The Wall Between Us

It was tough-goings in a relationship that was two supermarket outbursts an a “you’re just like your mother” past its due date. So we decided to call it quits. Unfortunately we had a month and a 19 days left on the lease, and neither of us wanted to lose the security deposit. We decided to be adults about the situation and draw a line, splitting the room in half and keeping to our respective sides. 

Despite intensive planning, we missed one important detail: her side had the kitchen and my side had the bathroom. A conundrum for I love to cook and she loves to take dumps. Obviously negotiations ensued. 

At first, we agreed to a fair exchange of time, but I quickly realized my advantage. You see, she needed to use the bathroom, I however, gathered a surplus of dried goods underneath my bed-couch. I could spend days nibbling on crackers and dried pasta, so she had to offer me more than just the kitchen. 

This is how I reclaimed many of our shared possessions including the trash bin and the trash bags. Both helpful because I had nowhere to put my trash. 

This is how things went until one night she slipped on her favorite nightgown. White silk with a lace top kept my eyes following her every footstep. I wondered if she noticed me staring at her, all three feet away. I didn’t care, anyhow. I loved that nightgown as much as she did. 

Perhaps this was part of a plan to stop me from claiming all our possessions, and if so, it worked. The next time she wanted to use the bathroom to take a dump, I promised her 15 minutes of toilet time for 15 minutes of breast fondling time. 

Thus began a long series of sexual negotiations that would have drove a nymphomaniac to celibacy. Because we were hornier than nymphomaniacs, we were hyper-nymphomaniacs, which is the horniest of the nymphomaniacs. 

For a fried egg, she’d demand an orgasm. For uninterrupted bath time, I’d demand a blowjob. To bake a pie, she’d want a cream-pie. For a facial, I’d give her a facial. And if I wanted to toss a salad, she’d make me toss her salad, because sometimes she didn’t want sex, just help making a salad. 

The negotiations continued and shortly thereafter, we dissolved the line and renewed the lease. But as anyone who draws lines to split a room and uses sexual bargaining for bathroom and kitchen privileges knows, it never lasts. 

What started as folly soon became a chore. No hand jobs until the trash was taken out. No fisting until the floors were scrubbed. Disagreements turned to quarrels. Quarrels into name-calling, and soon enough, we were back on the rocks. 

This time, we didn’t just draw a line, we built a wall. Brick by brick. Everyday a few more stacked atop each other, and little less we saw of each other. First the feet, then the calves and the knees. 

As we reached our waists , I began to wonder if this was all a little crazy. Building a brick wall in the middle of a studio apartment? One soon desires the unattainable. 

I didn’t realize how much I wanted her back until the wall had reached our heads and I could no longer see her. We had stopped building because we ran out of bricks, but that separation was unbearable. 

One night, I climbed over the wall. She was stomach down on the bed reading a book. The place looked nicer than I had ever remembered, clean and organized. I looked right at her and said, “Come back to me baby, there’s a wall between us, and I don’t mean this five foot high brick wall, but a metaphorical wall. If we keep building this wall, the brick wall not the metaphorical wall, then we’ll never be able to tear down this wall, the metaphorical wall, not the brick wall. 

“So what do you say, baby. Will you take me back?”

She told me she had saved up her money, and she was planning on finally finishing the wall. That’s when I noticed 45 bricks and several bags of cement surrounding her bed. She told me she had started seeing another bathroom as well, in a Dunkin Donuts three blocks away. 

There was nothing left to say, so I climbed back on my side of the wall and cried myself to sleep. 

In the morning, the wall had reached the ceiling, and I never saw her again.