He's Got To Go

by Ash Penn

My intention, when I arrived home from work that evening was to slip straight into bed for a rare early night. Having brushed my teeth, stripped off my shirt and unzipped my jeans, I was en route to my bedroom when I caught sight of a light spilling under the kitchen door.

I nudged it open to find find my flatmate’s hulk of a boyfriend sprawled in a chair, bare feet on the table, half asleep with a glass of what looked and smelled like whisky in his hand.

‘What are you doing here?" I asked, edging towards a kilo of bacon crackling on the hob.

He lifted heavy eyelids towards me, his pupils tiny dots surrounded by a murky brown sludge. “Could ya rustle that up ‘tween a couple slices of bread?” He nodded at the contents of the cooling pan. Me, a sucker for doped up eyes and a cocky smile, set about rounding up the butter and bread.

“Clare’s working till six. She told you that, right?” I said, setting the plate down next to a half empty bottle of Jack Daniels.

“Yeah." I became the focus of another unappetising squint. “Don’t think much of me, do you?”

“Believe me, Peter, I try not to think about you at all,” I said, taking a couple of steps back from the table.

“Oh, deah boy! Don’t trouble yourself on my account.” Pete downed his whisky then reached for the sandwich. “You can be a right twat, y’know?”

“Whatever,” I sighed, in no mood for an argument. “Just eat up and leave. I want to go to bed.”

“Alone for once, huh?” Pete muttered, cramming half the sandwich into his mouth.

“Sorry?”

He finished chewing, swallowed, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Just an observation. We note that kind of thing."

I raised an eyebrow. “We?”

“Clare and me.” He shrugged. “She don’t like so many blokes in and out of here all the time.”

“What’s up, Peter? Jealous?”

“Fuck off.” His face darkened. “You’re the one coming in here with your keks around your knackers.”

When I glanced down my fly was indeed undone, allowing more than a glimpse of tackle to peer through. "You had to have looked to notice," I said, turning away to hitch my pants back up.

“Sure,” he said as though it had been obvious all along. “I looked.”

I swung back round and gazed down on him in disbelief. My fingers brittle on my fly, unable to budge the zip. “What?”

He stood up and took a couple of steps toward me as I shuffled back, trying to hold myself together in a semblance of decency.

“I said, I looked.” His eye crawl made me shudder, not entirely with revulsion. “I know you've been perving at me for ages. I can’t even shower without you peering round the curtain to gawk at me nob.”

“That was a genuine mistake,” I said, blushing.

“As if,” he snorted, backing me up against the fridge. He leaned towards me, eyelids drooping, mouth open. I could almost taste those meaty, saliva flecked lips on mine. My eyes fluttered closed for the kiss, but all I got was, “Yeah, right. You dirty little poofter. Dream on.”

I opened my eyes to Pete grinning like a manic fool. I blinked, battling the first tingle of humiliation as he lumbered away, still laughing, even when I couldn’t see him anymore. A moment later I head Claire’s bedroom door open and close.

Well, wasn’t he a great big chubby bundle of charm? Filthy tease. He wasn’t going to get away with that. I began to scheme. When I could hear his snores vibrate through the walls, I sneaked into Clare’s room shimmied out of my jeans and slipped into bed, careful not to wake the slumbering hunk of flesh next to me. At one point I must have dropped off despite Pete’s thunderous nasal breaths, because I woke to discover a heavy arm draped across my stomach and the room ablaze in artificial light.

Clare stood in the doorway, staring at the bed, or, more precisely, at us in it. Pete grunted awake, saw me, did a comedy double take and struggled up the bed, agile as a beached walrus. He looked around in bleary-eyed confusion while I clutched at the sheets like a pious virgin recently pillaged.

“Clare!” he cried, noticing her for the first time. “I never…this ain’t what it… .”

“Clare,” I said, weary of Peter’s inability to complete a sentence. “This is most unfortunate. I usually leave before he…uh, damn. I mean, this hasn't happened before, has it Peter?”

“What?” Pete blustered, still not quite certain of what was going on. “No! Clare, you can't think... .”

Evidently, she did. And, without a word she turned and walked out. As soon as the front door slammed shut I leapt out of bed and reached for my jeans.

“Asshole! You set me up.” Pete lunged at me, missed, then floundered around on the bed, by which time I’d reached relative safety by the door.

“Your word against mine. Who d'you think she's going believe? You see, Peter, I might be 'a filthy little poofter' as you so eloquently put it, but I’m also the biggest bitch you’ll ever likely to meet. Get up, get dressed, and get out. She's all done with you.”

Pete shook his head in disbelief. “You are one twisted homo,” he muttered, reaching for his clothes.

“Yes,” I said, pulling open the door. For once, he and I were in total agreement.