WHY IS THIS IN THE FILE?
Nobody took responsibility quickly enough.
I slept with my ex-husband at a wedding. We had been divorced for five years, which I felt qualified us to make an entirely fresh mistake.
I am thirty-nine and organize weddings for a living. I know how much work goes into the impression that two people have made a good decision. This was someone else’s wedding. I was off duty.
My ex arrived alone. So did I. He wore the suit I had helped him choose when we were still married. I had forgotten how well it worked from across a room, where none of his opinions were audible.
We danced. We made each other laugh. He asked whether I wanted to leave with him, and I said yes with a speed that would have concerned my solicitor.
We agreed on the terms in the cab: a night together, no reunion, no interpretation of the word us. It was the clearest agreement we had reached in eleven years of knowing each other.
The sex was good. There. That is the part I am supposed to disguise as nostalgia or the irresistible pull of shared history. I knew what I wanted, he wanted it too, and neither of us had to pretend to be fascinated by a new person’s preferred podcasts.
At breakfast, he put his dirty spoon directly on the counter.
I looked at the spoon.
He looked at me looking at the spoon.
We had been awake for nine minutes, and the marriage was already available for inspection.
He said, ‘You’re doing the face.’ I said, ‘There’s a plate.’ He said, ‘I was going to move it.’ The speed at which two people can recover their worst dialogue should interest medical science.
I left before lunch. There were no tears. He kissed me goodbye and handed me my earrings in an envelope. A competent ending. I was almost proud.
Then we did it again the following Thursday.
A one-night stand, apparently, can have a recurring appointment without acquiring a future. For several weeks, we managed it. We were affectionate, punctual, and much better at saying goodbye than we had been at sharing a utility bill.
The trouble started when he texted to ask whether I remembered the password for the insurance account.
That was the exact point at which my body ceased to recognize him as a casual arrangement.
I had been enjoying the man. Now the entire household was trying to log back in.
We stopped. We still like each other. I have no lesson to offer about dignity and no plans to make the wedding about my growth.
I did send him the password.
It was the dog’s birthday followed by the word spoon.
Fiction from Slutty Confessions. Celia Rake is a Broken Zine persona.
