The heat in the bar is stifling, but here I am in my element. Despite having travelled all over the world, the bars remain quite the same in every corner of the globe. The air is thick with the smell of unwashed bodies that move rhythmically to the music, and the places are usually laden with drugs and easy women. Most of them don't even identify as gay, until they meet me and before they know it, they are sucking my pussy in some alley. Take the woman I'm working on right now. She is married with three kids but bored with her accountant husband and ready for some female loving. I'm already making significant headway, as in shoving my tongue down her throat, when the door of the bar opens and in walks a face I never expected to see again, despite the fact the other woman is sucking my neck. She is easily recognisable with her long, blond locks and uncertain gaze.

Piper.

How often in the last six months has she been at the centre of my dreams? How often do I wake up screaming her name or moan it when I come? My last conquest was even insulted enough to get dressed and walk out without another word when this took place. How many hours have I spent staring at her picture standing on my nightstand?

Piper spots me standing in a corner and quickly crosses the room, heading in my direction. My former lover reaches the table I share with my conquest and quickly gets in her face where she is now standing with her arm slung over my shoulders. My companion nervously asks who she is.

"I'm the girlfriend," Piper announces emphatically. "Now, scoot!"

My conquest does as she is told, no doubt glad to leave her explorations of the fairer sex for another day and crawl in bed with her husband to have him screw her in the ass like all other nights.

Piper stands in front of me, hands on hips and I know I am about to receive a lecture along the old lines. "What the hell was that?"

I grab the shot in front of me my conquest had bought for me earlier, down it and then wipe my mouth with my sleeve. I then regard her above the rim of my glasses. "I could ask you the same thing, barging in here and claiming to be my girlfriend. I haven't heard from you for six months!"

"Because I needed to talk to you."

"You couldn't have anything to say that hasn't already been said between us." I walked past Piper but she grabbed my wrist and forcefully turned me back to face her.

"I miss you, Alex."

I twisted my hand out of her hold and stared her down with a deathly glare. "Shut the fuck up."

With that I turn and begin to walk away. "You're leaving?" Piper questions me.

"Since you found it so easy, why can't I do it?" I turn to face her and see the hurt in her eyes.

"You think it was easy to walk away from you? It was the hardest thing I ever did, Alex."

My anger magnifies at her words and I walk up to Piper and get right in her face. I don't speak loudly but distinctly, allowing her to easily hear me above the music. "You left me. Nothing you say will ever make up for that."

"You're not the only one that suffered." I can read the truth of this statement in Piper's blue eyes. All this time I had myself convinced she had never cared for me, simply wanted the free ride. Perhaps she had merely convinced herself that she felt nothing for me, only to discover she had been wrong.

We tell lies every day, mostly to ourselves, and sometimes, when we hear them often enough, we begin to believe them. I had often in the last few months after mom died, tried to remember certain things about my childhood, and frequently I could not be certain whether it was an actual memory or a figment of my own imagination. I could no longer ask my mother.

I looked at Piper and realized she was the only family I had left. After all we had been through together, she deserved the respect of me hearing her out.