Another Door Opens

33 - Walking under ladders, killing ladybugs, smashing mirrors, and black cats

- EDEN -

I must have walked under about a thousand ladders in my previous lives. Killed a bunch of ladybugs, smashed just as many mirrors. Had litters upon litters of black cats cross my path. Forgot to toss salt over my shoulder every time I used the shaker.

It's the only explanation for why I'm currently naked in my most recent date's bed, pretending to be sleeping while trying not to gag as I listened to said date violently firing diarrhoea out his butt and late night kebabs, beer and stomach bile from his mouth in the ensuite attached to his bedroom.

Being the light sleeper I am, I heard him wake and rush to the bathroom with what I'm assuming is food poisoning from the kebab food truck snack we got on the way to his house after the bar. He tried hard to mask the sound of what was happening in there by turning on the shower, and I assume did the same with the air freshener in trying to overpower the various assortment of unhappy bodily fluids currently being expelled from both ends.

I'm battling my conscience to determine how bad it would be for me to get dressed really quickly, grab my things and bolt. Leg it to my car and literally speed off, never looking back. Unfortunately I had exchanged actual text messages with this one instead of just sticking to the message function in the dating app, so he'd have my number to text or call and ask where I went. 

There is always the block function, I suppose?

But having been, as they say, ‘ghosted’ myself now, I know how much it sucks and how demeaning it can be, and so wouldn't do the same to anyone, no matter how awkward.

And it is most definitely awkward. Even more so because when I went to pee after we had sex, there was very little toilet paper left and I had a little freak out. I even snooped in his cupboards while I was in there to check if there was any more because I didn't want to be the one to finish a roll and not replace it, and I'd had a few drinks and so would inevitably need to pee again after breaking the seal.

I don't even want to speculate what he's using to clean himself.

This poor guy has literally been in the bathroom, spurting from both ends, with what I imagine was no toilet paper at all about half an hour ago.

The water shut off and I frantically tried to decide what the best course of action was: pretend I’m asleep and therefore didn’t hear his violent unwellness, or own up to having been awake and offer to head home to give him some space.

My decision was made much more easy when he opened the door to the bathroom to come back to bed and I was hit with a sickening stench of diarrhoea, stomach bile and cheap air freshener that wasn’t worth whatever he paid for it for how limited its smell-masking qualities were.

How I managed to not vomit myself is honestly astounding. 

If I’ve ever seen a person more mortified, I don’t think I can recall it. Walking out of his bathroom, he looked like he’d probably wish to be literally anywhere else than his own bedroom right now.

“So, you’re clearly not well,” I said sympathetically. I would honestly die if I found myself in his position, with food poisoning with a date I’d just hooked up with asleep in an adjacent room. He looked like he wanted to by the way he bowed and shook his head. “Would it be best if I headed home?”

It’s not like I don’t want to stay and help him through this. If he asked me to, I probably would; but I don’t know what help I’m going to be here. Probably just continue to make the poor thing feel even more embarrassed, which I feel is probably the reason underlying his agreement that I should go home.

I gathered my clothes from the floor, racing to put them back on at record speeds and locating my handbag, keys and phone, and was ushered out the door with barely a goodbye. Walking past what I believe was the bathroom window on my way towards where my car was parked on the street, I learned why through the grotesque sounds of Round 2, or whatever number the poor guy is up to in expelling every single shred of food and drink from his stomach that he’d consumed in the past however many hours.