Free The Fictional Man by Al Ewing Page A

was an us, if I was going to leave. Like it was... well. A given.” He paused, taking a breath, but Iyla didn’t interrupt. He knew he should just stop talking, but the words just kept coming out. All of a sudden they seemed very important to say. “And after dinner, we went back to your place and I, I stayed over, and...” He swallowed. “And the day after, I said I’d walk back to mine, not take a cab, since it was such a mild day. And on the way... on the way I saw the ring in the jeweller’s shop window. And I had to buy it.”
    There was silence on the other end of the line.
    “Because... because you were the one.” He said it quietly, flatly. There was a lead weight in his gut.
    More silence. He could hear her breathing – steady, controlled.
    “Iyla?”
    “How many other women did you screw while you were married to me, Niles?” she said, quietly. “I counted at least three, but I’ll bet there were a lot more.”
    Niles groaned. “Iyla –”
    “I remember there was Bobbi,” she said, methodically, like she was making a list of the types of birds native to California. “Now her I wrote off as an early mid-life crisis, like getting a motorcycle or hair plugs. It was pretty obvious you weren’t serious about her, it was just... I don’t know, proving to yourself you could get a twenty-year-old into bed. Jacking off your ego. You were already bored of her by the time I found out.” Her voice was cold, the tone she’d had then. He felt sick.
    “Iyla, that didn’t mean –”
    “Save the clichés for your crappy books, Niles.” That one stung. He felt a flush of anger spreading over his face, mixing with the guilt. “So I just figured you were a little boy who needed a little toy, and maybe now you’d, whatever, sown your oats, maybe that was it. And maybe I decided to myself that the fact that you didn’t just scrape me off like shit on your shoe and run to the newer model, the way you did with Linda – and yes, I know I was an idiot to even start with you after that – meant that maybe, maybe I was somehow special to you.”
    “Iyla, you... you were, I mean you are –” he stammered, then cursed himself. More clichés. He slumped back on the couch, holding the phone out in front of him, staring at it, at her name, while her voice echoed hollowly from the plastic.
    “And then two years later along comes Justine. Justine the fucking Head of Marketing, so you don’t so much screw her behind my back as in front of my fucking face –”
    “You never said anything –” Niles muttered, rubbing his forehead. He’d honestly been surprised to find out that she’d known about that – he’d assumed he’d covered his tracks perfectly. That had been part of the thrill, the adrenaline rush from the sneaking around. He remembered it had already started seeming like hard work when she’d found him out, but Justine hadn’t wanted to end it. She’d been too old for him anyway. Once he realised how much effort she put into looking attractive for him – how saggy and lined she was under normal circumstances – most of his interest in her had died.
    “Maybe I am a cliché,” the author thought to himself. And then he ended the call, because there was no point continuing it. He simply switched his phone off and went back to work. The end.
    “No, I never said anything. For three months. I spent two and a half months telling myself it was nothing, that she was ten years older than you, not your fucking type – and then my folks were visiting and I couldn’t say anything in front of them and you were sneaking off to fuck her while they were sleeping in the fucking apartment – and then when I finally, finally get the courage together to tell you I know, after I’ve seen you fucking her with my own eyes, and thanks for that, you son of a bitch, you told me how hard for you it was!” She was screaming into the phone. He found himself wondering if the neighbours could hear it, if they thought