Maths and The Monstress – star-crossed lovers

Maths and I were childhood sweethearts but things went sour when hormones started bursting out of my every orifice and I began to prefer men to multiples.

Everyone said Maths was good for me; that we were the perfect couple. But no one saw the barely reined antagonism and hidden aggression in this increasingly dysfunctional relationship. It was a textbook case of domestic violence. Trigonometry triggered bruises, algebra broke bones. Looking back, he almost killed me.

Hindsight: even in the beginning when the relationship seemed so idyllic, the cracks had already started to show. He introduced a few kinky multiplication problems. He said they were fun. Call me a prude, but I thought they were harmful, demeaning. ‘Everybody’s doing it,’ he told me. And it was true. But I was always going to be a plain vanilla kind of a girl. He didn't hide his displeasure.

Yes, there were good times – Maths and I cruised through quadratic equations and actually enjoyed geometry. But, as usual, the spiral of hostility cycled back around and by the time we reached probability – for the sake of my sanity and my battered self-esteem – I threatened to break it off for good. I think I meant it.

In a desperate effort to rebuild, we ditched calculus and returned to a simpler time of fractions, decimals and percentages. We signed up for counselling, and renewed and reaffirmed our commitment to one another. But we were tired – battle weary. Our hearts weren’t in it. The damage had been done and the rift was plainly irreparable. In the end, I could deny it no longer. I had failed.

So, in my seventeenth year, we parted company, quickly and bitterly, forever.

Or so I thought.

Apart from an unavoidable passing nod during household finance calculations and a cool hello during the occasional business budget, I have not laid eyes on Maths in a quarter of a century. Over the years, he's barely changed – bastard! – he’s still dangerously attractive and deceptively engaging. He has traded in his blackboard for an electronic whiteboard and his book of trigonometric tables for a scientific calculator. I have to admit that the new look suits him.

Really, that grudging concession costs me nothing. I can be gracious, momentarily stepping outside my bubble of contempt, because in the next instant, I can forget him again. Dismiss him instantly and effortlessly from my life like a stray hair from my brow or an unwanted contact from my iPhone.

Such was my illusion of safety.

Last week, to my horror, I found myself staring at him across the Boardroom table. RG146 – my employer inspired financial planning qualification – means we are forced to spend two weeks together, practically joined at the hip. It’s a situation worthy only of a really trashy romance; clichéd and contrived enough to make me puke.

In this love story, though, there will be no reconciliation (he likes his women young and impressionable and I like my enemies toasted for breakfast).There will be only icy politeness and brittle congeniality. I will dredge up sufficient civility to ensure that, this time, I get what I want. I can only hope he will see that it’s in his best interests to cooperate. I am not above playing dirty, if that’s what it takes. I still have the evidence and I lost my qualms years ago.

I’m not asking for an old-times'-sake fling, a charitable donation or a rose garden, for that matter. I just want what's rightfully mine  – what I deserve – what I always deserved. I want to pass. And I'll leave him no choice but to help me.

And so begins the temporary, murky and edgy alliance between Maths and The Monstress.