Single Dad

by River Laurent

  “I hope I never see you again,” I say slowly, and I really mean it too.

  He opens his mouth to speak, but I’ve had enough. “You should leave,” I point to the door, leaving no room for discussion.

  “With pleasure,” he sneers. Turning for the door, he walks out, and slams it so hard the walls rattle.

  I close my eyes to quell the next wave of anger that overtakes me. I just want to run out there and scream at him for being such an asshole. The kind of idiot who seriously believes that slamming someone’s door at this time of the night was a good way to make a statement.

  What a fucking jerk.

  Chapter 3

  Dawn

  I stand frozen, listening to his footsteps echo down the corridor. As soon as the entrance door of my apartment building closes, I find myself sinking into the couch. I stare blankly into space.

  So this is what it feels like to be dumped. Well, I have been dumped before, but never by someone I’ve been with for so long, and not for another woman.

  To my surprise there is more anger than heartbreak pulsing through my veins. Maybe the sadness will come later, but for now, all I can feel is a deep sense of betrayal. I trusted him. I thought we were both society’s rejects who had found each other. Nobody wanted me and nobody wanted him and we had found a way to be good together. We once talked about making children. That was the first time I agreed to do it with him without a condom. I frown. Was he manipulating me even then? Because he never spoke about kids again after that.

  God, how much time I’ve wasted on him.

  My mind drifts back to when we first met. I was fresh out of college and had just started the internship that would one day become my full-time job. I was so confident, so passionate, so ambitious, and then I ran into this guy who had seemed so perfect for me. I was in advertising, he was in marketing. I actually saw us as a power couple. What a laugh. Thinking back now, I can see clearly that we were only a perfect couple for the first few months. After that all those subtle comments started. About my looks in general, my unfeminine laugh, but mostly my weight. All the little jokes. Once when we were going on vacation, he joked with the airline staff to seat someone equally heavy on the other side of the plane so that I didn’t tilt the plane, and make it fly lopsided.

  Slowly, with every strike he chiseled away at my confidence. Over time I no longer felt like a full-blown raging fire, I hated it, but I was slowly but surely being turned down to a fickle flame of my former self. I can still remember how it felt to be so full of light and energy, even if I can’t muster up a drop of it for myself at this very moment.

  I sit forward.

  No, I’m not going to sit here feeling sorry for myself, and hope that somehow my life is going to get itself back on track. I’ll do something about this. It’s scary as hell, looking out on a life you never thought you’d face, but I can handle it. I can be single again. Maybe the lap dancer did me a favour when she went down on him.

  I force myself to my feet and sway with the strong emotions running through my body.

  Ignoring the voice in my head that seems intent on repeating the cruel words, specifically, about how much lighter his new girlfriend is than me, I begin to pace the floor of my apartment. I try to focus my mind on one thing at a time.

  But those negative words nag at the back of my head. I have to address them.

  What did I expect? I was making him feeling guilty and he needed an excuse. Attack is the best form of defense, and he knew exactly where to stick the knife to make sure that I’d bleed for hours afterwards. My weight is a sore point for me.

  I’ve always been a buxom gal, but while I was with him I just couldn’t stop the weight from piling on. To be fair it was partly his fault. I’d always stopped eating before seven, but he liked to eat late so he would often order fried chicken, or pizza late at night. He would have a couple of pieces, then he would force me to finish it, because he would make me feel as if wasting the food would somehow impact the starving children in Africa.

  But now that I think about it. He was funny about my weight even when we first got together and I was still full of lovely curves, he never really paid me any compliments, or was positive about the way I looked. He preferred to make love with the lights off and it would often feel like he was trying to touch as little of my body as possible. The sex wasn’t awful at the start, when the two of us were still getting to know each other, our likes and dislikes, but in the last six months it’s been terrible.

  I tried everything I could to switch things up, doing whatever I could in the vain hope that it might turn him on or get him to do more than roll on top of me, thrust for a few minutes, and then roll off. Oh, and of course he always loved his blowjobs. Those he had as regular as clockwork. Three sometimes four times a week. To the point, I felt that was all I was good for.

  Filling my belly with his slightly bitter cum.

  He would lay there with his eyes shut, groaning, “oh baby yes, yes, just like that,” while I worked on him. I tried to pretend he was encouraging me, but I knew in my heart he was imagining some other woman. A woman he was actually attracted to. A thinner, sexier woman. One of those women I had caught him looking at. Women who weren’t anything like me.

  I guess even that should have been enough, over the last two years, to completely crush my self-esteem. I look down at my body now, in a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, and run my hands over it. I don’t like what I feel. The lumps and bumps. They were not there before I started eating his leftover pizzas and chicken.

  I know I want to change, to forge a new life for myself. But his words are still ringing in my ears, along with every barbed comment he’s made to me about the way I look. The comparisons to his friend’s girlfriends, leaving pictures of slim, toned women on his computer, buying me clothes a few sizes too small for my birthday because he wanted to give me something to work towards.

  But I can do this for myself.

  That’s what I have to keep reminding myself. If I want, I can lose this weight and get in shape. I know my thighs will never touch unless I starve myself, but I don’t actually want that. I just want to be a size where I can be happy and feel beautiful.

  I’ll start again. I’ll go out there and just be me for a while. Eat when I want to, have great sex with a man who actually thinks I’m attractive, and control my own television’s remote. It’ll be great not to be putting down the toilet seat every time I want to pee and cleaning urine off the floor every damn day. I won’t have to hear his relentless disapproving voice every single time I do anything that he doesn’t like, and quite frankly, that has become almost everything I do. God, the other day, he was complaining about the way I breathe. I can just do one load of washing a week instead of three. I won’t have to suck his small cock again.

  Yes, enough of being a doormat.

  As I pace up and down the apartment, a smile forms on my face. I don’t want to do this for revenge. I don’t want to do this for him. No, in fact, if he had been a little kinder to me about all of this over the course of our relationship maybe I’d have been more inclined to do something about it before now. I stop pacing suddenly. I never thought about it before, but every time I so much as hinted that I was thinking about losing weight, he did everything in his power to covertly and subtly sabotage me. He brought sweets into the house, he ordered even more take-out at night and he made plans for us to go out for dinner when he knew I was planning on hitting the gym. Or he would suddenly want to cuddle on the couch with a movie.

  So, I’m not going to do this to spite him. I’m going to do this in spite of him. Not because I want him back, or because I want him to regret his decision. No, I can’t imagine any time soon where I’d want James back in my life. Candy is welcome to him. I just want to be happy with my body again, to prove to myself that the driven, passionate woman who had existed before James smothered her in fat is still buried inside me somewhere.

  I’ll start tonight. Right now.

  Chapte
r 4

  Dawn

  I feel a wave of excitement overtake me. I don’t have to worry about getting in the way of his schedule or go back and forth on what he might think of my evening’s activities. I can just…do it. Whatever I want.

  First things first. I march into my tiny kitchen and open the fridge. I take the tub of margarine from the shelf and, with great satisfaction, dump it into the trash can. I’m going back to butter. Next I open the freezer and trash the shitty soy milk ice-cream I had to pretend was a good alternative to real ice cream. Never again.

  And tomorrow I will restock my entire kitchen. I’ll get rid of all the bullshit low fat stuff packed with chemicals and go back to eating healthy natural food. Real food. I’m going back to my old ways. I’ll eat only when I’m hungry.

  I go back to the fridge and grab the expensive bottle of champagne I was saving for James’s birthday by the neck. No need for that, anymore. I take it out, peel off the foil, and pop the cork. Champagne bubbles out and I laugh. I pull a flute glass from my cupboard and fill my glass. I wish I could share this bottle with Lisa, my best friend, but she’s on holiday with her man. Never mind. This is about me taking back my life. Celebrating it.

  I carry the bottle and the glass back to my living room. I sit on the couch and pull my legs up. I close my eyes and take a sip. Cold bubbles hit my tongue. Yes, this is the life. This is the way every break-up should be handled. I get up and put on some music. None of that pretentious rubbish that James makes us both listen to. No, just good ole, heartfelt music. I know exactly what I want to listen to as well.

  Gloria Gaynor’s powerful voice singing I Will Survive fills my living room.

  I sing along as I drink my champagne.

  “Go, walk out of the door,” I yell as I dance around the room. If James were here now, he would be telling me that the neighbors downstairs will think a baby elephant has been let loose in my apartment.

  But he’s not here. So…yay! I will survive.

  I drain my glass and refill it. By the time I’ve inhaled three glasses I’m decidedly merry. Candy is welcome to his sorry ass.

  When Tom Petty and Stevie Nicks sing Learning To Fly a tear runs down my cheek. Not out of sadness, but just pure emotion. I just know that is going to be my song. I ain’t got wings, but I’m going to fly. I wipe the tear away with the back of my hand.

  And you know what else? I’m going to start my new life with a bang.

  I look around the apartment for a hint of inspiration, and find it tucked behind the clock in my tiny kitchen. A pamphlet that was given to me when I signed up for the gym down the street from me. I had such high hopes about going three, maybe even four, times a week, but James took care of that enthusiasm. I pull the folded leaflet out, and my membership card drops out. I pick it up and look at it. It was more than a year ago. The thought makes me smile. He never truly could kill my spirit because I have been paying for it all this time. Just waiting for the right moment to reclaim my own strength.

  That’s what I’ll do. I’ll head down there right now and check the place out. I haven’t been in since my induction, but I know the place is twenty-four hours, and that there are always members of staff on hand to help out.

  I walk to my bedroom and go through my wardrobe to find something appropriate to train in. I pull out my sports bra and a pair of leggings, the thin fabric soft between my fingers, and I can’t believe how nervous I suddenly am. It’s just the gym, after all. But it’s not just that. It’s the enormity of changing myself, shedding off the last of the shit that James stuck me with.

  I go back into the living room, down my last glass of champagne. I know I shouldn’t be doing a work out after drinking, but the Dutch courage will be good to get myself through the door where I will no doubt be surrounded by perky, perfect gym bunnies. I wait for the alcohol to settle into my system and my head is buzzing slightly. Okay, I’m ready now. I can actually go out and do this. I want to do this. A good sweat is exactly what I need.

  I don’t have work tomorrow so I don’t have to worry about getting back at any time. I can stay out all night, if I want to, and who knows, maybe I will. Okay, that’s wishful thinking, but nevertheless, it’s nice to know I could if I wanted to.

  I change into my gym clothes and neon bright shoes, then twist back and forth in front of the mirror, looking at myself, trying to find the confidence within me to step outside dressed like this. I don’t look awful, well, I hope not, but the tight crop top displays all the lumps and bumps on my body that James hated so much. I must have internalized that dislike, because they are all I can see now, when I look at myself like this. I start to look for a baggy T-shirt to throw over my rolls of fat, but I stop myself. No. I go back to the mirror.

  I press my lips together and roll my shoulders back and stare at myself.

  “He’s gone and you’re not going to let him get to you anymore,” I tell my reflection.

  I grab a bag and a coat, and stride towards the door. I’m ready for this. New life here I come.

  Chapter 5

  Dawn

  It’s past midnight on a Friday night, and there are still a lot of people on the street, probably bar hopping in search of a good time. If Lisa had been around I might have been one of them. She would surely have dragged me out to celebrate. She hates James with a passion.

  But this evening I’m actually doing something good for myself. I look down the street and find the gym lit up, all glowing blue lights practically coaxing me to go in. Pulling my jacket around me tightly, I make my way down the sidewalk.

  I arrive at the door and peer through the glass doors. I can see a blonde girl at reception, and she looks like one of those gorgeous gym bunnies that immediately makes me feel like a mountain of lard. I take a couple of deep breaths of the cold night air.

  I can do this.

  I can totally do this.

  I force myself to open the door and head inside. If I let women like her (who have actually put the work necessary to look good) put me off my path, I will never have the body I want, or the life I deserve. She looks up from her magazine and flashes me a friendly smile as I step over the threshold. See. That was not so bad. Instantly, I relax, and feel more at ease than I did a few moments before.

  “Good evening,” I greet cheerfully.

  “How’re you doing?”

  “I’m doing well,” I reply, and it’s actually not a lie. The alcohol has made me feel quite mellow and I’m quite proud of myself too. I fumble in my pocket for my wallet, pull out my membership card and pass it to her.

  “We have a new system now. You just slide your card into one of those little readers over there.” She gestures towards a set of turnstiles.

  I look at them. They were not there before. Also I can see that the place has been really spruced up. “Ah. Okay.”

  “Have a great sweat today,” she calls as I turn towards the turnstiles.

  I scan the statement for any hint of sarcasm, find none, and make my way through to the vast gym area. I glance at the machines. There have been a lot of changes here too. More machines. It’s been so long since my induction that I’ve pretty much forgotten how to use any of them though. The place is empty, thank goodness, so I won’t have to worry about anyone else watching me fumble with the equipment.

  I pick a treadmill, take off my jacket, and hang it over the end. There are mirrors all around me and I try not to look too hard at any of my reflections. I tuck a loose strand of hair behind my ear and flex my fingers and kick out my legs. Right. Okay. Then, I climb onto the running machine. Where do I start?

  I peer down at the display, but there are so many buttons and workout programs. I just want to get a warm-up in, some light jogging before I dive into something more intense. I press a couple of buttons experimentally, and the whole thing starts tilting up underneath me. Okay, this isn’t quite what I’m looking for, but at least, I know where the incline button is now.

  I strain my mind back to my thirty-minute fr
ee induction session, but all I remember from that day is the cute guy who was giving out the instructions. He was tall and built, as you’d expect any member of staff at a place like this to be, with strong, broad shoulders that tapered to a slimmer waist and arms that made you want to trace your nails down them.

  Not that a guy like that would ever be with a woman like me, of course. No, he’s probably dating someone more like the beautiful, slim girl at reception. Try as I might I can’t imagine him shooting a second glance at me. And as I remember, he didn’t.

  I press another button hopefully, and the machine beeps angrily at me. I frown. What the hell am I meant to do with this thing?

  Thank God, there is no one here to see how clueless I am.

  Chapter 6

  Ace

  The first thing I think when I set eyes on her is hot damn.

  The second thing is oh, man, you’re so fucked.

  What a piece of ass. I let my eyes stray up and down her curvy body. Seriously. I can’t remember the last time I’ve had such an intense reaction from just looking at a woman, but she’s turning me on in ways I can’t even begin to comprehend.

  Maybe it’s because I spent too much time around women who think keeping fit is the most important thing in the world. Sure, they make clothes look good while walking down a runway, but quite honestly, they are as sexy as an empty park bench on a winter day. A woman should have curves, and that’s from a guy who’s seriously into fitness. Sure, I used to take advantage of the fact that I spend every working hour around spray-tanned, often surgically enhanced, toned-up bodies, but these days I just can’t dredge up much interest in them.

  A woman like that?