Words by

Beerman

He was doing well and, as is usually the case with people who are doing well, he looked good. So good that the girl I was talking to came over again. He motioned her away. “Aren´t you interested?” I asked, astounded as a beggar who had just witnessed a man throw away a three-course meal. “I have a girlfriend,” he said. “But still…,” I added. Was it true what they said? That one day you would fall in love, and have eyes for no one but the one you love? That your days of constantly longing for what you have not would finally be over?
“You didn´t wanna fuck her?” I asked. “Of course I did,” he replied. “So let us say I had, left my girlfriend and went off with her. Before too long, I´d just become interested in someone else. And the whole vicious cycle would repeat itself. So you might as well be content with what you have.”
This was too Zen for me. I went downstairs. It was nearing closing time at Bar Eleven. The stragglers had all been piled into the first floor, and there was still a queue outside. Somewhere inside the trampling throng, Chlamydia Girl motioned me over. Who had time for self-respect in a place like this? I went over.
We went outside. Chlamydia Girl told me she had a boyfriend now. A forty-year-old from Mosfellsbær. This, she said, is why she had no interest in sleeping with me. Of course she had to drag me out to tell me this. I looked at the queue. In the distance, the sun was already coming up over Esjan. The minutes until closing time were ticking away, and there was no way to get back inside. I had no choice now. Since Chlamydia Girl had ruined whatever slim possibilities I might have had in there, I had but one option left. I had to bed her.
We walked on. We stopped by a closed bookstore, which was just in the direction of my place. She stopped and commented on the girls on the cover of some modelling book. “I only have eyes for you, Chlamydia Girl,” I told her. We walked on, edging closer in the direction of my place, as I moved closer to her. Her phone rang. It was Chlamydia Guy. “I´m with a guy I met at the bar,” she told him. “We seem to be on the way to his place.”
I hoped Chlamydia Guy wasn´t the jealous type. We stopped by my place. She asked to use the bathroom. She went in and I sat on the bed, not having much else to sit on. She came out of the bathroom and lay down on the bed beside me. I closed my eyes and she started talking, something about the evil of the world and how hard it was to find someone to love. I knew enough to know that you were supposed to pretend you were interested in what they had to say at this point. I put my arm around her. Her phone rang again and she got up. Chlamydia Guy was calling again to ask where she was. “I´m in some guy´s bed,” she said. “No, we´re just talking,” she added in response to Chlamydia Guy´s inquiry. She wasn´t lying. She lay down beside me again. “I have to go,” she said, “before I do something I´ll have to be dishonest about. Honesty is important,” she added on her way out. At least Chlamydia Guy would always know where he had her.