1.

You never know someone until you’ve hurt them.

What goes unsaid, unmeasured is what does the most effective job.

Combine the two and you create the perfect means to destroy your life.

You’re not thinking about rebuilding as the sky caves in.

The knowledge of how this is all self-inflicted adds to the weight of what comes down on you.

Hell is pressure without the possibility of relief.

Infidelity, like most lies about love and relationships, is less a means to advance your sexual agenda than a chance to experience an acute and voluntary shame. You nurse it like a poisonous child, and it drains you until your bones are hollow and each breath aches with the fear of discovery. You’ll beg anyone who finds out to bear the burden along with you. It is so heavy they will hate you for it.

I don’t say these things to re-frame my culpability.

It was a means of getting the sex which had died in my marriage. There is a terrible allure to being desired, it is like access to a drug which alters your perceptions. If I think of her, or see her, then there is a faint embarrassment at her face and shape. A plain, overweight redhead who seldom wore makeup, wore Triumph bras and fucked me with a ferocity which left me gasping.

She smelled of talcum powder and oranges.

My ex wife smelled of berries and white wine. The good stuff even though she seldom drank anything other than Lambrini or Baileys at Christmas.

My fiancee smells of coconut and butter.

I carry the faint stink of potted meat, popcorn grease and rancid butter. My breath carries a hint of acetone as my body is in a constant state of ketosis from not eating.

Scent is an appropriate way to gauge someone’s health or well-being. 

Now, sir, if you’d like to make your selection.