Title: Substitute
Rating: T (just a few naughty words and I guess, some sort of adultery)
Disclaimer: I own nothing. If I did, we'd get holiday specials of WtD - make up your own holiday though. I just have fun with it.
Summary: It's not a spur of the moment-thing, though she wishes it was. It's not something she will discuss with him, because it would be an argument she'd lose. So she does the only thing she can do.
A/N: As it says in the summary, the concept of the story has been in my mind for quite some time and I was actually looking for a way to write this idea. Then I heard a song of this title and the door was open, so to speak. I think, this fits with the "bizarre pairings"-challenge to a point. If not, well, I hope you enjoy it anyway.
Many, many thanks and squishy hugs go to the amazing ShadowSamurai83. Just because.
Enjoy!
Substitute
I know you will not believe me when I say that this is not a spur of the moment thing, something that can be laughed or explained away. It is not. I know you would try and do so, but I am not giving you that chance.
Cowardly of me, I know, but it is my decision. The hours I lay awake next to you last night, while you slept peacefully, gave me the push I needed. You had a smile on your face almost the entire time, when you were deep under, but even more so when you were in that limbo when you dream.
You dreamt about her, didn't you?
Don't answer that, I know that you did. You will deny it to the high heavens, or maybe you even won't, because those strangely wound paths of your mind see no reason for doing so, but neither will change the fact. While lying next to me in our bed, after you've made love to me, you dreamt about her.
Though in all honesty, we didn't make love last night, did we? You fucked me to get your unfulfilled desire for her out of your system. It has become a pattern, and I'm not stupid enough not to notice. I only wonder if it has always been like that.
The pattern, you ask? Every time you go and see her, and I appreciate that you don't include me in those little meetings, forcing me to be the proverbial fifth wheel, you come home smiling. I love your smile, it takes years off of you, makes you even more devastatingly handsome (as you well know), but it stings like acid to know that this smile is not for me and not because of me.
You try to control yourself, but the effort must be herculean, because you never manage to have your mask in place when you enter the house and come face to face with me. It is as if you drive home in a dream world and find yourself harshly woken up by the fact that it is not her waiting for you.
You know, there were times when I could have punched you for it, scratched your eyes out for it, screamed at you until I was hoarse, but of course, none of these reactions would have gained me any favour with you. It would have only shown blindingly how little I can live up to the almost larger than life person that she is.
To this very day, I don't know why you took up with me. I can imagine that it was because you were lonely and adrift and I was there, looking different, speaking differently, smelling, tasting differently, speaking about different things, having different experiences. Maybe I was an itch you needed to scratch. Maybe it even was your sorry attempt to purge yourself of her.
I can tell you with absolute certainty that it was not successful.
The one time I made the useless endeavour to talk to you about her, you called her a friend and said that nothing ever happened between you. I believe that. I'd even believe you if you claimed now that you and her never did anything beyond the platonic. I believe you that. It is the tragedy of her and you, and mine by extension.
You probably never touched each other more intimately than a peck on the cheek, which is in a way absolutely hysterical. Because you come home and fuck me, imagining all the time that it was her instead. So far you've managed not to shout her name when you come, I have to give you that. Your control is unbelievable. And while I appreciate it, it also makes me sad. The sex we have is good, but for you it's only a cheap copy of the absolute bliss that must go on in your mind.
It does absolutely nothing for my self esteem. Being no expert, I wonder if all women are sensitive in exactly the same places or if, by chance, this little spot just above my left collarbone is where you imagine she is most sensitive as well. Or if, for the fuck's sake, you just go through the motions when you touch me there.
I don't know and it drives me up the wall, just as much as it is slowly but surely killing me.
I am a smart woman, of course I am; you are a very discerning man when it comes to your partner of choice. Leggy, busty and dumb is not your thing.
She is definitely the furthest away from that description.
That's the part that I can't get over. What exactly is it that she has and I don't? When I met her, she was nice enough, friendly enough. I could see that she is very smart and funny, that she is warm and gentle, even pretty to the man who likes this type.
I just didn't believe that you are such a man. In fact, I still cannot fathom it.
Yet the awful truth is, that while you might not have gone and slept with her, you are still cheating on me with her, every moment of your life. She's always in your thoughts, always a shadow in our relationship. You mention her, casually and unconsciously, in every other sentence you utter, what she said, what she thought, what she did. It's a bloody three-way relationship we lead, with me being the intruder.
What is it about her that holds you so captivated? And why, for fuck's sake, did you never do anything about it?
Is it the fact that you never had her? Is that what actually makes her so special, so incomparably divine? The fact that you don't know whether she would be absolutely boring in the sack? Or how she looks without make-up on? Naked even? With all the wrinkles and lines and spots and sags a woman her age has? Is it that you have never seen her less than perfect?
From every word I hear you utter about her - even when you deride something she's said or done - I gather that she is absolutely perfect. From every word your friends say - those whom I'm allowed or forced, I can never decide, to meet on a more frequent basis - she is perfection personified.
No fucking person can be this fucking perfect as you make her to be.
You'd bristle, and from the vein at your temple coming out and pumping blood, I'd know you are furious. Can't deal with me using harsh words about her? No, you can't.
And I can't stand it.
Last night was the breaking point.
There is more to life, to my life, than what you allow me to have. I don't want half a man. I don't want to be living with a man and yet be the other woman in his life. It's demeaning and it's not enough for me.
You'll never let go of her. You will never give up on her.
You'd shake your head now, hearing me say that, or you'd even nod, being honest with me for the first time. Though, no, that isn't true. This'd be the first time you are honest with yourself.
If I asked you now, to choose between her and me, it would be me you send packing. You might carry on with this ludicrous 'platonic friendship' until it is too late for the two of you. You might even deny on her or your death bed, whichever comes first, that there is no other woman for you. It's so ridiculous, so incredibly brainless of you, of her.
In fact, it is insane.
More than that, though, it is cowardly, and that makes us even again.
I don't want to discuss this. I have just now said all I have to say on the topic and there is no need to add anything to it.
Except maybe...I am no substitute.
I can't be the substitute shell you use to live out your wishes and desires for another woman. And I will no longer do so.
...
She sits and stares at the three pages closely filled with her words for a long time. The suitcase is packed and ready, the plane booked, the cab called. She always travels light and that is, once more, a blessing in disguise. So few of her possessions have actually found their way into his house. For a brief moment she wonders whether there aren't more of her things in this place. Gifts from her, forgotten items, lent things, reminders, letters, memos.
There is a scarf of hers in his wardrobe - how and why it came there of little consequence. It's right there with a small bottle of perfume - hers too.
He doesn't need to whisper her name in bed. He doesn't need to confess. It's all very self-explanatory.
And she has finally gotten the unintended (she knows it is true of him) message.
She can't compete with the small woman, twenty years older than she is, who is taking up all his thoughts and all his emotions. There is no chance of fighting her, because it would not be, never was, a fair fight.
From outside the horn of the cab sounds and she gets up without hesitation. There's nothing left to say or to do. Those three pages say it all. She doesn't know how he'll react and for a short, foolish moment the automatic thought that 'she' would anticipate his response, slips into her mind.
The thought is suppressed immediately and she leaves the house without a glance back.
She no longer is a substitute.
Thank you for reading. Comments would be greatly appreciated.