This is not a good time to get dodgy.

I watch my mobile, as if my doubt, my irritation, my desire to hear from him, has the power to telepathically travel to Valentijn and push the right button for him to reply. To my text. To my email. But the phone stays silent. And Hotmail gives an empty inbox-tab left to my Facebook chat.

“ How is everything with your boyfriend?” Nubian Prince types. “ I was so happy you found someone.”
Me too love. Me too.

One week ago. The last hour with Valentijn, before he turned cranky, evasive, and unavailable. Nightfall. My mango curry was coming along nicely. Valentijn was using my computer. Our favourite sex toy and condoms already back in the bedside cabinet. The cats were sleeping in the ruffed up duvet on the couch. Spotify and Facebook. I didn’t ask Valentijn why he  wasn’t doing the work he said he would.

“ I’m doing really good,”  I lie to Nubian Prince.  Valentijn’s dancing. His near-marriage proposals. All the sex fantasies he massaged, seduced or forced out of me.  I soak my mind in four months of bliss.
“ You’re not going to lose me,” Valentijn’s last email said.
My heart presses to my chest, then yanks away in uncertainty.
“ I‘m so happy for you,”  Nubian Prince says, to an answer I must have typed, or a question I must have missed.

A white towel turns to black, and leaves traces of dust on ebony skin.
Blue eyes turn brown, and a blinding white smile kisses my cheek.
Dark fantasies sink back into my subconscious, and an old memory emerges. Nubian Prince and I making love. I was in my period.

“ How do we end? A kiss? Hug? Ciao?” I chat type to Nubian Prince, after our goodbye dialogue has fallen into silence.
“ A kiss definitely,” he answers. “ And we add: see you very soon.”

Valentijn. This is not the time to get dodgy.

*

On Saturday November 19, 4:35 pm, five minutes after I saved this draft blogpost, Valentijn called and broke up with me