Arian's Pool

First part - not a huge amount of sex in this bit, we'll get there though, honest.

*****

I'd decided to live the good life and head off into the country. After an uncomfortable separation I'd taken my half of the money I was soon to realise that I couldn't live as good a life as I'd lived with two of us paying reasonable salaries into the bank and paying off the mortgage.

We'd drifted together during University and following graduation we stayed together; ten years later we drifted apart and he finally announced that he wanted if not to separate then at least live separate lives. He'd chosen our tenth anniversary meal to finally come out and admit that he was gay. I'd had my suspicions at University of course, and over our rather plain and boring vegetarian meal in a not-that-impressive restaurant.

"What do you mean by separate lives?" I asked.

"I want my own room," he said looking down at a most lacklustre Quorn mince over cauliflower cheese thing I'd ever seen. Not that imaginative, like I said. But then much of our relationship had been lacklustre and unimaginative.

We'd talked about having children and it never really went past, 'yeah if you like' from him and 'I'll come off of the pill then,' from me. After a while I did and nothing happened, but then he hardly grabbed me, threw me down and ravaged me like a bitch, filling me with his hot seed.

It was at the very least monthly though and I did go and see the Doctor. He tested Jonathan's semen, took blood tests from me, and I was sent to a specialist who scanned me and checked me out and after another few months of us trying she declared that it was showing I had some severe scarring on my womb and fallopian tubes. Worse than that my ovaries were covered in cysts, so much so that after the ultrasound scan she kept me in overnight and I had some exploratory surgery and one of them was removed and it was declared that it was extremely unlikely that I'd ever get pregnant naturally, if at all.

I thought back to my youth and a series of rather unpleasant UTI's, bladder and womb infections I'd suffered when I hit puberty and I guessed that the year or so I'd spent on course after course of antibiotics and penicillin and pessaries really hadn't done the trick. I was off from school for weeks, if only because of the horrendous smell and the fact the soreness made me walk like a penguin. It disappeared as quickly as it came mind you and I've no idea what caused it in the first place or what eventually made it go away.

The damage was done though and I was thirty and not anywhere near far enough up the list to be eligible for in vitro. With a professional detachment that almost brought me to tears as I lay recovering my surgery, the fertility specialist said that the walls of my womb were severely damaged that any halfway normal egg that my remaining polycystic ovary might one day produce would have a real struggle finding a piece of womb that it could attach to and stay attached. With a bored smile she announced that I was 'functionally sterile'.

After that Jonathan and I hardly ever had sex, my ex did quite like the idea of having a child but not all of the terrible fucking around our good friends from Uni' Adam and his wife Sarah had gone thought. In my innocence I thought it was because we were now in our thirties and that kind of thing stopped then. But I still like a cuddle and the reassurance of having that other person there.

"Look I know things haven't been perfect but surely we can still..."

"Maggie, I want to be err... explore the physical side of my n... of my sexuality."

"You want to sleep with another man?"

"If you need it to be that crude, that's something I want to consider, yes."

"And you can't sleep with me?"

"What part of 'gay man' don't you get Maggie?"

I suppose I was still in love with him, but not only was he not in love with me, because of the stresses of trying to live his life with a truth he'd been denying, he'd actually started to dislike me for my affection for him.

The years hadn't been kind to Jonathan; he had struggled to control his weight and the contentment spread common to people of our age had hit him around his midriff. The thick blonde hair he'd had fell out in his late twenties and he had a fine bald patch that I'd never let him comb over. He'd grown one of those thick beards that were popular in recent years but even that didn't look that good on him and used to catch tiny pieces of food in it.

As I tried to digest his news and the dinner, I could only stare at the tiny piece of sweet corn sitting in his pale and just shy of greying facial hair. We ate mouthfuls of our shit food in the shit restaurant in a really uncomfortable silence.

Sick of the whole thing I decided I wanted to go home now.

"Could I have the bill please," I asked the passing waiter.

"Is everything OK?" he asked.

"Nah," I said, "we've both suddenly lost our appetites."

The waiter was beside himself as he read our body language and facial expressions, really misinterpreting them altogether. I tried to convince him that it was between my partner and I, and not about the food.

"So the food was OK?" he sighed breathing a sigh of relief.

"OK is about as far as I'm willing to go with it," I said, "but I'm sure that the chefs at Heinz really tried their best with that sauce."

His mouth flapped open a few times in shock and disgust; I got the feeling that he loved this restaurant and was taking my suggestion that the food was out of jar to heart. He flounced off, looking extremely camp doing it. I looked at the Ex and thought about his revelation. For some reason I took his rejection of not only me but my entire gender out on the waiter who stormed back to our table with a scrap of paper from the till and a hurt snarl. I looked at the bill, it was for £18.64. Rather than fish out my contactless card, I picked through my purse and gave him £18.65 and told him to keep the change.

We drove home in silence. He slept in the spare room that night and stayed out for a few nights after that.

That was that and I on the fourth night when we met between our separate bedrooms and the one bathroom and I asked him what his intentions were now. He said that his new friend had asked him to move in with him.

"That was quick," I said.

"Well, you know..."

"No, not sure that I do Jonathan, sorry mate. Why don't you explain it to me?"

He folded his arms and minced off towards the bathroom. I supposed he'd learned that from his new circle of friends. I followed him.

"What are we doing Jonathan?" I called after him.

"I'm going to bed."

"You can buy me out if you want."

He stopped at the spare bedroom door and turned.

"Buy you out of what?"

I looked at him as if he was an idiot.

"This place? This house that we both own? This place that we bought together to live in together?"

"Oh," he said, then looked thoughtfully. "I can't afford to buy you out, would you like to buy me out then?"

I thought about it, but the mortgage was a big one and no way would I be able to raise the other half of the stupid amount of money that a three bed semi in Battersea was going for these days.

"With what, shirt buttons?"

"Oh, well, perhaps we should sell up and move on."

"And that's it?"

"What?"

"Ten years of..." I stopped in mid-flow.

'What.'

That was a succinct description of our relationship. We'd lived together and slept together, had gone shopping together, gone on holiday together - but that was it. No ring presented on one knee, no present lists, no running from shop to shop for the right dress, no stag and hen, no June wedding, nothing. The child we talked of having would have been born out of wedlock, as much a bastard as its father.

We'd moved from our flat in Oxford to our flat in London, then as our careers progressed we bought our house.

That was it; the height of our commitment to each other was a mortgage document we'd both signed. I figured that it was just habit, something convenient that, fair play to Jonathan, we'd both taken part in.

"Ten years of... nothing." I walked back to what used to be our bedroom. "I'll go to the estate agent tomorrow."

"Maggie..."

"What?" I snarled, "Just... just don't say you're fucking sorry Jonathan," as the tears poured down my face, "If you're gay you're gay, I just wish you could have made you mind up sooner and not let me think..."

"Maggie..."

"Fuck off Jonathan, you're leaving me for another man after ten years of happy... well, I guess you weren't happy, please don't expect me to be pleased about any of this." He dropped his eyes, I was waiting for the apology still, "but ten years of living together when I could have started over and met someone I had a future with, but no." I wiped my face with a new resolution. "You have somewhere to go?"

He nodded,

"Yes."

"Well I suggest you start to pack. Goodnight Jonathan."

I put our house on the market the next day and it sold pretty quickly. Not having any complicated divorce things to do meant that all that was left to us was the picking through the books shelves and then choosing what we considered 'our DVDs' or 'our CDs'.

That was relatively painless, our tastes in movies and music was quite different and the only real negotiation was for some of the classic movies we'd bought.

Quite simply, he took them and I ordered replacements there and then from Amazon though our joint bank account. That was probably the last thing we had to agree on.

It turned out his new boyfriend felt that my Ex was such a fantastic guy that he deserved more out of the settlement and told him so and encouraged, not to say bullied, him into demanding more. This was stupid; we earned almost identical salaries, ate the same things, did the same amount of washing, and all that sort of thing. I came home early from work to find my Ex and his boyfriend in the living room - his new man was having a root through my already packed boxes and had torn the brown plastic parcel tape off of most of them.

"Get out of my stuff!" I shouted across the room at him.

The boyfriend, Allan, stopped in his tracks, folded his arms and stormed across the room, every inch the angry queen. Allan was shorter even than me, straight up and down skinny and wearing jeans that were so tight I wondered how he dragged them on and guessed that they were stretchy women's ones. He was wearing a pink Ben Sherman shirt with the sleeves rolled up to show his thin, pale shaved arms.

"Seeing as Jonathan isn't standing up for his rights, someone has to... honey," he snarled with a sarcastic grin flicking his head back as if to get his short blonde curls out of his face.

Even though I've always considered myself a nice person I just had the feeling I wanted to punch him and steal his dinner money.

"Jonathan and I have taken what we want, I kind of get the feeling that you're looking through my boxes to see if there's stuff that YOU want. This CD," I took my copy of 'Rumours' by Fleetwood Mac from under his arm, "I had that before we met; and for the record, Jonathan hates Fleetwood Mac." I walked across to the mantelpiece and saw a few of my CDs and DVDs he'd already removed. "My stuff pal," I said picking them up, "get out of my property or I will call the police and tell them that you are committing an act of theft."

He rolled his eyes and pursed his lips, his clear polished nails hand on his chest.

"Blaaah blaaaah blaaaaaaaah," he whined, "Thiiiiis stuff belongs to..."

"This stuff belongs to me," I said, "You see where they have 'Maggie' in big letters written on the top? That's the big giveaway... honey." I folded my arms and with a new fury stepped right into his personal space, "I think what you are doing isn't standing up for anyone's rights, only your own whinging curiosity, you are committing and act of aggravated trespass, criminal damage to my boxes and theft."

"Theft..." he looked quizzically at me and my long spiel of legal stuff.

"You are on my property for your own criminal purpose, hence the aggravation to the trespass; you were going to take my albums and movies with you weren't you." I said, "Taking with intent to permanently deprive me of them?" He rested his weight on his other hip. "That's theft buster and I will have you nicked for it."

He rolled his eyes again and looked at my ex as if to get some kind of support, and shifted his weight on to his other leg, ready to start his next hissy rant.

"I suggest you put my stuff down and fuck off," I said, "before I lose my temper." He hissed through his teeth curling his upper lip, and I was so cross at this outrage, this invasion of my privacy I put my hand to his throat and heaved him back against the tall Victorian dark marble fire place, the tall mantelpiece sticking into top of his neck bending his face forwards. He looked shocked and looked to Jonathan for support, but found none. I guessed he didn't want to let go of his ill-gotten gains so didn't attempt to fight me off. "Don't push your luck sweetie," I snarled, and reading the situation added, "You've broken up a ten year relationship and so fucking help me, you give me just cause and I punch fuck out of your pretty face so no one else's partner will fancy you and you can try eating your meals through a fucking straw for a few weeks." His mouth fell open, and still stupidly holding on to his stolen booty he could only stare, and more words from that crime novel flooded from me, "Fucking try me fat boy."

The thing that seemed to scare him the most was me calling him fat.

"Put those things down and go wait in the car Allan," said Jonathan, "I'll be out directly." Allan flounced out of the room throwing his stolen goods on the sofa. I turned to my Ex.

"You were going to let him rip through my boxes and take what he wanted weren't you? Weren't you!" I shouted. My Ex stared at the ground, and I shook my head in disappointment and disgust. "You spineless twat," I snarled, any remnants of love disappearing in a snap of betrayed venom. "Best of luck with that one." I said and that was pretty much it. I had a neighbour install a new Yale lock on the second bedroom and put my things in there until I moved out properly.

His new boyfriend had a house full of stuff and said that our gear was not up to his standard, so I had the washer dryer (which was virtually brand new) and most of the other kitchen gadgets. The cooker and dishwasher were all built in so they stayed.

Our Bank was quite brilliant and working with the estate agent sorted all of the final bills, opened two new personal accounts and split the money down the middle, to the very penny. I told Jonathan that the money was between him and me and I would sue him if I found out that Allan got involved in my personal business. Allan tried of course but the Bank very nicely told him that without my permission they couldn't even begin to discuss the process with him.

Within his own circle Allan had spoken grandly of seeking legal advice, "and taking 'that psycho bitch ex' of his to the fucking cleaners." He'd only met mad Maggie once and it was plain that Jonathan was the brains of the outfit and he deserved a bigger lump sum because he OBVIOUSLY made all the right decisions about buying the house and our one investment, shares we got for having an account with a bank when they went onto the stock market.

Allan was a social climber and chances are saw Jonathan as a bit of an investment. This had leaked out to one of the few friends Jonathan and I still shared, who was sharing a bottle of over-chilled, cheap white Burgundy with one of Allan's Lesbian work colleagues whose sister was a solicitor who, again, told him that Jonathan and my financial affairs were none of his fucking business.

I was to meet the duo just once more at a Christening that Jonathan and I were originally planned to be Godparents for, our mutual friends Adam and Sarah that had struggled through IVF and had finally had their much wanted child and were going to celebrate.

At the 'at home' party to welcome Jonathan to his new house and a chance for his boyfriend to check out and vet all of his friends, Allan had whinged and whined to the new parents that we should all three be Godparents and Sarah told me over a cappuccino a few days afterwards that she had lost her temper with him and had simply said,

"Excuse me? Allan? You've known Jon, what... 6 weeks? Who the fuck are you?"

Sarah disliked him and his 'show home' house from the first. She had made to put down her wine glass and Allan had hissed and handed her a cork coaster insisting that she walk to the kitchen and place the glass on the counter there.

"But I'm only..."

"Kitchen!" Allan whined with a rising inflection, and she did so, tapping her watch on her return letting her husband know she'd had enough already. She stayed for an extra half an hour mind you; holding back her laughter as Allan was waxing lyrical on what he saw as the problem with the straight world settling for 'ordinary'.

He talked for a while uninterrupted, sounding as if he was some kind of great mind and liberal, educated thinker who's opinion was up there with the greats.

It turned out he was just an opinionated twat that had a massive chip on his shoulder because all of a sudden his group of acquaintances included not only University graduates, but Oxford University graduates who could lose him in their discussion and would know almost from the moment he opened his mouth that he didn't know what the fuck he was talking about. So much so he seemed to have upset or alienated almost all of his partner's friends within a fortnight of meeting them.

His wine drinking Lesbian work colleague that had been chatting with Sarah earlier was well pissed by this stage and on the small balcony she had headed to for a smoke she said that considering Allan worked at the local John Lewis department store selling kitchen appliances, he was up his own arse rather too much. He'd not finished his first year at Art School because he 'refused to be taught and smother his expression'. It turned out he had a less than 30% attendance record so they binned him.

Sarah laughed as she recounted the Doctor Martin wearing, crew-cut shorn woman snarling at Allan because he had dared to suggest she should go down the two flights of stairs into the street to smoke. Allan let her stay there of course.

She guessed that Jonathan knew what he was doing, giving up me for that prick.

"A fucking toaster salesman?" I squeaked making the entire coffee shop look around in shock. I giggled and put a hand to my mouth, whispering this time, "I lost my Oxford educated, Technical Editor partner of ten years to a... to a gay, dim-witted, social-climbing... fucking toaster Salesman?!"

We laughed, and touched mugs.

At the ceremony Allan sat at the back with petulant lip, constantly rolling eyes and folded arms, and kept reasonably quiet but for some hissed catty comments about my dress, hastily stopped by Adam's Brother, a giant of a man and a school teacher so used to dealing with juvenile bad behaviour.

Allan's reign was evident. He was dressed in the tightest powder blue suit, while Jonathan, who had always dressed very well, now looked... well... 'gay'.

He wore a shiny green suit about ten years too young for him and way to tight for his maturing form, all finished with slicked down hair, (what was left of it) and winkle picker shoes that were plainly hurting his feet and a pencil thin leather tie, an overweight, accessorised version of his tiny new beau.

The entire room watched in amazement as this man that almost everyone in the room had known for more than ten years, stood next to me - his ex - by the font holding candles and swearing to look after the spiritual welfare of young Maria, looking like he'd just stepped out of a night club or pride march, a fat leprechaun and a photocopy of his powder blue boyfriend sat mincing and moaning not ten feet away.