If in her entire life, she were asked to pinpoint an off-key note, any detail which disagreed with the general pattern, she would surely have picked her friendship with him.
In theory, they were so very drastically different that they should have learned to loathe each other. Clearly, she is all that the word "respectable" represents, whereas he is all that it doesn't. She won't deny that his behaviour towards the female gender, ladies much like herself, is sickening at best.
Somewhere along the years of their acquaintance, she convinced herself that she put up with him and his antics, because they are both involved with wrestling, albeit very differently.
But she knows it's only half-truth.
Because he has no problem with lying and being underhanded to get whatever captures his fancy, but he never bothers pretending to be something he isn't, which makes him oddly less of a liar in her eyes. He is also fickle, sarcastic, and too available to offer unwanted lewd, sexually-charged compliments, which are completely uninvited, but not as completely unwelcome.
He is pretty to look at – despite that strange mix of delicate and bluntly strong traits his features compose – so it doesn't hurt taking a walk alongside him after a show. His company is amusing, because he always has something spectacularly nasty or improper to add to any conversation anyone is having in his presence, and he dishes it out both raw and crude, with a careless ease she both envies and resents. Life must be so much easier if you are a brute.
She decides that he is her friend, despite her fierce disapproval of almost everything he does, and his relatively quiet mockery of everything she doesn't.
One day, she is having a family crisis, she cannot comprehend they are so dissatisfied with it every waking moment she thinks they're okay, and she spends approximately seventeen minutes on the telephone with her boyfriend, trying to word her anger to both her boyfriend and herself. But before she can even get around to doing that, he asks if she wants to go out to distract herself and she finds herself shaking her head, coming up with some lame excuse to stay home and terminate the phone call.
After this, she falls gracelessly back onto her bed and presses her face against her cushion. Her head is aching like it's about to explode and she needs so badly to work off some steam, but she has no idea how. She isn't really angry with her family or her boyfriend, anyway. She can't be. They are both nice, they love her and they mean well; they always have, so she's supposed to smile and grit out a thank you, even when it does hurt. And oh God, it hurts.
Everything is still a mess, and she cannot believe her boyfriend could even entertain the thought of her setting a foot outside of her fortress in her situation.
She cannot believe her family has put her in this situation to begin with. Absence apparently doesn't make the heart grow fonder. It's just better not to go there, too many unanswered questions which rub salt into freshly opened wounds. Her fucking world is fucking falling to pieces and those people who are supposed to understand how hard it is are behaving like they don't.
But weirdly, oddly, out of the blue, he is there. He is not trying to be. He never does. He doesn't ask questions. He doesn't even ask how she is. But that is what she needs. That is what she wants. It's always been like this, since the very first moment she met him. The very essence of her relationship with him resides in his habit to fill the empty spaces in her life. But on second thought, maybe she's gotten that all wrong. Maybe it's she who is the one filling in gaps in his life. He systematically refuses to fit any role she might cast him, but flows through the cracks to fill the occasional blanks left by everybody else. Like Chaos Incarnate, he shifts according to his temporary mood. How he feels. What he thinks he needs.
She knows its wrong, knows they shouldn't be doing a thing, but it feels so fucking good and feels so right, that she can't stop herself.
He just wants her.
He's always wanted her really, kind of, in a way, and now he had her. He wasn't her first lover, maybe her second or third, but he still treasures this enough to consider it somewhat of a gift, even when the very same act had been nothing but a caprice with all the countless ingénues he had taken to his bed – or anywhere else – in his long career of unrepentant womanizing. He hungers for her body, craves her company, respects her mind, but only when he has nothing else left.
She thought sometimes that maybe he was her first love, a title that should have been given to her boyfriend, remember the guy she is supposed to be dating? But then there were also times when she could laugh at herself and deny it all. It was odd, making love to her boyfriend after it had happened. He is far too perfect and he never made her want to throw things at him. Everything lacks in passion and depth, and sometimes it's very hard to control the lingering urge to call him and scream at him until he's out of her system.
But then she slips up, makes a mistake. She giggles as her boyfriend kisses the pale column of her throat; closes her eyes and remembers his hands and the way they felt when they were sliding over her silk slip. She purrs when roaming fingers leave the pearl buttons at the front of her dress undone, and doesn't notice that the name she whimpers isn't the name of the boy she is with. She furrows her brows when the warm, male weight atop her disappears, when her haze of breathy little sounds is replaced with silence. And lots of it.
She realises what she's done before its too late, and then it is too late.
She no longer has her boyfriend, and she doesn't really have her friend, at least not in the way she suspects she actually does. Oh, she has him wholly – physically, mentally. For awhile there, she could not figure out what her recent little fling with him was or the reason it felt so different to her boyfriend. But one day it hit her like a ton of bricks, she's in love with him. Always has been, and always will be. In her mind, it's pretty clear it's only going to end badly, especially when he informs her that he's interested – really interested – in one of her friends. She guesses that she herself is not much more than a tool to him, and she probably guesses correctly. The horrible thing about it all, is that she guesses this, and she lets him do it. It's because she suspects she wants him so badly that she will do almost anything to be with him.
Touch has become an addiction, the frenzied rhythm of conquering the most guarded territories of the female body, the glorious surge of power he experiences while making a girl plead and quiver for his caresses, his taste. It's a different way of being needed. The warmth of orgasm is cold heat, a liberating shiver which relieves him of the craving and leaves him somewhat hollow.
It's dirty, in spite of how much he appreciates that underlying sense of violation on his naked flesh, the almost morbid way the distance between him and a virtual stranger can be so easily bridged only to be established again the morning after.
Oh yes, he definitely loves sex.
And oh yes, he definitely loves sex with her.
But whether there is underlying feelings there…
Well.
He certainly likes what he can gain from her. He always has. It's easy. It's a predatory excitement which seems to weaken him, even while it empowers him. He cannot understand what it is, but he sort of likes the novelty.
He loved teasing her until she lost control; loved when she shuddered underneath him in desire; loved how she shifted from shy to bold with no sensible warning. How she fought teeth and nails to gain dominance. Maybe it's the secretiveness. Or maybe it's the sense of smugness he felt, knowing he's had something few others have. Whatever it is, his encounters with her gave him a satisfaction which lingered hours after they departed.
So, when he announces he's interested – really interested – in her friend, she doesn't know what to do. She forces herself to not contact him, and if she does, it's far and between. He doesn't bother with her, either. If it happens, it happens is his lax attitude about it all. They see each other maybe once a month now. She's not sure what to do. Do they continue doing what they do? And what of her friend? What happens if something happens between them? What does she do? It's all so confusing.
She's just sad that the people that used to be your friends are no more than strangers anymore. That when someone you claimed was so close to you now knows nothing about you, or doesn't care about it anyway.
She thinks it's like talking to completely different people now. Or not talking at all. She knows that lives change, and so do people, but she's not quite sure whether she likes these changes. She knows that people are often brought back to bad habits, and, as they say, old habits die hard.
She feels like he's a bad habit.
She's glad she grew with him in her life, though. She wishes things would've been different. She thinks maybe it's true though, in the end, we're all afraid of being disappointed. We're all afraid of letting someone else down, so the end result is us letting ourselves down. She knows she's guilty of it. She thinks she has always chosen the people that have been there over the people that are there. But even then, is that the right choice to make? What is?
She just wishes that some things went differently. She thinks that some of the choices the others made were wrong. She thinks that some of the choices she made were. She thinks that maybe the constant let downs are for a reason. She thinks that by not being there anymore, people will start to see exactly how much of an impact they really did have.
She just kind of hoped – hopes? – that in the end, it could've been – will be? – her. She's looked at herself in the mirror before, not really able to understand what has passed. But then, she's thought, well, maybe it's not me. Then she got angry, but that's neither here nor there. She thinks that if you're a real friend, like you claim to be, the effort to be a friend shouldn't seem like an effort at all. It should come pretty damn natural.
She drinks herself silly one night. She starts with one glass of champagne, but by the time she's dancing around the venue with a goofy smile on her face, she feels like she's been bathing in the stuff. And then suddenly he's there, again, asking her what the hell she's doing.
"I was celebrating independence!" Her giggles weren't infectious; he rolled his eyes. Even while she was drunk and giddy, he left her skin tingling traitorously.
"It's August, kid. Independence Day was last month."
"Nooooo," she burbles, "it's whenever I stop thinking about you." She's mumbling now, sounding dreamy and tired. "Maybe it'll be tomorrow."
There's a force,
There's a voice in my head
Telling me to think
About the times that you were cruel and mean
And I don't care if you walk away
I'm here to stay and you need to hear
You make me sick,
but I love what we're doing here
"You Make Me Sick" – Egypt Central