“Do you like to listen to music during sex?” The website is asking me. I tick ‘no’. I think, who is listening to music during sex? I feel sorry for them. An old boyfriend of mine used to put music on before we had sex. It was how I knew he was about to pin me to the sofa. We were always drunk. I took his prescription medication. With his blessing, of course. He’d pin me in to the corner of the sofa like a dog, with one knee on the floor, until I was sort of supine. He held my hands above my head. Actually he wasn’t really my boyfriend. The music always seemed inappropriate. It took me a while to get into it. He’d whisper things into my ear, things like “You’re weird.” Now his wife is very beautiful. Or what I mean to say is that she’s always been very beautiful, but has only recently become his wife. They have a baby, whose name I don’t know.

[private]“Can you name everybody you’ve had sex with?” I tick yes. I actually have them all written down somewhere, because it’s for some reason important to me. There are a couple without surnames, I admit. I think about making up surnames for them. Sometimes I look at the list with indifference, sometimes with horror. But I think that’s how I look at everything.

I’m answering these questions because my boyfriend left me for a woman who wears fancy underwear. I know this because I carried on having sex with him, and we sometimes did it in their shared flat. I can’t understand it, honestly. I’m basically uninterested in clothing myself. Last time I was at the flat, he was lying on the bed with his feet on the floor, still in shoes, with his boxers and trousers folded like playroom shackles around his ankles. Men look idiotic like that, but that’s how he was. I said “Close your eyes,” and then I put on one of her bras. It fit pretty much perfectly, which just goes to show that he does only like thin women I guess. The straps had diamantes on them, as well as frills. When he opened his eyes I pulled one of the cups down and rubbed my nipple hard. He started to masturbate. After a while we were having sex and my mind started wandering. I thought, where the hell is this woman anyway. We have sex at least twice a week and it’s never at a time inconvenient for either of us. I thought maybe she had an exercise class. I thought, what the fuck is this man doing fucking me and a woman with frilly pants who goes to an exercise class. He has no preference.

I don’t know for sure if she had an exercise class or not, but we stopped seeing each other. I mean my boyfriend and I stopped. I’d never seen the woman with the fancy underwear in my life. I let his calls go to voicemail. He’s the last name on my list. At first I didn’t care much about the lack of sex but now I do. I joined this dating website and it asks me what I want. But first it tries to ascertain my character.[/private]

About Eli Goldstone

Eli Goldstone writes about dreams and drinking. Her work has most recently been featured in Jawbreakers: An Anthology of Flash Fiction and she co-edits the handmade literary journal The Poor Press.

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