EXCERPT: Love Sick Love
She seems agitated,
and although I know she is a nervy, jittery type of character, I sense
heightened tension on this occasion and naturally so. I feel it too. She’s
watching me furtively as I return to her with a schooner of beer in my hand. I
offer it to her, and she smiles. Her actions are quick but indecisive. As I
settle, I detect reticence.
“Is everything okay?”
I ask. “Is this spot all right?”
Her nodding head
juxtaposes her words. “Maybe over there is better.”
As she scurries to the
other side of the room, I follow, exploding with anticipation. She sits in one
chair, then moves before I can join her, and I’m just about to sit down when
she moves again.
“Are we playing
musical chairs?”
The meaning of the
question, and its allusion to childhood games eludes her, and by the time I
have settled she’s moved again and is now sitting on a stool directly in front
of me. Our knees almost touch, and she leans forward, wide eyed as though she
has something exciting to say. I wait, but she retracts, averts her eyes, then
quickly glances back to me.
“Talk to me,” I say.
“What’s on your mind?”
I study her face and
note her blemishes and the lines which quietly assert her maturity. She’s in
her late thirties, thirty-eight maybe, but she looks younger. Her expression
changes rapidly through numerous emotional displays, but I can’t read anything
except uncertainty. She wants to speak, but either won’t or can’t.
“I want to be with
you. You like me too, so there is nothing to stop us,” I say.
“Except you are
married.”
There is no conviction
in her tone. No reproach. It is a statement of fact, which is perhaps not as
meaningless to her as it is to me.
“Okay,” I say,
cautiously. I’m convinced if I play this right, I can seduce her and make her
my secret lover. There is an element of moral ambivalence. “Let me explain why
I am chasing you when I’m married.”
She looks away, and
sips her beer. I have nearly finished, while her glass is nearly full. My head
and heart are also beyond capacity, verging on chaotic inundation. I’m going to
justify my adulterous intentions, or at least attempt to.
“My wife and I have
been married for twenty years, and we’re friends. We get on well most of the
time, but our marriage is really more like a business arrangement. We both work
and have little time together. Time we do have
is taken up with shopping, and cleaning and visiting, or arguing about money or
our children. She’s unwell. Mentally. She’s been diagnosed with depression, but
I think she’s bi polar as well. We’re often at odds over little things. She
tends to be very negative and critical. She’s miserable actually, and at lot of
the time she makes me miserable.”
With the painful
realization I’m slandering the woman I love—or perhaps once loved— and have
committed to spending the rest of my life with, I pause and take a mouthful of
beer. Lying too, with frightening ease. Cassy isn’t sick and we haven’t been
married for twenty years; not even close. Chao-xing’s watching me intently,
fascinated I suspect. I don’t want to speak ill of my wife. Actually, I don’t
want to talk about her at all, but some of this is necessary so Chao-xing will
understand where I’m coming from, and not think badly of me. Adultery is a bad
thing to do, but I’m not a bad person. I blame circumstances. Years of neglect
and sexual frustration. I blame my wife though I would never say that out loud.
I don’t want to blame her but am less inclined to blame myself. The
uncomfortable truth is I can’t help myself. I’m out of control, but
rationalization is a better option than accepting the facts.
“I need some fun and
excitement and I need sex.”
Chao-xing is typically
unruffled by my directness, but she moves seats again, shifting to my right
where she reclines as though tired. She’s staring at me, examining me, interrogating me with her eyes.
AUTHOR BIO
Heavy metal lover and
cricket tragic, D.A. Cairns lives in Darwin in Australia’s Northern Territory,
where he works as an English language teacher and writes stories in his very
limited spare time. He has had over fifty short stories published (but who’s counting,
right?) He blogs at Square pegs http://dacairns.blogspot.com.au and has
authored four novels, Devolution, Loathe Your Neighbor, Ashmore Grief, and A
Muddy Red River which is also available from Rogue Phoenix Press.
KEYWORDS
love sick love, lovesickness, sexual addiction, obsession, divorce
SOCIAL LIINKS
Twitter handle: @da_cairns
ALSO BY D. A. CAIRNS
BLURB
Shane Archer is solid, dependable and reliable while his
younger brother, Rob, is reckless, selfish and unpredictable. Never close
during their formative years, and further divided by distance in adulthood,
they live disconnected lives until the corkscrew of life pits them on a
collision course. They love, they laugh, they lose and with broken hearts and
messed up lives they find strength in the women they love and in their family.
Could each be the agent of salvation for the other, or will they be torn apart
forever? A Muddy Red River traces the course of the lives of broken people who
discover power to overcome adversity.
REVIEW:
A Muddy Red River
D. A. Cairns
978-1-62420-162-2
Reviewed by Jocko Lee
4 Stars out of 5
The Muddy Red River follows a short time period of two
Australian brothers as they blunder their way through life. One brother, at
home in Australia, is having to deal with his love for his wife and his
attraction to other women. The other brother, on vacation in Thailand, mostly
loves himself but finds himself attracted to a bar girl.
They both deal with death and escape, one from the law and
the other from his guilt. How they cope with their circumstances brings them
back closer together.
All through the book I found myself in a hurry to get to the
next chapter. At first I was more involved in the conflict between Rob and Jam
than the other brother. Cairn’s practice of alternating chapters between
brothers left me, at times, feeling like I was watching a captivating movie and
it went to a commercial break. I rushed through the chapters dealing with Shane
and Angela just to get back to see what Rob and Jam were up to.
Later in the book Shane’s situation became as compelling as
Rob’s and I was hurrying to read the exploits of both. This book has made me
want to read more of this writers work.
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