The Bed Book of Short Stories

Desire, with Borders

32 Desire, with Borders Arja Salafranca It was a type of desire. It was a desire without love, a desire with borders. If you shut your eyes it could be any man, no names, just a man, fulfilling what a man is supposed to do. It was a hot February night in Johannesburg and the windows couldn’t be opened wide or the cat would get out. She didn’t want the cat to get out, her female tabby was a shy frightened thing, easily terrorised by the Toms in the neighbourhood. And instead of a man with no name, he had a name. An exboyfriend , an ex-boyfriend who was now in the process of becoming involved with another woman, yet here they were, naked on her bed, hot, but still close enough for him to roll on top of her, to kiss her, to awaken something. It had been years since they had parted, years in which they had remained friends. The spark of sexuality had long died, but here they were. If she closed her eyes, he could be anyone she desired; or wanted to make a life with. But instead she closed her eyes, accepting it; this newly sprung desire. He was not someone else, he was himself, and she didn’t care. Accepting it, holding him. Now that he was finally on the cusp of moving away from her, involved with another, she clung to him. Holding him. She didn’t want him anymore, but she didn’t want to let him go. It wasn’t even fair to him, and as she held him and was moved by him, she wondered guiltily if what she was doing was wrong. Was she giving him false hope? Destroying his chances of a new life without her, even as she was no longer prepared to love him? In the end, they stopped. They had no condoms; she was not on the pill anymore. The desire ebbed away as quickly as it had come. ‘I’ll bring condoms next time,’ he said. 33 She nodded then, but days later, she knew that even if he brought condoms next time, there would be no going back. She’d release him to this other woman; perhaps it would free her too. * * * The writer stops tapping at her keyboard. It’s not going right. She has a commission to write an erotic short story for an anthology of local women writers, and she’s having problems trying to think of an idea, a story that will go beyond sex. Truth is it’s been a while since she has been able to write any kind of story, erotic or not. It’s filled her with a quiet raging despair. She’s meant to be a writer and hasn’t produced anything that has met with enthusiasm, from herself or others in what, how long? Who knows. Rather not count or think about it. The man, the ex, said you go through waves, periods when you’re creative and productive, and other times you must just wait, lie fallow, live, laugh, love, do whatever it is you need to replenish the well. She wonders idly if she would ever be invited into the lives of her characters. What if she met them, a list of the characters she’s created, drinking cappuccinos in a coffee shop, all together. What if they were friends? Of course they wouldn’t invite her. The people she creates are not friends. She doubts she would like to get to know them: a lesbian who kills her lover in one short story, a gay man who is too afraid to live in another, a couple in their 60s, soul mates all life long, and yet the one married to another woman, and they carry on having their clandestine affair. Or the fat women described in one story, eating her way into unhappiness, growing bigger, her face blown out of proportion by the extra weight. No, these are not friends, although it is fun to peer into their world, to muse on the possibility of creating friends, the way you create characters. They are born, seemingly without your intervention, they live on a page, and you go along with these creations, as oblivious as to the why or how. You’re not really an omniscient God: you are not six years old, playing with Barbie, stuffing cloth in front of her stomach to make her pregnant, in total...