Melissaphobia (Part 2: The Midnight Men)

I don't sleep at night (have you noticed most of my posts are at 4 fricken AM?). My job requires me to be at work promptly at four in the afternoon, sometimes as late as six. I'm done at midnightish, and completely wired when I get home. My life has been like this for the majority of the last three years.

When I first moved in with Melissa, I had yet to buy my bed (best purchase ever), so I was sleeping on the living room couch. I'd invited my friend and coworker Quentin over to play cards. Nothing sleazy, just cards. This was before the madness that is spectator poker. This was merely Cribbage, a game I was once damn good at.

Around 12:15 I heard a key turning in the lock. Melissa was already home. I was already home. There were only two of us. Had Gussy gone outside on her own? If so, why?

A man in his early forties in desperate need of a shave and a shower walked in, blinked curiously at Quentin and I and continued on his way down the hall to Melissa's room. I was puzzled until I heard the sounds of someone trying to quietly fuck. Ahhhh, the boyfriend.

This happened several times through the course of the year that Melissa and I lived together. But it was never the same guy twice. I wondered whether she gave her one spare key out to people she met at bars or whether she always set the key in a plastic Easter egg, and hid the egg in a different location, perhaps putting out ads in magazines or The Internet with directions to where the egg was located. The ad would read: "Want to fuck a moderately attractive girl with dependency issues while being watched and barked at by a miniature dachshund? Go to Pope Hill Park, find the easter egg under the monkey bars in the playground, and follow the directions inside. Bring condoms and rawhide bones."

The only Midnight Man who ever caught my attention was The Coke guy.

I love me some Cherry Coke. One night at around three I went into the kitchen, surprised to find a moderately attractive man in boxers drinking the last of my Cherry Coke.

"This yours?" he asked.

"Yea."

"Sorry, I was really thirsty. I'll replace it tomorrow."

He didn't know what I knew. There was no tomorrow in our house for Midnight Men. Melissa was burying herself under a pile of anonymous men in a pathetic attempt to disguise the fact that nobody loved her enough to commit to her. Maybe we had more in common than I thought.

There was no Cherry Coke in the fridge the next day, but he had blocked up the toilet.

About a week later, I was in the middle of writing when the doorbell rang. There was a Coke truck outside. On the doorstep was Midnight Man with ten cases of Cherry Coke.

"Sorry bout the delay. I'm a little mad at Melissa, but I felt bad about taking the last of your Coke. She tells me you pretty much live off the stuff. Hope you enjoy this. Oh, and don't tell Melissa I said Hi."

I wanted to fuck him right there on the doorstep. Instead I said thank you and began stocking the refrigerator and the pantry.