in bed and I'm walking my fingers across his chest and his arms. He squirms now and then from the tickles.

"Hmmm," I sigh. "Just about things from when I was younger. About your age actually."

He looks at me in alarm.

"You're older than me?! You never told me that, how much older?"

I laugh and he smiles.

"Only about a year or two," I tell him, giving him a stern look but feeling anything but.

"Oh," he nods. "I was worried you were going to tell me that you are a creepy old man with a fetish for young boys. Not that I'd mind. I just like to be informed."

I flick his nose after my fingers reach his collarbone and he sticks his tongue out at me.

"Well, I have a few fetishes, maybe young men is one of them."

I know he can tell that I purposefully said men. The things in Tim's past are things that make me uncomfortable to joke about. There is silence between us as we each become lost in our thoughts.

"I love you," I tell him and I stroke his hair gently. I know he likes that.

"What's not to love," he replies cheekily.

Everything and nothing, I think to myself.