Karen

Is it better to use or be used?

That's a question that's been at the back of my mind for years.

My first year of high school, an upperclassman came up to me and kissed me. It was unexpected and exciting. I responded by asking him for a cigarette. He laughed, and told me I could have one if he could have another kiss. I grabbed it from his hand the moment our lips parted for the second time.

Three weeks later I was skipping class to make out with him under the bleachers. I remember awkwardly fumbling under his shirt, over his pants. Before heading back to class, we each smoked one of his cigarettes, and he gave me an extra one for later. I was left feeling frustrated, and entirely new sensation overwhelmed me.

The beginning of the second year, I went down on him behind the gym. He got off and gave me his whole pack of smokes as thanks. I had to smoke two to get the taste out of my mouth. He once again worked me up, and never finished me off, left like in the air like the tendrils of smoke.

I decided that if I wasn't getting anything out of it, it wasn't worth it, and I began a series of one-night stands, and quick non-penetrative hookups in the janitor's closet. I lost it all to that same boy after a football game, in the back of his beat up old car. I never spoke to him again after that. I couldn't even tell you his name.

It was funny how Rick stood by me all those years, despite his harsh words, and still hangs around even after I've slept my way through a group of vacationing frat boys.

I had wanted to go off to college myself, and I suppose Rick did as well, but fate had other plans for each us. We're both still stuck in Mineral Town. He decided that he needed to be around and take care of his ailing mother, and keep an eye on Popuri, making sure she didn't get too involved with the beach shack owner.

I laughed to myself every time Rick ranted and raved about his sister's love for the traveling chef and "play-boy", the two had consummated their relationship the previous summer, and had spent this entire one avoiding an older brother's wrath. He wasn't a playboy, despite his flirtatious nature; anyway, I could never get him in to my bed.

I, however, still wanted to travel the world; I wanted to visit different countries, instead I was left to drink the imported wines from each of them.

My father is a severe hypochondriac. If he caught a cold, it was the flu. He caught the flu he swore it was pneumonia, or even the plague. He'd lock himself up in the house, and my mother would have to look over him, poor thing, leaving me to look over the store, flipping through travel magazines as cigarette butts piled up in the ashtray. The worst of it happened only a few days ago, however.

He wasn't feeling well, and as usual, he wound up at the clinic. His worst fears, and mine, perhaps, were realized when the tests they ran came back telling us he had stomach cancer. Before he had been being treated for ulcers.

My parents have locked themselves in the house, and I've been running the store, again. Angry and upset, I headed towards the inn to drink myself stupid. Maybe there'd be some late season hikers to flirt with, or off-season vacationers.

When I got there, however the room was mostly empty, save for two familiar faces I had grown up with.

"Hey, Ann!" I had yelled to her from the doorway, snapping her out of her trace. The poor girl hasn't been the same since Cliff left, even if she was his secret, but it wasn't a secret to me, or most of the town. I found myself in my usual barstool before she could even respond.

"Hey, Karen. What'll it be?" The redhead put down the wine glasses she was cleaning, and walked to the back shelf.

"Two shots of tequila and a slice of lime," I told her, leaning my head on my open palm.

"That's a bit much for so early, isn't it?" A voice came from my right, that familiar, familiar voice, "You might regret that later."

"Oh, my dear Rick," sarcasm dripping from my voice, "You of all people should know I live without regrets, and besides it can't be that early, you're here."

He shook his head and laughed at me, his glasses beginning to fall off his nose.

He pushed them back up, the light from the window catching on the lenses, brightening his straw hair to gold.

My mind flashed to my hand running through it, but I quickly shook my head and laughed to myself as Ann placed the shot glasses in front of me. I turned to my best friend, and held the glass halfway between us, "Cheers, Rick."

He shook his head again and tilted his half empty glass of some type of pale ale to me, "Cheers, Karen."


Those were my only two shots of liquor for the day, and I switched to my beloved Merlot. Rick became more charming the more I drank, though I knew it was the wine, but to get what I wanted, I had to bolster his confidence, and make him think it was actually him in control. Sometimes it really is too easy.

Later, Claire came in to the bar, and gave me that knowing look, and when Gray came in later I shot it right back. A secret between us, the man-eaters, they call us, the ones who try not to love the people we know will never love us.

A few drink later, Rick and I slipped away from the bar, the early winter and light snow covering the ground would have been chilly if not for the alcohol in my veins. I knew where this was leading, and he was leading me to his house, as I had led him to this decision hours ago.


"Oh, come on, it was just a fuck. Nothing special," I told him, slipping on my shirt, my bra was nowhere to be found, lost among Rick's own pile of clothes.

He looked as if I had just slapped him across the face. Something he probably would have preferred.

I found my jeans, and pulled out the pack of cigarettes, quickly fumbling around in the pack for one of the few left in the cardboard; I'd have to swipe a new pack when I got back home.

"Don't look at me like that," the cigarette hanging from my lips muffled my words. "You knew what this was."

I flicked my lighter. He didn't say a word. The lighter didn't light the first time, I flicked it again to the sound of my own heartbeat. It lit and I breathed in, inhaling the nicotine, inhaling the feeling of that first time.

I sat on the edge of his bed, and placed my hand on his. He sat propped against the pillows, naked body still under the covers. Exhaling towards the ceiling and I felt Rick shift to grab his own pack of cigarettes off his nightstand. I never learned how he learned to love menthol. I gave him his first cigarette, and I was a decidedly non-menthol person.

We stayed like that for a minute. Maybe two. He didn't move besides to take a drag or to ash his cig, and neither did I.

Finally, I gave in, I always do, I broke the silence, "You know I don't love you like that, I can't."

He got angry after hearing that, and jumped up from his bed. "What the fuck Karen! Then why do this at all?"

The ashes fell from the cigarette on to my thigh; I remembered I never put my jeans on.

"I'm not someone you can just fuck around with! I actually care for you, I don't care about this!" He motioned towards the sweat stained sheets, the wet spot. 'I don't know how you can sleep around so easily!"

That cut deep, but it was clean. I looked over at him, and got up. I walked over to my jeans and pulled them on, and then walked back over the nightstand, where a half-empty glass of wine sat. I put the burning filter out in the ashtray, and finished the wine in one gulp. Placing the glass down, I turned to leave the room.

"Aren't you going to answer me?" He demanded to know as I walked past him, away from him.

"You're my best friend, and I love you, but I don't love you the way you want me to," I stood in his doorway another minute, looking back at him, naked, exposed, vulnerable. "We should pretend this never happened."

With that I left his room, then his house.

His name was Calvin, and his eyes were blue, and he wanted to travel the world as much as me.