1. Oven Cleaning 

He was exactly where he always was—huddled into the crevice of the sofa that his body had sculpted over time. His eyes darted to the doorway, and he grunted slightly in recognition before returning his attention to the TV screen. 

He was Jamie. My flannel-shirted partner of nine years. These days he virtually lived for videogames. He would be on the sofa within minutes of his return home from work, his PlayStation activated, and he would play deep into the evenings. Next to his crevice was his snacking table, where two bright cans of craft beer and a large bag of crisps were currently open—and I knew that there would be at least two more tins upended, draining their dregs, in the kitchen sink. 

“I know I said I’d cook tonight,” I started, sitting at the dinner table at the back of the living room. “I said that this morning, I know, but work kept us late.” 

The innocuous little lies came so easily these days. 

“Fine by me,” Jaimie grunted, his indifference all-too clear. 

“I’ve ordered us a burger instead.” 

“Fine by me,” he repeated, cycling through weapons on his game. 

I retrieved a beer for us both from the fridge and covered my ears with my headphones as if I were about to watch something on the laptop. For at least two years this was how we spent most of our evenings: sitting apart, with me at the dining table watching an infinite churn of mediocre and forgettable content across a variety of steaming platforms, and Jaimie on his sofa with his attention fixed firmly upon protruding guns that charged through various maps, immersed in the crackle of gunfire and the disembodied war cries from the combatants on his screen. Rarely would Jaimie turn his head to look in my direction, even when I spoke to him. So as he spent the evening spraying bullets, drinking beer, and scratching at himself like a wild hog: he remained completely unaware of me watching him. 

I had loved him once—I was certain of that. Jaimie had been working in an electrical store when we first met. He was a masterful provider of effortless and affable patter and had found his stride in sales. I had met him aged twenty-three. I had found him cute and warm and seen a cheeky, rugged sort of charm in him. I bought a laptop from him and still found myself lingering in the shop working up the courage to ask him out for a drink after his shift. Several drinks later, I found myself making out with him in the back of the taxi that was taking us back to his flat. Those memories felt almost unreal, like alien recollections from another consciousness altogether. Time changed me. The girl who had lived those experiences and felt those feelings had slowly dwindled to nothing. She no longer existed. 

Jaime caught an enemy by surprise and chuckled out loud to himself as he blew the character’s head clean from its shoulders with his shotgun. The pixelated gore splattered across the screen, prompting a disembodied hand to wipe away the flesh and blood before raising his rifle to go again. 

Time had also changed Jaimie. Commuting, working, and money had slowly ground him down and robbed him of all of his former positivity. For seven years now he worked in “marketing,” beneath an exploitative and delusional bullshit artist, who had once taken Jaimie under his wing in some creepy pseudo-mentor pantomime that had, for a little while at least, disguised the exploitative nature of his company. Jaimie’s job now made a little under thirty thousand a year as he trained junior colleagues on how to sell subscriptions door to door, using a range of controversial and radical sales tactics, such as pretending that the house call was an emergency. (They had made the local news with that technique.) 

His job and his company had become a bigger and bigger source of depression in Jaimie’s life. As his twenties had slumped listlessly into his thirties, his response had been to 

fantasize more and more about meat. There was big and empty talk of starting a BBQ restaurant. There were repeated threats to build a BBQ pit in the garden too, an unfulfilled project of at least three years now. In fact, the flat pack remained the communal shed to this day, the semi-opened box now covered in grey fur, cobwebs, spider droppings, and the husks of dead flies. 

Yes, my partner had long lost his joy for living. Was it entirely fair to blame this on his emasculating job? It had played a big part, certainly, but he also never put any real effort into moving on. He barely looked for new jobs for himself, and whenever I presented listings for him, he had huffed, puffed, and sulked at the notion of spending any portion of his beloved evenings and weekends away from drinking and gaming and into writing job applications. And so here was the result, an embittered thirty-four-year-old closet alcoholic—a man too timid to truly hit rock-bottom and so he seemed content to just circle the drain. 

My thoughts were interrupted by the buzzing of the apartment door. I collected our food order and returned to place the bag on the table. 

“I got you a burger,” I said, searching for something to say to him. “Wasn’t sure if you’d eaten already tonight or not.” 

“You know me, I never say no to a burger,” Jaime replied, a slight slur in his words. He quit his game and downed the last of his beer. Stretching as he stood, he joined me at the table and rubbed his hands together as he examined the offerings. I pushed a cheeseburger across to him, along with a side of French-fries. 

“Nice one,” Jaimie declared, squirting ketchup onto the plate and wiping a fistful of fries through it. 

Jaimie was a poor eater when he had been drinking, which was most evenings. He would hunch into his food, shovelling it into his mouth as if it might be trying to escape him. I tried not to look at him and block the sound of his rapacious gusto, hoping that he would not pick up on my strange mood. 

“It’s late,” he observed, after taking a few bites of his burger. “Where’ve you been?” I avoided his gaze, staring down at my food instead. 

Had he not believed my story? 

Briefly I considered telling him the truth. We would have to break up sooner or later, that much was obvious. But I was not yet ready to articulate my feelings. After nine years together I did not want to express myself clumsily and risk hurting him. In a flat voice I found myself repeating the lie instead: my meeting had overrun, there had been a deadline for copy that evening, and I had not left the office until after eight. 

Jamie ate as he listened. When I had finished lying openly to his face, he nodded, and I could not help but wonder if the gesture meant that he believed my story, or if it was merely acknowledging its credibility. 

“Know what I think?” he asked eventually. 

Panic gripped my heart—he had not believed the story! He must have heard the falseness in my voice, even through his dense beer-haze. The long-dreaded ‘conversation’ was about to begin. I braced myself for the beginning of the end, and knew that, for better or worse, our lives were about to change irrevocably. 

“I think, when you get down to brass tacks, there’s just no beating the cheeseburger,” Jaimie declared sagely. “Beef, cheese, relish, gherkin—classic combo.” He stood and walked back to the kitchen for yet another beer as he spoke. I breathed a silent sigh of relief in his absence, realising that he had not disbelieved my story after all, he had simply not listened. “See,” Jaimie continued, re-entering the living room, “food trends come, and food trends go, but the restaurant that just does the classics, does them right, and does them with love, I think that restaurant outlives the fads. Still kinda the dream, ain’t it?”

He ripped open the paper bag when his plate was cleared and retrieved the few cold fries that had fallen to the bottom before licking the last crystals of salt from his fingertips. When not one edible molecule remained, Jaimie reclaimed his place on the sofa and resumed his video game. His character re-joined the battle and charged across a bridge spraying red bullets from his gun before being shot in the head by an unseen assailant. The text on the screen informed him that his assassin was playing under the name of D1CKBREATH K1LLA. 

I took the dishes to the kitchen and washed them. 

Did I love any part of him anymore? 

Was anything about him attractive on any level? 

Did anything about us work like it used to? 

We last had sex around five months ago. On his birthday. The last time we had slept together sober… that I could not remember. We had not even had any exchange of words worthy of being called a conversation in weeks. This version of Jaimie appeared to be good only for two things: halving rent and for playing video games—and from the looks of things he was not even very good at that either, it seemed he could barely cross a bridge without being shot by a dick-breathed killer. 

No, I realised, I could no longer even say that I respected the man that I had built a life with. Something would have to be done if our relationship was to be saved, and whatever that something was, I knew that I would have to be the one to do it. I walked back into the living room and found my stomach knotting with the trepidation of someone about to face a deeply unpleasant, but necessary task, such as scouring a dirty oven. I placed myself between Jamie and the TV screen and he screamed like a terrified child at the momentary obstruction. 

“Jamie,” I began, surprised by the formality that I heard in my own voice. 

“What is it?” he replied, tugging off his headphones. “Fucking great—I’m dead now. You just killed me so, you know, thanks for that.”

“Can you pause for a second? This is important.” 

“Duh,” he said, straining to see the screen around me. “There’s no pause in multiplayer—how do you think that would work?” He pushed the microphone close to his mouth, “Commander Bear-Claw to mission control, the missus wants a word. Give ‘em hell, lads.” 

A voice that sounded suspiciously like the voice of a child replied on the other end of the line, saying affirmative. Already my sexual resolve was crumbling, but this was make or break and so I resisted every urge to walk away. 

“Come to bed with me,” I said, swallowing the suffix, “Commander Bear-Claw.” Jamie stared back, perplexed. I forced myself forward, kissing his mouth and ignoring the tang of American cheese and chilli relish as I spoke the words, “I want you. I want to have you right now,” hoping that the insincerity was not too audible. 

Jamie swallowed. His eyes scanned the room, as if they were trying to locate the nearest exit. “Sure,” he replied with the smile of a condemned man, “I’ll be up in a minute, just as soon as we take this fort. The squad has come too far and bled too much to give up on it now, Naomi.” 

Alone, I stripped in the bedroom and opened a long-neglected drawer for lingerie. Inside I saw the red Chemise that I had bought for a romantic retreat on our two-year anniversary. I remembered the way I had slinked confidently from the hotel bathroom into the bedroom, how Jaimie had been stupefied with desire, and how charged our passions had been that evening. Switching off the main bedroom light, I turned on the more forgiving light of the bedside lamp. I then put on the Chemise and stood in front of the full-length mirror, unsure of what feelings to expect. My reflection only stirred embarrassment. I was not the same woman who had once worn it, and he was not that man. Our Chemise deserved better than this sordid affair, the good memories deserved their protection. I climbed naked into bed and pulled the 

covers up to my chin while I waited for the arrival of a man who would quit his videogame to eat a burger, but not to save his relationship. 

Around ten minutes passed before Jamie stepped gingerly into the room. He threw off his dressing gown and apologetically he pulled down his jogging bottoms. He then removed his t-shirt and made his flaccid way towards the bed, his penis slapping against his thighs. When he reached the bed, he bent down to administer a peck on my cheek, as if he were tucking some elderly aunt into her bed. I waited for him to initiate some great passion, or failing that, any level of passion at all. When I realised that absolutely nothing was forthcoming, I took his penis in my hand and massaged it back and forth. Jaimie closed his eyes and did not move. 

There was a tuft of fluff jammed in his belly button. 

He was not hard. 

The belly button fluff was red. 

He had not been wearing anything red for several days. 

I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and opened my mouth, pushing Jaimie inside it, caressing the tip with my tongue until it began to swell and finally the end slid out as he stiffened. Finally—we were getting somewhere. 

It seemed like a long time ago now, but I used to enjoy pleasuring Jaimie this way. I think I was good at it too. Then I would run my hand gently up his inner thigh when doing it, responding to the areas where he was most sensitive. I would feel him vibrate with pleasure and would hear gentle moans and gasps burst involuntarily from his mouth and I would take pride in knowing that I was giving the man I loved the deepest pleasure possible. 

Fired by fervent memories, I threw aside the bedsheets and pulled myself into a crouched position to push Jaimie deeper inside. 

Something smelled. 

Like off yoghurt, or parmesan cheese. 

His unwashed feet. 

I recoiled from the sour aroma and pulled Jaimie onto the bed. I climbed on top of him, persevering until I managed to edge him inside. Jaimie’s arms were rigid by his side. I took his wrists and lifted them behind his head and leaned forward. Gently I began to undulate, kissing his neck with feigned desire and looking deep into his eyes. After just a couple of seconds the intimacy felt unbearable. Jaimie closed his eyes. I straightened my back and looked away. 

Were we both going mentally elsewhere? Were we both just thinking of England? “Almost…” he murmured. “Almost… almost there…” 

He came. 

He then took my hand and kissed the back of it. 

I did not know what to say. 

I simply clambered off. 

Jaimie rolled over and curled up into the fetal position, his back to mine. Within what seemed like moments, he was breathing deep slow breaths that slowly deepened into guttural snoring. 

I lay next to him, staring at the ceiling, feeling his semen trickling onto the bedsheets and trying hard to remember how the early days had felt. Those first times we had slept together. Those first dates. Back then just looking at Jamie had flooded my soul with joy. We used to hold each other’s gaze for what seemed like an eternity, his eyes swimming in a dozen emotions, and the rest of the world would melt away into insignificance around us. Sometimes he would laugh—this cute expression of genuine happiness and adoration that he could not hope to contain. 

Even the nothing days felt filled somehow, because all either of us seemed to need was each other. I used to believe that it would always be that good between us, that we would never deteriorate or stagnate—not me and Jamie. I had believed this because true love is a powerful force, inarguable and pure, a force that had charged every atom of my being with life and satisfaction. Inarguable and pure. My current feelings towards the man sharing my bed were anything but. Clearly, every atom of my being had been mistaken. 

When exactly did our decline start? Was it once he turned my company down to drink another tin of beer alone, watching cartoons and capturing forts as Commander Bear-Claw? Or had it been something that I had done? He had said several times that I looked down on him for his lack of education and unintellectual interests. Did I? Do I make him feel excluded or unwelcome? All I could say for certain was that nine years together had amounted to little more than a semi-unpacked BBQ pit and an empire of virtual forts flying the Bear-Claw flag. 

The embers of this liminal love burned cold for now, but as the world outside our bedroom window quietened and stilled my mind swam with bleak visions of our shared future: I saw us both lapsing into heavy drinking, wanking privately to pornography, and reluctant strings of sad and disparate affairs. 

I was still awake past midnight, thinking about the bedroom that I had grown up in, and how I had returned from my first Christmas at university to find my posters removed from walls that had been repainted in soft pastel colours, and that a brand-new bed and mattress had been installed. I was told that my father had moved into the room the moment I had vacated it, and that his occupation would be permanent. My young mind had thought it profoundly strange that a couple would sleep in separate beds, in separate rooms, and I had declared that I would share my bed with my love until our hairs were grey and our skin wrinkled together. 

The thought almost drew notes of bitter laughter. My bed had long-since ceased to be a place of rest. These days it was not unusual for me to lay just as I was then, sleepless for hours, the snoring and thrashing of the man next to me a constant agitation, his acrid and alcoholic breath wafting intermittently over the pillows. I had no idea how he was so able to sleep—or for that matter, how he was so able to participate daily in this zombified relationship. 

There was no way that Jaimie was happy either. Was he then forcing me to play the villain’s role in our imminent separation, outlasting me in these miserable trials, until my endurance would finally fail, and I would be forced into pulling the trigger? I could picture him then, drinking in the living rooms of friends and bars across the city, indulging the victim-complexes and alcohol dependencies that were becoming his defining characteristics, moaning about the woman who had left him—her cold heart the only logical cause for the relationship’s end. 

As I watched him sleep his peaceful sleep I felt it once again—a tightness that began like ropes wrapping around my chest before they squeezed hard. I wanted him to understand exactly how it felt to be smothered and stifled; I needed him to understand how it felt to drown in the deep of the night. 

The clock on my bedside cabinet counted the wasted hours, mourning each minute of squandered rest. It was 4 AM. Sleeping, Jaimie rolled onto his back and his mouth fell open. I sat up, my throat arid and apprehensive. The rapid thud-thud-thud of my heart pounded in my ears, getting ever-louder, until it filled the entire room. It got louder still as I watched him. The force of my hammering heart constricting the walls around us, shaking the ceiling, and causing the floor to rumble below us. I knew that his eyes would soon snap open if I did not force my will into action. 

My nerves could not be seen in the steady shadows of my fingers, and that they did not cloud my mind with doubt about what must be done. I sat upright. I took firm hold of my pillow, and I fell upon him in his sleep, pressing the pillow hard against his face. He thrashed with wild instinct—his voice faint and muffled—and his panic made him strong. I leaned in with all my weight and strength, keeping the pressure firm and steady over his face. The bedsheets held down his kicking legs, but his hands, grasping air initially in their wild alarm, soon found me. He grabbed at my arms with such force that my skin broke beneath his clawing fingertips and his greater strength began to force my grip to release. He writhed beneath me like a hooked fish until I matched his desperation in this sudden battle to stay alive, pushing my whole body over the pillow, pressing with my knees even as my arms relented. He pushed back with a final surge of energy that almost succeeded in throwing me off of him and for a dreadful split-second I lost my grip on the pillow. 

Our race was brief and brutal. He came terrifyingly close to freeing himself and drawing that one crucial breath, but I just beat him, reclaiming hold of the pillow I pushed down with inexorable purpose, until beneath me he performed a futile death-throes dance. When he finally stilled, I let go and rolled onto my back, lying beside his body to stare into the void once more. 

There was always some indeterminable time before daybreak when my tired mind would wind away from memories and fantasies, and for a few private hours my imagination would craft abstracted sequences that did not feature Jamie, work, or money, or anything that smelled of reality. I would simply float through whole other lives, unfettered and free, until the mechanical peals of my bedside alarm would signal the start of another day. 

It was five thirty, and an unexpected flash of blue light took me from reverie. I sat up and snatched my phone from the floor. A message had come from an unknown number, and when I saw the name of the sender, I could not swallow a gasp of shock. “What’s up?” Jaimie grunted, stirring from his sleep. 

“Nothing at all,” I replied, locking the screen and returning the room to darkness.