Eva and Diego

Boredom leads to evil, but in the meantime there was an August when I still loved my husband. It went like this.

‘Nothing that will involve spending.’

The sentence resounded in the nursery. A boy rushes in crying. Diego bends down, picks him up and hoists him on to his shoulders. He is smiling. He’s smiling at me while the boy’s tears drip over his head. I take a deep breath, look at my watch and try to kiss him. ‘Not here, Eva.’

Nothing that will involve spending, I think.

I leave the nursery and get into my car. I drive in the direction of home. En route I listen to music. I drive up and down a number of times before I find a parking space. Then I go up to our place. I look at my face in the lift mirror. I peer closely at my face in the lift mirror. I’m tired.

I’ve put my bag on the table and opened it. I’ve just bought an iPod. I take it out of its packaging and fill a couple of hours with everything an iPod has to offer before it even plays the first song. When I’ve succeeded in putting thirty-four songs on my iPod, I put my headset on and press the bottom part of the wheel. It’s the first song.

I move through our apartment to the first song.

I look through the window to the first song.

I’ve just stretched out on my bed to the first song.

And when the second starts playing, when I’m all relaxed on the counterpane on our double bed, shoes off, eyes shut, I start touching myself over my panties, I start touching myself under my panties, I start masturbating thinking about a man who isn’t Diego.

It went like this.