Part Six (The End and Reflection)
With my bike and lycras strategically packed in the boot, sultry and I commenced our journey north to a motel near her football training oval. I stuck to my plan of staying the night in a separate bed (I may have been a floozy but never a slut), and riding my bike home early the next day.
The indulgent gaze sultry gave me from the balcony as I departed, told me she was wholly captivated by my behaviour: 1) fending off her playful advances the night before and 2) getting up before sunrise to ride my bike home. (I was younger then, so playing the adventurous hero was essential to my pre-mating practice).
I set off at a harrowing pace straight up a mountain because it was ‘bound to be the shortcut home’. I have never made such a poor judgment in my cycling career as I did that day. It took me 15 miles before I accepted my mistake and with head bowed from exhaustion and mortification, I retraced the road directly back to its starting point. The mistake cost me 5,400 seconds. Each second felt like an hour as I marinated in my idiocy.
That ride turned out to be the longest lone bike ride of my career (at the time). I figured that I brought the physical grief upon myself for not ending things with the girl I was seeing at the time prior to allowing myself to have feelings for someone new. Punishing myself on the bike had long been my answer to emotional anguish.
I determined as I collapsed on my bed from heat exhaustion and in severe carbohydrate deficit that I was not worthy of either of these women.
The next week I was single and back on Pink Sofa again just er ‘looking for chats’.
END
