I rarely think about my last boyfriend anymore which makes me want to send Father Time a dozen roses. When you’re told you’ll get over your heartache and want to hit the 50th person who said it, it never rings true. Of course in hindsight I think I was mourning the allowance he gave me every week more than him. Yeah, he was like my father folding crushed fifties into my blazer pocket while I was weeping in the shower. I think he felt this bought him the abuse he shelled out and at the time, money talked, nobody walked…the nobody being me, until, as I like to say…
Cinderella got a divorce.
What brought him to mind were some old pictures I found. They took me back to the night before they were taken. These were photographs I was paying someone to take for a new composite I was compiling. For those of you who may not know, that’s a card models hand out to clients with images of themselves doing various things. Being a commercial model now, which simply means I’m considered too old to do much glamor anymore, my card shows me doing things like, raking the yard, playing golf… cooking.
Try to imagine me in an apron making juice.
We had gone to dinner, something we did most nights, and as usual he had had too much to drink. I was in sullen mode while he was acting like Oliver Hardy. When we got to his building he, for whatever reason, started to tickle me, something I loathe expressly known to him, which caused me to fall and slam my knee on the Italian marble floor.
Yes, ouch indeed. I can still remember the pain. I wanted to kill him. Then when I tried getting up, I fell again.
He was horrified and slightly more sober but my rage was off the charts. Our relationship at that point was in dire trouble mostly due to his drinking. I grew up with alcohol so my buttons were so severely pushed that it eventually threw me into a 12-Step program (Al-Anon)
He ran and got ice, told me how sorry he was but I knew if he wasn’t drunk this would not have happened.
I was scheduled to take those pictures and if I had cancelled that late, I’d owe a steep fee. Ollie offered to pay of course but I didn’t care. Determined to press on I still went all the way down to the tip of Manhattan to where this photographer’s studio was and put in a very painful few hours.
To be honest, I wish I could think of only the good times I had with this extremely unhappy man but alas, that can’t always be the case.
The pictures weren’t my best but they were okay. Just goes to show what a little determination can do.
I limped for a month resulting in greater respect for my knees, that just looked up and smiled.
SB
Pictures certainly can tell more than one story…I have a few of my own.
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I guess we all have stories, some good some not so much. Hope all is well in Top’s world.
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Yes Susannah, we all have many stories. Glad that you came through it all with a marvelous sense of humor!!!
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Alva, if I didn’t have a sense of humor I’d be in a box nailed shut.
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“To be honest, I wish I could think of only the good times I had with this extremely unhappy man but alas, that can’t always be the case.” – This is my favorite line. I know a young woman who likely felt the same. Really great piece.
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I really do wish that but the bad looms more than the good I’m sorry to say. He had good qualities but was a wounded soul so…we can do the math. Thanks as always.
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Yah, not really seeing you in an apron 😉
I’ve locked all my ex-files away in a super-secret underground vault.
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I like the idea of smiling knees. I spent the last three days in our warehouse, so mine are not smiling. Maeve is tickle averse too. I’m not ticklish, which she finds most frustrating.
I love your easy style of writing: it’s like we’re having a chat over coffee.
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I really can’t bear being tickled. It makes me physically unwell. It’s funny what pops up when you least expect it. Thanks for the compliment. It’s a very nice one.
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I almost married a gazillionaire that I really liked and loved in a ‘friend’ way. For Christmas, he flew me in his private plane to a ski resort. He’d paid for ski lessons and borrowed his little sister’s ski clothes for me. I hate – HATE – snow, which he knew. And I never skied before, or after. But he loved skiing. If he’d done this to try sharing a passion of his, I’d have tried it. But this was my Christmas present from him. The end. And I don’t like tickling either.
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Tickling can be painful…don’t believe I’ve made your acquaintance…how do you dp. I totally get that story…my ex would always buy me things that he liked…rarely my taste…always his. He was a clothing designer so he felt my taste paled…it didn’t. He made lovely women’s clothing but for the bigger set so I always resembled an artichoke in his things because I’m so skinny. you couldn’t find me under all those layers of cashmere.
We were never a good match, even at the very beginning. That I want to fuck you till doomsday just was never there. You have to start with that you know so you can always have that memory to pull off the shelf when you need it.
Liked your story.
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