Exes are Essential

Christian stands with Madison watching her ex-boyfriend: he is crossing the room snapping his fingers and swaying in a dancing rhythm while lip-syncing the words to the song that is playing. Christian looks to Madison: ‘I see him slathering himself with his semen, and rolling in superfine sugar before stepping to stand before a full-length mirror while licking and adoring himself.’ Madison bursts into a silent expression of laughter while Christian casts a directive glance to the floor: ‘Look! The stain of his sticky essence is trailing behind him.’ To this, Madison raises her arms to embrace Christian while dropping tears from her laughing eyes.

When Christian pulls away, he asks: ‘What did you EVER see in him?’ Madison tilts back her head and scrunches her face: ‘He said that this isn’t him. This,’ as she nods towards him, ‘he told me is a show. He insisted that he’s real, and I believed him because he seemed vulnerable.’ She pauses while watching him, then, adds: ‘To think, I was fascinated with the idea of being with someone so pretty.’

Christian questions her fascination while scanning her natural beauty and bathing in her flaring charisma until his mind stings from the memory of an ex: ‘Once, one of my exes proclaimed boldly: “I’m a human being!”’ When he hears the words, he remembers the evening and falls into silent question: ‘Why do we do it? Why do we throw ourselves and our youth away to stand in the radiant glow of beauty? Why is beauty cracked, and the crack hidden until after our pleasure seeking seams have opened in release?’

He smiles when thinking of the first meeting of those seams and their exchange before coming together: ‘Hello Seam.’ ‘Hello Seam.’ ‘Do you mind if I release into you?’ ‘Oh, I’m open to it!’ As he withdraws from this thought, he shakes his head in a symbolic cleansing.

He looks to Madison and praises her spirit; then, he lifts her again when telling her: ‘I imagine him attempting to catch a glimpse of his writhing reflection within your eyes.’ Her eyes flash: ‘You are so right because he did seem to be performing’; then, she is silent before spiraling into a detailing of his cruel expressions and weekends at the beach with his elderly gay friends. Christian, a dormant-gay having not dated in twenty-years, squeals in revealing the meaning that she is too straight to realize: ‘The old gays, they love a piece hard candy sitting amongst them at dinner. I can see them petting his perky pecks and gripping his firm thighs with their pinky-ringed hands.’

She laughs while mimicking her ex’s snapping fingers: ‘This is something new.’ Instantly, Christian blurts: ‘It’s the late-seventies and early-eighties gay affliction updated for the twenty-first century: they were always up in the clubs with their whistles and clapping.’ She bends forward and throws her red, and laughing face into her hands.

After she recovers herself, she tells Christian: ‘I couldn’t understand this guy, but I believe that I’m beginning to: He needs to be admired and petted. He needs to feel adored. Everything that he told me was to receive this from me, but I couldn’t give him enough when he had me.’ Christian smiles to her: ‘We can give enough to people like him never. We’re like the sweater that they had to have, then, after they’ve been warmed a few times, not so special. For this reason, I date no longer.’

Madison embraces Christian; they kiss, and laugh, and he leaves concentrating upon their conversation, and, as he walks, he realizes that exes are one of life’s lessons: ‘We may imagine threading a bed sheet through their open jaws before strapping their heads to the mattresses of our burning regret, but exes are essential to living if we are really going to live!’

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