Hellhole

The Story So Far...

You got dolled up to go to a house party

You struck a Faustian bargain with Satan which (so far) hasn't led to any issues

You run a relationship advice blog called Fucklyf

Your housemate is addicted to Ice Road Truckers

You guys don't get on because he's been trying to covertly move his girlfriend into your house

You pitched your all-Asian porn studio at a house party

You hit on Chen Li at a house party and lured him back to your lair (actually just your bedroom) where you kissed him and touched him in a mostly PG way

Ever since then, you've felt a swooning sense of romance: tingling lips, missing a guy you hardly know, etc.

Fast forward three hours and your lips are still tingling - turns out it wasn't anything romantic: it's a cold sore. You've never had one before but obviously suspect Clive/Chen Li/whoever that guy was. Web MD diagnoses that the tingling presages a face crater and an inexorable rash. Now you wish you'd sucked his dick to give him back his herpes where it hurts. The internet seems thoroughly divided over whether keeping it moist helps it heal fastest or if it's better to dry it out.

You decide to go big on drying it out and spend half an hour watching YouTube videos on how to force a card while the hair dryer unleashes Armageddon on the corner of your mouth. Satisfied that you've treated the cold sore to the best of your abilities, you check FuckLyf's inbox.

lauria

i no how this is going 2 sound (demented) but i can't help it - im going insane from jealousy. my high school boyfriend was recently charged in relation 2 a string of murders which occurred in our home town. when i say string of murders what i mean is that he is a serial killer. he serially killed people. all the girls he killed were dark haired lean little gazelles with tanned skin + glossy side parts. the police r still pulling their bodies out of the creeks, rivers, streams, lakes, ponds, dams, channels, lagoons, reservoirs, gorges, weirs, inlets, fjords, estuaries, and canals - he basically dumped 1 in every body of water we have.

so the first boy i ever loved is a necrophiliac + ur prolly thinking how sad i must be that the guy who taught me 2 kiss has expended so much time + energy over the corpses of a bunch of dead girls but never bothered 2 wish me happy bday on facebook - which sure yes that sucks. but whats really getting me is that he clearly had a type - all of the girls he killed were tanned + dark haired. im pale + freckled. im 30. its killing me knowing that i wasnt his type. that he wouldnt want me now. he was my first everything + i feel humiliated that i wasnt an object of fascination for him the way he was for me. i no how insane this is that im upset because he probably didnt want 2 murder me. is this just my weird way of processing shock + grief or am i actually this self absorbed + insecure?

Hey Jealous Readhead,

Yes, you are selfish. You aren't the only one who lost a high school sweetheart. People have lost their daughters: there are girls who died horrible deaths and whose bodies may never be found. Your ex raped them and animals ate them and left their bones at the bottom of the lake. Mothers will grow old early and never know what happened to their baby girl. Dads will never sleep well ever again. Brothers will get bad tattoos of their sisters' faces and birth dates to honour their memory. Christmas will never be the same.

But I also relate - probably lots of people reading this did. It's not that you wanted to be murdered (or, if you do, that's your own business). Everyone has insecurities - this is maybe the extreme version of being a white guy and finding out that your girlfriend only watches Asian porn. It would hurt: you want the person you love to be attracted to you. You want them to think about you the way you think about them.

I have one consolation: if you aren't his physical type but he still took the time to date you, there must be something pretty great about you. Or maybe he was just desperate and couldn't find anyone else - what do I know?

Out the corner of your eye you see Ben's girlfriend Francesca trying to creep down the hallway past your room. She's carrying her shoes in her hands. She stares determinedly at the the markings on the floorboards: like a booby trapped cave in an Elder Scrolls game, the squeaky floorboards are marked with stickers which she tries to avoid as she sneaks down the corridor. Ben has probably told her about the argument you had over her douche wash. You should say something.

Ice Road Truckers, you know, that show about the guys who drive over frozen lakes in Canada.

Ben never told you? He's a hardcore fan. He's travelled to the US for the last 5 years to go to IRT Con. He's got every season on DVD and Blu-ray. We don't even own a Blu-ray player. He's a complete devotee. Did you never wonder why he always wears trucker hats?

I'm not one to give relationship advice but, you know, this seems like a pretty huge betrayal. To keep such a huge part of his life from you, for basically no reason. I can't help but wonder what else he might have kept from you.

This is so much to process - I mean, do you think he ever meant to take you skiing? Or -

You pass her a KFC bucket and stroke her hair as she cries into the chicken bones.

I had a boyfriend who cheated on me. He was drunk and said he didn't mean it. He grovelled for weeks and eventually I forgave him - or I wanted to. But I just couldn't forget what he'd done. Any time he was out with his freinds or talking to a female coworker or even the checkout chick at the supermarket, I worried he was going to fuck someone else again.

I know I couldn't forgive someone for this. This wasn't a drunken mistake - he's soberly lied to your face every day of your relationship. It's sick.

It's all a question of what you can live with. You know for sure he's a liar - this is the first lie you've uncovered but there may be others.

And you know, any time you can't see what he's doing on his phone, or he's home without you, or he's watching TV in the break room at work that he could be watching Ice Road Truckers. Can you live with that?

She's still sniffling but she nods. And so another happy relationship is ruined by Ice Road Truckers. She packs up her things and you have your space in the bathroom back. When Ben gets home from work he doesn't speak to you and you don't say anything. Throughout the house, the things Franky forgot to pack echo calamitously with memories: a hair tie on the coffee table, her underwear on the washing line, a packet of moldy tofu in the fridge.