The sad man who might replace you.

I can't leave the house. I am not presentable. I am a man in a cartoon who stalks the streets with an umbrella, a small cloud following him about, raining down upon him, leaving everyone else sunny and dry. I lock myself away and I might drown from the lake it is creating.

I dream of a sex shop. I dream that he is buying vibrators, this man who is sadder even than I am now. I see him in real life and I recognise him for what he is, this man of rain, his own little invisible cloud. He makes a joke and I recognise the desperation in the delivery. See, he says, I am happy, and my heart goes out to him.

In the dream we meet in the sex shop. He is looking at vibrators and he has no skill in this. He picks up the flashy ones, the all-style-no-substance gel covered ones. I whisper to him. I talk about the tiny secret device that I have recently purchased and carry around in my handbag. Just one look at it can elicit a slideshow of memories. It is a single-purpose object. My one sure thing. I show it to him. I have never shown it to anyone else, but he is as sad as I am and I recognise this in him. He wants one. He wants a dozen of them. The girl at the checkout disappears into the back room and returns with a handful of them but they are not the same sleek silver bullets. They are nothing like mine. They are camouflage coloured. He touches each one with a finger and they pop up and make a sound, not a vibrator whirr but when I lean my head towards them they are ticking. Each one a little detonation a line of little time bombs.

I know each orgasm explodes in my body with too much ferocity. I know that the uncontrollable spasm that overtakes my entire body is more forceful than it should be. I know that I return to sex as if it were a drug, full of need and sleepless with it. I know that this is all a part of my addiction, but would I let them take that away from me? Would I sacrifice the whole-body pleasure for a chance to be nice and to be liked?

I hurt you and you are confused by this and I am sad and sorry. Stay back I say in dream and in life. Make room. These little camouflaged eggs will explode so furiously that you will be damaged by shrapnel. You are wary. You take a step back. You know that it is true, the sex and the writing have force enough to tear me into pieces. You have seen the aftershocks first hand.

In my dream the sad man leans his head against the table and watches the ticking eggs resigned to the fury. I want to throw myself on top of him, protect him from the blast. But he is like me. I see it. I sense his vulnerability and the potential for him to cause damage. He could be my next person. I could turn my back on you, release you into the safe, gentle hands of someone who believes in love and romance and who falls for the idea of you without even knowing who you are. I should. But you have become a part of me, a limb caught in a trap. I must gnaw it off to free you from me.

I put my head on the table beside the ticking eggs.

You are still a part of me, but any day now I will be obliterated.