Adult Fiction: Daniel and Paula

Daniel and Paula.
Elley Edwards

That was the moment when Paula lost her ‘give a shit’. That was the moment: after two years and ten months of being together and one year and six months of living in the same house that she felt nothing.

It wasn’t that he stood there, telling her to “Calm down” in that patronising way; that he stood, staring at her, while she had a miniature (by her standards) hissy fit over the state of the house, or even that he failed to take the hint and use some initiative; it was the fact that, at that moment, she did not care about him. Let me re-phrase that: she did not care-in that moment of miniature hissy fit- wether or not his feelings were hurt.

Oh, and they were! He’d never experienced someone so quick to frustrate, so quick to spit out poisonous words from her forked tongue. This was why he automatically told her to ‘calm down’ when the slightest bit of hysteria crept into her voice, or her questioning became rhetorical and sarcastic, and worse- when she morphed his name into a feminine substitute: “What do you think is the matter with me, Danielle?”.

As soon as a phrase like this was uttered, Daniel knew she’d gone too far. Not ‘gone too far’ like he’d ‘put his foot down’ and ‘bring her into line’ for dealing a sly blow to his masculinity, but gone too far for her mood to be salvaged and too far gone that he could crack a joke without her throwing him a deadly look, or worse- the plate in her hand, or the vase on the table.
That is definitely how Paula felt sometimes when the frustration levels got too high. It was made even worse that his brain seemed to be on pause through the whole disagreement/ argument/fight…whatever you want to call it. Daniel genuinely seemed dumb to her in those moments: deer in the headlights, ‘I just got caught pulling my dick’, faced-with a-million-dollar-question retarded. And he wondered why Paula reacted so severely!?

Daniel did wonder why Paula was so severe on him. Perhaps she had a mild case of bi-polar disease. Lord knows her mood swings were impressive! Daniel was easy target and fell for every tantrum hook, line and sinker.

Daniel thought that Paula was the easiest person to talk to, but not when she’d worked herself up into a mood. There was no point in talking to her when she was dramatically flailing arms, stomping around and growling like a caged animal; but oh, she was beautiful in her fury and Daniel couldn’t help but love her, as bewildered as he was by her frustrated outbursts.

In retrospect, Paula knew that her frustrated outbursts confused Daniel, but even though she took it out on him, she could still hear that he loved her. Felt it. He would continue to say loving things like “What can I do to help, darl?” and “What’s the matter, honey?” Sometimes, in the back of her mind, she would recognise that he was only saying those things to placate her. Yes, the love was still there, as evidenced by the ‘honey’s’ and the ‘darls’, but the concern? He wasn’t concerned about why Paula became that way; only when the mood would pass and all the egg shells had been stomped on.

Sometimes when Daniel did take initiative and thought to be helpful, Paula’s tone would soften, and if he caught her mood in time, it would even soothe her into mild annoyance; a mood which easily-and quickly-passed. He’d learned some of these ‘hit and miss’ tricks early on in the relationship, but it seemed as though Paula had caught onto them, and the pacifying affect was now, short lived and momentary.

To be continued...