The Game

By S. Faith, © 2007

Words: 922
Rating: R / M (language & adult themes)
Summary: We all know what happens to the player, eventually.
Disclaimer: I don't hold stock in any portion of this universe, to my great lament.
Notes: A little foray into second-person, this just sort of came to be in the space of an hour and a half or so.

When it comes right down to it, you realise you hate yourself.

You hate yourself for everyone you've ever hurt, for the things that you've done to gratify yourself at the expense of those around you, even those who loved you, thought of you as closer than a sibling. But it's the only way you've ever known, and you know you're a selfish bastard. You just can't help it. You do it anyway.

She was barely a blip on your radar before the party, a cute little piece of skirt flitting about the office, adorable in her own way and with plenty of curves, but hardly the sort of sex-goddess you'd been used to having at will. She was interesting though, and different, almost like a palate cleanser, even with your American Amazon waiting in the wings. And she definitely fancied you, with all those meaningful glances and the flirtatious way she responded to your provocative instant messages.

You had no real impetus to take it further until you saw her talking to him at the party. You knew then you had to have her if for no other reason so that he couldn't, just like you had to take his wife away. It's something of a game, one that you like to win, because winning validates everything you do, even if some small part of you still has the barest remnant of a moral center and knows it's wrong.

You examine your face in the small round window, the sky beyond black as ink, and let out a breath you don't realise you've been holding in. It was more than winning. It's the attention you want. His attention. There's something about him that makes you crave his notice that you're better than he is at something, always has been, even from your days in university. You were prepared to let your relationship—fling? dalliance?—with her slip to the wayside, tallied on the scorecard in this great game as a manageable loss because after the plausible lies you'd told her about him, there would be no reason on earth for her to have any interest in him, and really, that meant you won. Your American Amazon leaving you barely registered because he wasn't involved.

But then she left you—the company—for a job in television. You'd watch her spots with amusement, feeling like you still had your eye on her, still directing the game. And then one day in November, there they were, on the news together. She was interviewing him after his win in court defending a political refugee. They were friendly, she was smiling, and he… he was looking to her in his understated way with interest. Something about the scene got to you—the notion of her and him becoming friends, possibly becoming more—and you knew you had to try to win her back that night; as devastated as she was after she had found out she wasn't the only woman in your life, you know she loved you (she said so, even if she claimed to only be ironic about it) and was desperate to take you back.

You never expected to find him there at the table amongst her friends for dinner that night. You never expected the fight in the street, or for him to get in the last punch. But by the terminus of the evening the ends justified the means; they argued and he left in disgust. You relished the notion of getting back with her; it would twist the knife most cruelly in his side.

What you really didn't see coming though was her rejection of you. It stung more than you wanted to admit. And later you come to find out that they've started seeing each other after all, sleeping together, and your loss is felt most bitterly in the deepest part of your soul. You take a job with her station, wondering if you might still be able to drive a wedge between them. And there are white lies, profuse apologies for past behaviour and claims of redemption from your wickedness, but you haven't changed a bit. Why should you?

Hope springs eternal when you learn not only that she's chucked him, but she's been assigned to accompany you to work in far-flung Thailand, where a scant few nights ago, you bring her back to your hotel room for a promising evening of reconciliatory shagging. You're well on your way when she realises you've double-booked your bed for the evening and she rejects you once more, this time with a more pronounced finality. When your gorgeous little Thai masseuse turns out to be a gorgeous little Thai masseur, you are so wound up and desperate for sex you end up rutting the hell out of the small-framed beauty anyway.

It isn't until now that you come to a surprising realisation: as you did so, your thoughts were about him the entire time. But you have always loved him as more than an almost-sibling, haven't you? You have always known you would do anything to get his attention, even if it meant taking away his spouse or his chance for happiness with any woman, especially her, but you had no idea, not really, that it was because you really wanted him for yourself. Not until now.

You close your eyes, pinch the corners with a thumb and forefinger, and rest back in your seat for the remainder of your very, very long flight home.

You realise then it's a game you will never, ever win.

The end.