Free Kissing Through a Pane of Glass by Peter Michael Rosenberg Page B

even be in the same room as her.
     
    ‘Don’t hurt me, Michael...’
     
    Her face took on that terrible expression again. For a moment I thought my heart had stopped beating; surely this wasn’t happening again! I had made no sharp movements, there had been nothing threatening in my tone or in the content of our conversation. There was no way she could interpret my actions as violent. This time I decided to nip this absurd idea in the bud.
     
    ‘I’d never hurt you Liana. Not ever. Do you understand?’ I was pretty smashed, but the urgency, the terror in her eyes had a strong sobering effect. I didn’t move, I didn’t reach out. Nevertheless, she shrank away from me. She looked like a small, frightened child.
     
    ‘You’re drunk,’ she said, accusingly. ‘I know what you’re like when you’re drunk.’
     
    This confused me still further. ‘What do you mean? You’ve never seen me drunk. This is the first time . . .’
     
    ‘Don’t get angry,’ she interrupted. Her voice had that desperate, pleading tone to it. ‘Please, I’ll do anything. just don’t get angry.’
     
    ‘Liana, I promise you.’ I wasn’t sure what else to say, what else to do. I thought about getting up and leaving the room so that she wouldn’t feel threatened by my presence, but I didn’t like to leave her alone. I figured that if I just stayed completely still and talked to her gently, she’d see that there was nothing to worry about. It took a supreme effort of will not to reach across and put my arms around her; she looked so scared, so pathetic, all I wanted to do was hold her.
     
    It is always on occasions such as this that the cosmos decides to show its true nature, to tease us, to make a mockery of our efforts, of our lives. After just a few minutes, with all that cognac swirling around inside me, I had a desperate need to take a leak. I knew that if I didn’t do something about it swiftly, I’d probably wet myself.
     
    ‘Liana, I need to use the toilet. I’m going to stand up, go to the bathroom, and then come straight back. Okay? Liana, is that okay?’
     
    She looked at me suspiciously for a moment, then nodded.
     
    I moved as slowly as I could, pushed myself on to my feet and tottered to the bathroom. The relief I felt was lost however beneath the hurt I felt at the indignity of the situation. My world was falling apart and all I could do was piss into a toilet bowl.
     
    When I returned to the bedroom Liana was as I had left her. I stood in the bathroom doorway for a few moments, trying to collect my thoughts.
     
    ‘Liana, I won’t hurt you,’ I said again. ‘I couldn’t hurt you. Why don’t you come and sit beside me? I promise everything will be okay.’
     
    Another rash promise. My life, sometimes, appears a frail stuttering thing, with the main protagonist lurching from one feeble oath to the next, like a spastic frog desperate to land on something real but finding only fragile lilies that will not hold his weight.
     
    I held out my hands towards her and tried smiling. Liana just stared at me and made no efforts to reach out to me.
     
    ‘What’s this all about Liana? Why do you think I’m going to hurt you? I won’t hurt you. I love you.’
     
    As the words left my lips, Liana’s face contorted into a snarl. ‘It’s always the same thing,’ she spat. ‘Love. I know all about your sort of love; you can’t fool me with your clever words. They mean nothing .’
     
    There was such hatred in her voice; it was as if I had just been run through with a sword. I felt a sharp pain slice through my chest, and then a dull ache invaded me, as if part of my soul had just died.
     
    Until then I had thought myself, whilst not in control of the situation, at least in charge of my own emotions. But such was the hostility in Liana’s voice that all of a sudden I was overwhelmed with a feeling of desperation. She did not believe me, did not trust me. I could not touch her, hold her or even speak to