Acceptance by Doc

“I’m leaving you.”

He nodded.

“Well, don’t you have anything to say?”

“Just that we both knew this was coming.  I think we’ve said almost everything else that has had to be said…. More times than were necessary.”  He wasn't sure he’d needed to add the last comment, but he was so very tired of re-plowing the same field endlessly.  He wanted her to know he didn't think talk was needed.

“You are worthless.”

He’d expected some comment like that, too.  He didn't agree, but it was pointless saying so.  He kept quiet.

“Well?”

“Well, what?”

She glared and then stomped out of the room.  He’d expected that, too.  She hated it when she made a comment and he simply refused to say anything.  He wasn't sure why she felt he needed to say anything.  It was all a bit pointless, anyway.  She’d said she was leaving and that was that.  End story.

John decided to call his old girlfriend Ellen.  Ellen and he had been friends for many years.  She thought he was an ass too, but they both agreed to disagree on that and not to bring it up.  He really didn't care much how she felt about him.  He liked her even if she had some strange ideas.  He wasn't sure why.
As to why she didn't walk off, too, he had no idea.  “You’d have to ask her,” he once told someone who’d asked what Ellen saw in him.  He doubted they had followed through on the suggestion.  Few bothered following up on anything, especially his suggestions.  It was fine.  Everyone on his or her own course through life.  Atoms bouncing against each other, like O2 molecules in a balloon.

The phone rang before John got a chance to get to the phone.  It was Ellen.

“I hear she has finally decided to move up to something – and someone – more her style,” Ellen said.

“Yep.”

“So how do you feel?”

“Dunno.  I really don’t feel much of anything.  I knew she’d eventually leave.  I just wondered how it would play out.  I’m going to be out of town this weekend, so I assume she’ll have her stuff out on Saturday or Sunday.”

“Where are you going this weekend?” Ellen asked.

“I’m going up to the cabin.  I want to be alone and read and with all the shit going on here, I just need to get away.”

“I want to go with you, John.”  She didn't add anything else to that.  John wondered what she wanted.

“What for?” he asked.

“I want to get laid, and you’re now available.  Besides, you need someone to make your life miserable.  I think I can fill that bill.”
 
“Yeah, now that she’s gone I guess I’m fair game.  Sure.  It’s up to you.  Whatever.”

“John, do you know what you’re getting into?” she asked.

“Nope.”

“Don’t you care?”

“Actually, no.  I don’t.  I guess you have your reasons, and when you decide to tell me what they are, you will.”

There was a pause before she calmly said, “It’s simple, you fucking moron.  I just like having a puppet in my life.  Someone who serves me.  Someone who will take my crap and not whine.  Someone who is pathetic and servile and who doesn't object when I feel like taking out my frustrations on someone I really don’t give a shit about.  Someone like you.”

John just said, “OK.”

Ellen volunteered, “Do you know what your real attraction is, John?”

“Nope”.

“You really don’t give a crap.”

Ellen hung up.  John went to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee.  He realized the pot would probably not be there on Monday morning.  He stuck a post-it on the refrigerator.  “Buy new coffee pot!”

He was walking away from the fridge when he thought of something else.  He scribbled underneath the coffee pot note “Take condoms to cabin” and “Pick Vonnegut paperback to take to cabin”.

He then said, very quietly, “That Ellen sure isn't shy!”