Free Love is Always Write Anthology Volume 8 by Various Authors Page A

least to my face he's always been nothing but a caring, supportive friend. Now the tables are turned I seem incapable of being anything other than a jealous, glowering prick. I'm the ugly sister.
    No wonder he doesn't love me anymore. Hell, it's a miracle he even likes me these days. I'm not even sure that I like myself.
    I can do this , I tell myself as I open my wardrobe and eye my clothes. If he wants me there then the least I can do is show up. I fight down the rising bile which has nothing to do with the faint remnants of my hangover and select a pair of indigo jeans and my favourite dove-grey shirt, the one that makes my hair look blacker; my eyes bluer. I feel like I'm donning a suit of armour as I dress, numbing myself with the familiar routine. Just another night out.
    I exhale deliberately as I study my reflection in the long mirror of the wardrobe door, smoothing my hands over my flat stomach, down the soft brushed cotton shirt. God, how long has it been since I've been laid? I've been back here six months, which makes it… eight, no nine, maybe? The last encounter so memorable I have absolutely no recollection of it. After a while, they all fade into one meaningless, hurried fuck.
    I don't know at what point exactly I knew I was sick of it. At first I'd mistaken the hollow feeling inside me for boredom, a craving for more– something different, perhaps. I quickly learnt that I wasn't particularly kinky. My body has no tolerance for pain. I tried groups, role-play, giving and taking. Poppers, paddles, porn… they all left me empty inside. Every experience felt like I was grasping for something, but I never knew what it was that I was reaching for. I was a blind man, lost in the darkness.
    Then a stranger folded me up in his strong arms and held me.
    He hadn't been anything special. Late thirties, heavyset and hairy like a big ole poppa bear. He'd been propped at a bar, mindless of the buzzing atmosphere around him, steadily drinking himself stupid. Something about him called to me, in the blurred edges of his downturned grey eyes, the way his full lips dipped at the corners. He was so sad, so alone. I reached out to him, wanting to touch the pain I could see so clearly written across his face and ease it, if only for an hour. He looked too strong and sweet to be so vulnerable and so unhappy.
    His house was in the suburbs, a neat, boxy little thing. I glanced at the photos on the walls, the dresser, the windowsill, of him and another smiling, burly man, wrapped in each other's arms. They looked so perfect together, so confident that nothing would tear them apart. I didn't ask and he didn't tell.
    I gave him what he needed and sank bonelessly into his black and tan sheets, letting the sweat cool on my skin before I would have dressed and left. I was too shocked to respond when I felt his thick arm slid around my waist, pulling me into his broad chest. The mat of springy hair rubbed against my frozen back as my limbs locked. I felt his lips graze my nape, hot breath tickling my shoulder as he spooned against me. "Five minutes?" He asked the barest hint of a plea in his voice. I tried to relax my neck enough to rest my head fully on the pillow beside his as the calloused pad of his thumb scraped against my belly in rhythmic strokes.
    Unconsciously I folded my arm over his and gripped his wrist, holding him in place. He huffed contentedly and I felt his big body relax and settle as mine thrummed with anxiety and a desperate, painful longing. Fresh sweat broke out across my skin and I trembled in his arms as I finally realised what it was I'd been looking for. I tried to lose myself in the bigger man's comforting embrace, but at every part where our skin connected I was reminded anew that he wasn't the one that I wanted. Paul was all I could think about, his presence as tangible as if he were stood at the bedside, looking down on me. Pathetic.
    From that moment on, I was done. The sweaty nightclub encounters, long