Sex diary

J'étais récemment dans une période Arab Strap...

Ici, un morceau de "the Red Thread".

Dans la série des "dos and donts": Don't.

We slept in this morning and she had to get ready in a hurry. No time for her usual attention to detail. And she ran out the door, slamming it behind her, leaving her keys swinging and jangling. I stayed in bed until I heard the downstairs door shut, then peeked through the blinds. And as soon as she was out of sight, I went for the keys.

She never tried to make a secret of the box or the fact it was locked, or even where she kept it. But as I said at the time, "If you've nothing to hide . . . why hide it?" It's one of those wee red cash box things, and she keeps it in a drawer by the bed under some pictures and books. Every key she has is on the same keyring, it took me a while to find the right one.

I don't know, I suppose I've had my doubts for a while. There's been hushed phone calls virtually every night. Her friends stop talking when I come into the room and they look at each other. I don't know, it's just a feeling. Anyway, I eventually found the key and it fitted perfectly. I put the box on top of the bed and opened it up . . . .

There were nice pictures of friends and exes. Letters, postcards, doodles . . . Nothing bad. And then I found some sort of sex diary, and went to the latest entry. It explicitly detailed a recent adventure up the park with a boy she said she'd forgotten about. And it got worse as it went on. The dates never made sense. There were people I'd never even heard of.

Eventually, I had to stop reading it because I started to feel sick. So I put everything back the way I found it, shut the drawer, and phoned you. See, I don't know what to do. I keep having fantasies about leaving her dictaphone under the pillow. Or following her when she goes to work. I've been lying about where I'm going, just in case I can bump into her.

Arab Strap, Love Detective

the Red Thread (Chemikal Underground, 2001)

Pour l'anecdote, qui en laissera bon nombre indifférents j'en suis conscient, la jeune femme figurant dans le clip de cette chanson (tourné par Aidan Moffat) est Adele Bethel de Sons & Daughters (d'ailleurs en featuring sur d'autres titres d'Arab Strap, comme the Long Sea ou Afterwards)

[Photo : Astrid Baudine]