Just Sex or Something More?

I think we met on a Wednesday. I found you oh so attractive, and I assumed, right from the start, that you would be a bullshit artist. Men in such places are, you know; especially attractive men. I didn't care.

I wasn't blameless, not even a little. There was no ring, and the front you put up was seamless enough. Basically I wanted to laugh, and I wanted to have sex, and I wanted to feel beautiful for a minute and forget the awfulness of the last, big, relationship failure. You were using me, and I was using you.

But neither of us proved very good at it, did we? We couldn't even get ourselves undressed. I think if that first night had been a passionate, steamy romp with a nearly anonymous stranger, I think that would have been the end of us. No play, no foul. But we were awkward. You must have been wrestling your conscience as we flirted on the edge of that brink, while I was coming to the conclusion that it might chip another crack in the icefall of my heart to be a strange body in a strange bed for the night. Maybe you shouldn't have given me your number; maybe I shouldn't have taken it. But I did.

This is part of why I forgave you so quickly. If you had been calculating, if you had been good at seducing me and walking away, I could have called you a bastard, gotten horribly angry and moved on. You said you just wanted to talk to me again. So many talks, so many laughs. I was always smiling like a big, dumb dope after a night with you. Remember that night I talked about going to Hawaii? You got all choked up. It puzzled me. My stomach did flip-flops. At that moment, I think I knew.

The lies were enormous. I shake my head recalling, and yet it makes sense considering what we were supposed to be. A false name, a false life, a false identity; no woman would have forgiven you that. You risked a great deal when you told me your truths. I never would have found you out. You could have disappeared. You said it was killing you, and you started to speak. When you finished, I just felt sad. I couldn't muster a speck of anger, in fact a big part of what I felt was relief.