| Story |
 
|
(Page 2 of 2) Jill & I by Joe Moler
 (4 ratings)
|
She turned him down, and he stopped calling.
I looked at her in the evenings as she showered, brushed her hair and lay down beside me. I'd watch TV and stroke her wet hair. She looked me straight in the eye once and asked:
"Does everything have to be so hard in life, Joe, can't it be easy and cheerful somehow? Why do they lie in those newspaper stories that somebody always meets someone and he helps them become somebody and finally succeed? Hey, Joe? Why don't things happen like in those stories?"
"Well see, I'm helping you, Jill, aren't I, and besides I love you, I love your long Indian hair, those firm buttocks and that frightened, beautiful gaze. It gives me the strength to help you."
She looked at me, hardly believing me, not believing me in fact, she knew that I needed a girl and that she was a hot piece warming my bed and keeping me company, while not really costing too much at that.
"We barely know each other, Joe, you work all day and we meet in the evening for a shower, a fuck and bed. You work as a doorman on Saturdays and Sundays and then I don't even see you because you come home late at night. But I'm grateful for the room and board, and as for you loving me, come on, be honest, you're lying."
She persistently looked me in the eye, and I couldn't stand it so I got up to grab a beer.
"I love you, I love you," I lied. Although I wasn't exaggerating, my solitude was longing for someone; it wanted company, warmth, conversation. There was nothing else I could say.
"I love you," I repeated again as I tipped the beer bottle, but I didn't look her in the eye.
Yes, that was five months ago. Precisely five. Jill, tired of temporary jobs, mostly in the restaurants of Soho and the East Village, gave up one day and left me a note, short and to the point:
"THANK YOU JOE, I'M GOING HOME. JILL"
"I sprawled across the bed, gazing through the window at the large chain of lights decorating the Varesano Bridge. I thought about her and her long, beautiful, wet hair and slowly drifted off to sleep.
The radio was playing: "...everybody love somebody, sometimes"..., or perhaps it was just my imagination ...
| |
