Crashed. Melinda Ferguson

that it forced me to pull over at the service station around the corner from my home. Like a drugged-up zombie, I walked up and down the sweet aisles, surveying the display rows of Kit Kats, Tempos and Bar Ones. And then I reached the ice-cream fridge. Shiny ice-cream wrappers glinted back at me. Armed with my Almond Magnum, it felt like I had scored a gram of the best crack in town. By the time I got home it was finished.

      The next day it happened again. And the next and the next and the next. By the end of the week, one ice cream had become two, adding the Classic to my Almond stash. I think one day I ate five. Sickly sweet icky sugar filling that hole in my soul that was suddenly getting a whole lot bigger.

      Sugar had become my new addiction, my stress reliever, my surrogate mommy. It felt comforting knowing that I had something to rely on on dark and lonely days.

      But on the flip side, the fear of ballooning, putting all that weight back on, screeched at me. I had already seen the scale’s needle move up two notches since my foray into ice cream. There was only one thing to do: get rid of it. And so, just as a fraudster deletes all evidence of the crime, I needed to remove all trace of my failing as soon as possible.

      And so I found myself back with my head down the toilet bowl. The quick-and-easy “you can have your cake and eat it” solution. When things got really stressful – like after The Crash, or after The Weekend – I found my sugar craving to be as strong as my darkest days on heroin and crack.

      By the time I booked into Hotel Hospital, in the week leading up to my self-admission, I had been fixing on sugar day and night.

      At the seven-star luxury getaway, I avoided the sweets in the mini bar fridge. Instead I stared back at my reflection in the mirror in the bathroom while Boyfriend puffed away on the deck. It had become a habit of mine. Looking at myself. It reminded me that I was alive. On the outside I liked what I saw. On the inside I’d never been so lonely in my life.

      I felt a bit like a Glock without a round – a bit like that Kid Cudi song that bounced around in my brain.

      I checked my hip bones one more time and added a slick of matte red lipstick. Danger Red. Mac.

      I went out to where he sat under the stars. He didn’t look up. He was still texting. In retrospect, I should have grabbed his phone there and then to find out who was keeping him so distracted. Instead I sidled closer.

      Hardly noticing me at all, wine glass in hand, he moved straight past me and back inside. Man U had resumed their game after halftime. I had learned never to seek attention during a football match, so I sat on the couch opposite, waiting on the sidelines practising my best Stepford Wife glare.

      When the final whistle blew I dug the heel of my fuck-me shoe into his crotch. He usually loved it when I did that. But this time he barely noticed. He got up abruptly, and moved outside again for another smoke. I hated it when he did that. Chose cigarettes, little nicotine sticks, over me.

      “Play with yourself,” he commanded from the deck, muttered like a crumpled-up afterthought. I wasn’t really in the mood for masturbation. I had come all this way, made all this effort, to feel some skin. Suck his cock. Cum. Fuck.

      I suddenly felt a wave of sleepiness wash over me. Jeez. Maybe I was a River Phoenix narco. Stay the fuck awake! I pinched myself. I forced myself up, moved to the deck. I sat on his lap, rubbing myself on his hardening crotch. He touched my breasts. He never could resist my tits. I leaned in closer. He pulled the straps down, his mouth finding my hardening nipples. I felt him get harder. God, I loved his cock. Then I was in the place he liked most. On my knees I unzipped him and went down on him, looking up. The way he loved it. Slowly. Gently, then all the way Down. It left me breathless. I felt him relax, close his eyes. I felt my worth rise as my mouth sucked and stroked his rock-hard cock. And all the erotic tension grew in the ink-black star-speckled night. And in all that alienated separation, desire returned.

      He didn’t cum and neither did I that night.

      A little later I went to the bedroom to fetch a jersey, found myself on the Egyptian cotton duvet, lay down for what I told myself would be five minutes and woke up three hours later as he bumped into the side table on his way inside. I could hear by the way he moved that he had made further inroads into the mini bar.

      He smelt of whiskey and smoke.

      He stumbled slightly and switched on the aircon. Like open-plan offices, the other thing I hate is fucking aircon.

      “Please turn it off,” I groaned. He snarled under his breath. Through sleep-foggy eyes I watched him pull the heavy double-layer floor-length curtains open.

      “Noooooooooo! Please keep them closed,” I whinged. “I need to sleep late. The light will wake us too early.”

      That was it. Out of the room he stormed, and back to the deck.

      Sleep-bleary, I followed him.

      “Darling, please don’t be cross … Please come to bed. I didn’t mean that. I miss you – I want you. I’m sorry. You can put the aircon on – please come back.”

      He stayed silent. I could feel his fuming. He poured another glass. Lit a cigarette. Fuck.

      “Why don’t you come in? Please. Don’t you think you’ve had too much to drink?” As soon as the words left my mouth I wished I could retract them, unpull the trigger. The unleashing, the rushing avalanche. It was as if what would follow had been bubbling under for a thousand years, waiting, longing to explode.

      “Okay, that’s it! That is fucking it. It’s over, it’s over! Do you fucking hear me? It’s over.” His voice burst thunder into the ink-black sky.

      Over? Over-over? WTF? Over aircon …? Curtains?

      “Darling, please …” I could feel a panic attack begin to rise within me.

      “No, no, no! I mean it. This is it – it’s over. You and I are done! We’re totally incompatible … You like all this crap – this five-star-hotel bullshit. I hate all of this. I like camping … The outdoors. I want to be out there” – he pointed at the faraway shapes of dark mountains. “I don’t wanna be here. It’s over. We’ve had a good run … Nine years – that’s more than I have ever spent with anyone, but now we’re done.”

      And all I could say was: “But why didn’t you say something before? After nine years, you’ve only noticed now?”

      Then I began to weep.

      That was end-February. By the first week of April my tears had become the Red Sea.

      And, as with everything in this world – cliché as it is – there’s always a price to pay. Desire gone wrong often results in chaos and madness.