I’m not the usual kind of tired. Not the “oh I didn’t get my full eight hours or my chai nonfat double espresso latte” kind of tired. No. I’m talking the kind of tired where you can feel every inch of your exhaustion etched into your face. The bags under my eyes that look like deep, cavernous abysses would tell you that I didn’t sleep a solid wink last night. I entered REM sleep only once just to have a soul crushing, bed drenching nightmare about wandering through a line of mannequins in the forest. Except the mannequins were all dead people, grey skin and all, completely posed and upright. I woke up at three o clock in the morning (an already suspicious time if you ask me) screaming silently and unable to fall back to sleep. I still don’t understand what that was all about.
The cracked skin on my forehead would tell you that it’s been a while since I’ve moisturized. My girlfriend got me into using this coconut oil bullshit and we used to lather our faces with as a pre-bedtime ritual on the nights that we didn’t fuck. My face became a whole lot softer towards the end of our relationship if you know what I mean. It sure did moisturize my face but gave me horrible rashes as I’m mildly allergic to coconuts. That didn’t matter to her though. Ever since she had decided to “take control of her life” at that yoga retreat she went to three months ago, she also decided that included my life as well. This included my bedtime lotion ritual. Well, she left me last week but forgot to take the coconut oil with her. I haven’t used it since.
The large bruise under my eye might tell you that I was in some sort of fight recently. This is correct. Not only is the skin around my eye a horrible looking, eggplant purple, but my actual eye is completely red except for the pupil and iris. To make matters worse, I also have a hematoma because of the bruise which protrudes slightly like a small marble trapped beneath the skin. As you might reasonably assume, I was punched in the face within the last few days. The puncher was my friend Raj who has anger management issues. But this was just completely uncalled for. We were out drinking at our favorite bar, “Fred’s”, when Raj started mouthing off and being an ass. We were sitting on opposite sides of the table from one another with Matt and a couple of girls.
“Quit being such a dick dude,” I said, giving him a small shove on the shoulder.
I thought the matter was resolved in that moment, but as I pulled out my phone to check it, I suddenly felt his fist colliding with the side of my face over the table.
“What the hell man,” I said, looking up in disbelief.
I was going to drop the whole thing but I felt the side of my face immediately start to swell. Before I really knew what I was doing, I grabbed his hair across the table. My hand grabbed a pitcher of beer and emptied it on top of his head as the table flipped over and the girls’ phones went flying across the room. Once I threw the pitcher down, I grabbed the collar of his shirt with my hands and head-butted him in the face. I’m sure we looked like a pair of flailing infants before the bartender pulled me off him. Raj immediately left the bar. Raj got banned for life. I, somehow, only got banned for two months. The girls were mad because their phones flew across the room. That dick still hasn’t apologized and the side of my face looks awful.
I’m not the usual kind of tired. No. I’m tired of lying to people. To everyone really. With strangers and casual associates who laugh and say, “how did you get that shiner?”, it’s pretty easy to give them a condensed version of a story about my asshole friend punching me in the face at a bar. Except that didn’t actually happen. Not like that, anyway. My family and friends on the other hand keep asking me where Naomi, my girlfriend, went and why I have a big purple bruise on the side of my face. Good thing Raj is actually visiting his family in India for two weeks and actually does have anger management issues so it’s not a completely unbelievable story. The Naomi thing is a bit trickier. When people ask, I usually mumble something nondescript about her needing time and me needing time and we really do love each other but we just need some space for right now before we think about the next step. I didn’t tell anyone she took my dog with her. It wasn’t even “our” dog. It’s my dog. At least I have the coconut oil.
I’m not the usual kind of tired as I look into the mirror on a Sunday morning. No, I look like a piece of absolute shit. Black eye, tired bags, dry skin, and a hairline threatening to disappear into a hidden realm prematurely. At this point, I’m so tired that I probably wouldn’t be able to sleep even if I tried. You know that feeling when you say something you don’t even mean and it had consequences you could’ve never imagined? That’s what happened with Naomi. Just last week she had me tied up, gagged, and was spanking my ass like she usually does. I felt humiliated and weird but was just beginning to get into it, as I usually did by the end of it. Except this time, she took it a step too far when she punched me in the face as I was about to cum. Thinking I would get off to the pain like she did.
“Leave!” I yelled. “That fucking hurt and that’s enough Naomi.”
She looked slightly taken aback but recovered quickly. Her face was calm and cold.
“Alright,” she said, looking me square in the face. “That’s all you had to say.”
She grabbed a bag full of things which included my dog and didn’t include the coconut oil and walked right out the door without saying anything else. I didn’t think she would leave. I thought she would apologize and maybe tone the violence down a notch next time. I loved her after all. It’s been five days and my hematoma is still peeking through from beneath my skin.
Naomi had changed ever since she went to that god forsaken yoga retreat in Ojai. I thought most twenty-four-year-old California girls went to those types of things to magically morph into harem pant wearing, kale eating flower children. Not Naomi. She did, however, develop a deep love for the versatility of coconut oil. She started using it in her curries, her hair, and of course her skin. At the yoga retreat, Naomi also developed a deep love for something slightly more sinister. Domination and control. She came back spouting some bullshit about her truest self being concealed all of these years. It all started with the coconut oil and bedroom routines. We should use coconut oil. We should let her spank me with a whip just to try it. I felt reluctant at first but eventually gave in. I loved Naomi after all. I thought it was some yoga retreat induced phase that would soon past.
But it had not passed and now I’m standing here looking at my tired reflection wondering if she’ll ever come back or change. Behind me, I spot that godforsaken jar of coconut oil lingering on a shelf. I think of Naomi, of our nightly routine, and of all the reluctant erections she had been giving me over the past three months. For some reason, thinking about all of this makes me feel a subtle tingle between my legs. It throbs in a ticklish sort of way as I feel the blood pulse into expanded arteries. I take off my pants with one hand and unscrew the jar of coconut oil with the other. I know it might result in a sinister rash but I don’t care. The oil that once lathered my face first weekly and then nightly feels good. I hear the slimy, suctioning noise it makes between my hand. What I do not hear is the door to my apartment door open and two feet enter the hardwood floor. What I don’t hear is the footsteps walk calmly towards my room. The door to my room opens before I can react. I’m pants off, dick out and in walks Naomi. She says nothing. Her blue eyes dart between my full hands and the coconut oil jar and into my eyes. She says nothing. I smile.