SLOWLY, SOFTLY

Almost unnoticed, the faint orange glow of the city had appeared on the horizon, melting away the inky
night, like dripping paint that defied gravity, seeping insidiously up its dark canvas. As a child, he had
been afraid of the dark; how silly he thought, outrageous… And yet, some of that infantile uncertainty
still remained, a fear of the unknown, of something beyond his control. Now, there was no bogie man,
no monsters under the bed, but there was always the unexpected. He peered out the rain-spattered
windows, as if to seek out some enemy that lay by the wayside, but there was none.

In driving, he derived the greatest pleasure from that same sensation of total control, however illusory it
might actually be. As he caressed the steering wheel and opened the throttle on the dual carriageway,
he ruminated on the mystical power of speed. When he ignited the asphalt with the blaze of burning
rubber, his female companion was always exhilarated, and when he stopped at the customary spot by
the lake, the girl’s sensations were numbed with excitement and vulnerability. In short, her body would
flow like water at his delicate (and meticulously rehearsed) routine.

She stirred in the passenger seat beside him, stretching her slender limbs like a child reviving after a
mid-afternoon nap. Her head lolled towards him, and a curtain of shimmering amber hair shrouded her
face. She flicked it away with a practiced, graceful wave of her porcelain hands. That dreamy twilight
countenance was in her eyes, that look of comfort, of infatuation, of completeness. He struggled to
focus on the road ahead. He knew that if he took one glance, he would be lost forever in her gaze, so he
stared forward, counting the cats’ eyes that defined the road margin, ‘til they flashed by in one
continuous line, like in a long exposure photo. A tremendous peace enveloped him. There were no
beasts in the dark that could break this cocoon of calm.

She deftly parted her full glossy lips, then promptly pursed them again, as if to pause and consider her
statement. A moment’s deliberation, followed by certainty. Her sincerity, her abhorrence of pretence;
that was the quality of hers which impressed him most – quite possibly because this was his antithesis.

“I love you,” she drowsily sighed, and her words hung in the air, a cloud of poison perfume.

Akin to hunted prey, he smelt the danger, with a male instinct honed by years of tackling that most
erratic and unpredictable of adversarial species, the giggling teenage girl. The milliseconds whizzed by
like hours. The murmur of traffic pounded his eardrums like the roar of the Niagara Falls. The misty
drizzle peppered the windscreen like a submachine gun, and wipers swished back and forth, unable to
remove the oceans of water that seemed to cascade violently down the glass.

Inside, he wilted, but he retained his suavity, his expressionless, demure façade. Shit. What the fuck
was he going to say? Indeed, there was a time and a place for honesty - and this sure as hell wasn’t it.
He should have been prepared for this, he should have seen it coming, but… He didn’t want to commit,
unquestionably, but he didn’t want to turn her away either. He needed to reply, and fast. You could
learn anything and everything in university, but the most important lessons were somewhat of a trade
secret, taught only by experience. If he were a girl, what would he want to hear? A chorus of voices
sounded those three little (but ultimately fucking crucial) words, over and over again. And the faster he
ran from the heartfelt truth, the more he stood still at his original conclusion. Surely not an echo
response, and all the consequences it entailed –

They would be married within four years; settle down in suburbia and dream of riches, eternal
happiness, and a future home in the countryside; as the glow of the honeymooners subsided, they
would have two kids, a boy, Paul, and a girl, Aoife. She would have to give up her job to take care of
the little rascals, while he would have to take on extra hours to keep the steadily sinking vessel of the
household afloat. What passion there was in the relationship would be extinguished with parenthood,
and they would have to be content with their lot. Their parasitic offspring would eventually move out in
their late twenties, and despite the thousands spent on their education, would opt for a life of organic
farming and join a new self-sufficient Buddhist community in Connemara. The pensioner couple would
retire to that house in the countryside; not a mansion as they had envisioned but a modest cottage.
Through a dearth of care, hedges would become overgrown, ivy would silently clamber up the walls,
until the cottage was just as decrepit and forlorn as its inhabitants. Senility and sterility would
inevitably take hold until they died in their sleep on a frosty November night, when they had long since
dispensed with clinging to each other’s withered, spindly forms for warmth.

Then it clicked. He regained control. Handel’s Alleluia reverberated in the cathedral of his enlightened
mind. “Jonny, my boy, that agile, socially aware brain of yours has done it again,” he smugly thought.
He had formulated the perfect reply – not too hot, not too cold, noncommittal but affectionate.
Lukewarm - in the very best sense of the word, of course.

“I like you very much too,” he coolly gushed.

It was a cold and lonely walk home in the driving rain.