St Valentine's Day

This year St Valentine's in on a Sunday.
For a long time now I've been asking her to set a day aside to go out of town. All three of us. I felt it would do good to our daughter - different environment form our home and the town that were the setting of all the sad or traumatic things she's gone through.

On the day they leave before noon, to do some shopping I'm sure. Some time after midday I call her and ask when they'll be back. 'I'm ready and getting impatient', I explain. When they come back, she suggests .... doing it on another day as it's getting late. I start boiling inside, but show only half of it to her. 'No way. I've asked you for it for days or weeks now'. I'm all the more angry, because my guess is that she wants to see him in the afternoon and may not be able to fit it in comfortably if we go. But I don't give in and we do go.

The sat-nav shows that it would take us over an hour to get to the destination I chose. 'We can't make it. It's too late now'. I snap and shout at her. When I calm down I suggest another destination, much closer. Another argument follows when she refuses to set off (she drives) until the sat-nav, with which I struggle, is set, even thought I give her exact directions as I know the place.

When we finally get there, we all like it. It's good to leave the city behind even for a couple of hours. On our way back I suggest we watch a film together, which is met with a lukewarm acceptance. (I assume then she must have already seen him).

We come back pretty late. I was in church in the morning, they go now. After the mass, our daughter comes back home on her own. 'Mum had to go to take some materials to one of the memebers of her team (she's an area manager). I don't like it and call her. 'We were supposed to watch a film together?!' 'I need to buy something at the local supermarket', (the only store open so late now) she explains. 'And help one of my agents with a form he can't sort out on his own. Back in half an hour'.

Over an hour passes before she comes through the door. I've already given up on the film. She pretends to be apologetic and apparently still ready to watch the film. She takes her overcoat. Her belt unfastened and zipper in her jeans done half way up.

I hate her quietly and despondently. There is also a hint of envy of the mad, reckless desire and love they indulge themselves in. 'You haven't done your jeans up properly', I point out aloud and give up. Everything, I guess.

Watch me!

A cool period.

She goes about her own business, pleasure, kicks. I am philosophical, relaxed, a little bit thrilled about the new life that lays open in front of me. There is a place in it for her - and always will be - but she's in retrospective now, or so I think a lot of the time (I don't want to talk about other times now).

The other day I took a bath in the middle of the day. She was getting ready to leave for an appointment. Or a hot, mid-day love and sex session. She wants something from the bathroom and when she enters I have an erection.

'Touch me', I ask on the spur of the moment (and the erection).
She looks at me clinically, curiously and coldly. 'No', she replies, but keeps looking at me. I start masturbating. 'Just watch me', I beg. She looks down on me, in both senses. I can't say whether she pities me or despises me more. In the background of her eyes, there is something that I cannot discern: is it a trace of arousal?

I'm not to find out as I ejaculate, she takes her eyes off my penis, looks at me in a way that I do't know how to interpret and closes the bathroom door

'Thank you', I say before she leaves the flat.