Jeff
Where do I start? I can’t even begin to recount the last six weeks of my life, and really if I were able…Im [sic] not sure you’d want to hear it. I won’t say the “let’s be friends” email was a surprize [sic]…I suppose I just needed to hear it.
I find a letter in my mailbox, wrapped in a gold foil envelope, teal letters on a white page.
The letters are blocky, square, with no regard for case. She used to write me notes with her Es as three parallel lines, counting on the eye to draw an illusion of a vertical bar, and her Os dotted in the centre. It was one of her things, one of the details she used to be unique.
Now she’s abandoned all that.
I’m already skeptical, on my guard.
It’s hard though…I had my chance…I suppose you had yours through our relationship…you couldn’t be what I needed then and now look at you — the subject of my fantasies…watching from afar…wishing I’d have saw [sic] these things then — wondering if maybe I had looked through less skeptical eyes, I could have saw [sic] who you are today.
I’m reminded of why it ended. Of how hard I tried to make it work, of all the things she did to hurt me.
Now she points out her faults. The mistakes she made. She flatters me. She lets her guard down. I’ve never felt her so vulnerable, and this is how I know she’s changed.
You lead the structured life I always wanted, I don’t know if you have a counterpart in your life…I don’t know if you’re content now to structure your own world and not yet someone else’s…there are few things I do know about you…but what I do see…Im [sic] sorry I didn’t before.
Truth be told…Ive [sic] driven all the way to the east end on a few occasions and turned back. My intention was to fall at your feet…to kiss them as I had in the past but with a renewed respect for you and a better understanding of myself. But I was affraid [sic].
I’m reminded now of what drove me to achieve what I have now. To cast off that part of my life, to buy a house, to live on my own, to move on. I may never have had any of this if it wasn’t for her.
I’m sure you’re shaking your head now…maybe laughing…maybe not even reading this anymore. You’re done with me it seems. i’m [sic] okay with that…afterall [sic] it’s my own fault. I had that chance and I couldn’t take it.
i’ll [sic] get to the point: on the next page is a short fantasy I had pass through my mind yesterday and so I wrote it down in my journal because lately something has changed in me — I never assign a name or face or…person to my fantisies…lately you’ve been front and centre.
I’m reminded of how intensely sexual she was. The nights we stayed up, alive in flame, consumed by our concupiscence, pushing the limits of our bodies. There were times when I never felt so alive.
Before you read this next page…know that if you had wanted me at your feet—Id [sic] be there in a heartbeat—even still—what an honnor [sic] it would be to curl up at your feet while you read this—
Okay now Im [sic] stalling—because Im nervous at the thought of you opening your eyes to my want…for you.
Her words aren’t enough. Not enough to change my mind or what’s past.
Too little, too late.
Note: The second page, the fantasy, wasn’t included, for fear that it would give away the identity of writer. It reads like something from l’Histoire d’O; nothing vulgar, but flat, dry, and devoid of literary devices.