Idiopathy

He
was
a prick. It was true. After all, what had he really asked her? What expression of concern or care, however small, had he really shown? But then, it was difficult to tell. She hadn’t given him much of a chance.
    It was only after a considerable period of time, during which Katherine continued to hold her hands around the now cold mug of coffee and stare out of the window at the thickening winter gloom, that the realisation solidified inside her that she was actually going to see Daniel. She couldn’t quite remember why she’d wanted to see him, and why, specifically, she had wanted to force him into it, but it had seemed desperately important that she did so. Now this was achieved, she was surprised to find herself needled by fear. How exactly
were
they supposed to sit down together and talk? She couldn’t determine why or at what point their finely held balance had fallen apart. There was, after all, no definitive transgression. Perhaps, she thought, that was exactly the problem. Without the certainty of the unforgivable, they had been forced to cope with the ambiguity of the irreconcilable. Maybe one of them should have just gone out and fucked someone else, she thought, then at least they could have hated each other properly. But Daniel, of course, would never have done that.
    The thought led naturally to thoughts of sex, about which she was still divided. The idea repulsed her, but the repulsion was enticing. At night, in bed, her insides writhed with life and hunger. In her dreams, tiny hands poked at the edges of her face. She was not certain she was in the right condition to meet Daniel. Her desperation was spraying off in multiple directions. She wondered about a safety fuck, then wondered where she might secure one now Keith was supposedly cured. She thought about Claire Demoines in her desperate tights and wanted quite strongly to harm her. The idea of sleeping with Keith was disgusting, and just what she needed.

    S he lay in wait for him near the stairs at work; grabbed his wrist and snapped his rubber band.
    ‘Ow,’ he whined, rubbing his wrist.
    ‘Disabled toilets,’ she said. ‘Five minutes.’
    ‘You’re nuts,’ said Keith.
    ‘Five minutes,’ she said, reaching for his cock. ‘Fuck or flee.’
    She sat in the disabled toilet and waited. She gave him fifteen minutes, then fingered herself and started to cry.
    Back at her desk she had two new emails, both from Debbie.
    Jesus, is it just me or is K like utterly pathetic?
said the first one.
    Sorry
, said the second.
Sent to you by mistake.

    T he day they met was cold and sharply bright. Daniel arrived early and, despite the icy air, chose an outside table so Katherine could smoke. They’d agreed on a place about which neither of them was particularly enthusiastic. Neutrality was critical. Neither of them wanted to be anywhere the other seemed too comfortable, or anywhere they had once been comfortable together. Everything, they seemed to agree, should be as mundane as possible. The upshot, agreed upon but never discussed, was that they were going to try and get through a reasonable duration of time without hurting each other.
    There was a sense of security in sitting outside. He didn’t feel hemmed in. He felt that the notional concept of ‘leaving’ was something that existed only two footsteps away, with no doors or obstacles between him and it. He wore his black woollen coat and a cashmere scarf and a pale pink shirt he ordinarily reserved for important meetings, but Katherine would not see it because Daniel would not take off his coat.
    He was, he realised, flirting with nostalgia the way he usually flirted with illness. There was something nostalgic going around. He liked the idea but didn’t want to get all the way stricken, and didn’t want it to prove catching. Certain things, though, arose unbidden. Their first date, never actually described as such, had been for coffee. Katherine had devoted two sly weeks to making him uncomfortable, culminating in her breezing up to his desk and saying ‘Look, I know you want to ask me out for coffee, so you might as well just get it over with.’ He hadn’t questioned whether he wanted to ask her out for coffee until long after he’d asked her out for coffee. Such was Katherine’s way, he thought. You did things, became things in increments, until eventually you were recognisable only to her.
    Exactly ten minutes later than the agreed time he clocked her coming up the street,