the writers
a short story
his arms which he has been using as pillows are getting numb beneath her weight not because she is heavy but because she has been lying on his back for twenty minutes since they finished having sex and she had a cigarette and now he wonders what she is thinking since she has been quiet for a few minutes, two, five, he cannot tell but he knows something is coming because although they have been seeing each other for a year now, whatever this is, he knows her, how every silence is followed by something profound which, though it never shocks him impresses him every time because she is a writer whose first and only book went through a six-way bidding war and now he can’t wait to hear what she will say but he won't ask, in case he interrupts her thoughts and just as he is thinking this he feels his skin begin to tingle from her pubic hair and clenches his buttocks which makes her grip him and say, hey I hope you are not about to fart, and this sends him into spasms and now he certainly has broken her thoughts so he says, darling, farting is a normal bodily function like burping which you did only a few minutes ago without apology, to which she replies, but you realise my pussy is just directly above your ass so you will be farting right into my pussy and god knows what you have eaten today, and this makes him laugh more because who the hell thinks like that, and it makes him like her even more, hilarious and smart, but just before he asks what she was thinking because he really wants to get back to that, she says, how is your manuscript coming along, which she knows he hates hearing but she asks anyway because she cares, because she believes in him, because she has watched him carry this book for too long like a secret bruise but the thing she never mentions is that he is so unlucky having chosen the worst small publisher even though he got offers from bigger publishers and now this small publisher after dozens of emails over two years saying how much they are looking forward to him finishing what they called a groundbreaking excerpt has told him they have no money to give him an advance, a thing that makes her feel sorry for him and wary for herself, wary of becoming only his mirror or his measure, because she has seen writer couples break up when success enters the room and rearranges the furniture and resentment ensues not because the other person is jealous but because one-sided success changes relationships, and even though she is wary of calling this a relationship she has not had sex with any other person for six months, a thing she will not tell him, not yet, because she wants to keep choosing this without ruining the beautiful things they have shared over the last year like passion and ideas and laughter and great, great sex and inspiration so strong, and work so stubborn that she has almost finished her second novel so when she asks the question about his manuscript she does it with a tone she thinks conveys empathy and not mockery and strokes his back as she says it, but she can feel how tense his muscles have become and she immediately regrets asking and says, I am sorry I don’t mean to add to your stress, because she know this stresses him out more than anything and makes him go into ten minute rants about how useless his publisher is, and how he knows what it means when there is no advance, how little they fight for your book, how quickly they accept low sales as just part of the business and how he struggles to restrain himself from tweeting unkind things about his publisher when they write about their publishing success on Twitter and Instagram and Facebook, a thing she hopes he never does because publishers are like a little cult who will avoid any writer who does something like that even if one doesn’t do it them directly so she tries to change the subject and asks, am I getting too heavy, to which he says, no, no darling I like your weight on me, and then adds, as long as you are ok if I fart into your pussy, which then makes her go into spasms of laughter making his buttocks itch because now her pubic hair scratches even more against his skin, so to distract himself from the itch he goes back to the question, aware of how much empathy went into the asking and says, the problem is not and has never been the writing you know, of course I have been writing and the novel is finished but I don’t get why the fuck they think I should give them the novel without an advance which I know they have given others and that makes me think they don’t truly value my work or at least they value it less than the ones they give an advance to, and now she realises he is drifting into one of those ten minute rants and so she kisses the nape of his neck and rubs his shoulders thinking it will calm him down but this only makes him lift his head and say, do you want me to shut up, making her stop and widen her eyes to say, how do you arrive at that conclusion, I said nothing, and now he is trying to roll over and she lifts her body to make it easier for him to turn around and she says, but baby I didn’t ask you to stop, which makes him even more upset and he says to her, you didn’t need to say anything, and now her hands start to tremble which is what happens when she gets angry and even though she tries, really tries to breathe, to say nothing, it all comes out and she slams her palm on the bed beside him and says, you know I am not the one doing this to you, all I did was ask how you are and now you are punishing me for caring, for trying to stand with you instead of above you, and then he sits up fully and moves even further away from her and what he really wants to say is that it is easy for her to say this because now she can live in the city without having to hold the multiple waitressing jobs she used to have before the six-way bidding war and massive advance which is rumoured to be six figures and glowing reviews calling her a tour de force and prodigious writer to watch and her Oprah Book Club pick all of which allow her to pay for drinks and shoes and rent and lets her sleep in on a Monday morning and only work when she feels like working but he doesn’t and he lets his eyes do the talking and she reads the accusation there and hates how quickly she becomes the defendant because by now she has learnt the vocabulary of his eyes and now she knows that if she says one more thing, especially any of the words that are inching closer to her lips this will turn into a shouting match where she will say words she cannot take back so she grits her teeth and takes deep breaths but this doesn’t work and tears gather in her eyes and she refuses to cry in front of him so she gathers her clothes and moves to his cramped living room where she dresses up very quickly and wipes the tears that fall and by the time shame reaches him and he thinks he really should go out there and apologise he hears her keys scrape into her bag, her shoes at the door and although they have had many fights before he can feel it in the way she heaves and calmly opens the door this time she will not call him or come back to his flat with beers and a half bottle of tequila or have sex with him ever again
