Lena silently straddles the chaise lounge next to me and pulls a plastic ziplock baggie out of her hippy-looking tote bag. It’s full of marijuana. She spreads some of it out in front of her, pulls out some rolling papers, and then begins crunching the dried green buds between her fingertips. I raise a questioning eyebrow at her. It’s a lot of weed she’s handling and she hasn’t even finished smoking the one in her hand.
“These are for later,” she explains, through what sounds like hurt feelings.
Lena gives good head, but with each passing day I’m learning that she’s also completely baked in the head. Definitely not my type. I want any woman I’m fucking to be completely present in the moment, not constantly numbing herself.
Although, I’m one to talk.
Staying numb is my specialty. I polish off my shitty drink with one slow swallow, then reach for my pack of Camels.
“You know those things will kill you, right?”
I glare menacingly at Lena and the fucking rhetorical question hanging in the air as I tap the package of cigarettes methodically against the base of my hand. Who does she think I am, a hen-pecked husband? How dare she question my bad habits?
“Of course, that’s none of my business,” she says in an attempt to backtrack her on her comment.
Completely ignoring her weak attempt to save face, I stand up in my bare feet and walk across the stretch of sand back to the villa. My time with this irritating pothead has come to an end.
“You’re leaving already?” she questions me, sounding shocked and somewhat disappointed, which is weird as fuck. This woman literally sucked me off a couple of times this week and now she’s acting like she wants to settle down and have my babies. “But I thought we’d stay out here and play for a little bit longer,” she laments in an unflattering, whiny voice.
It never fails. Every woman I decide to stick my dick in is certifiable. I didn’t even kiss her and now she’s giving me the third degree. Unfortunately for her though, I have a few simple rules that I live by.
1. I don’t trust needy humans.
2. I don’t trust greedy humans.
3. I don’t trust clingy humans.
Of course, these self-imposed rules account for most of the female population, so I offer zero response as I walk away toward the villa with my cigarette in hand. Hopefully, she’ll be gone by the time I finish it. This shit with her is over.
Once I arrive, I sit in the center of the large sunken living room area and stare through the massive glass windows, beyond Lena, and toward the shore as I take a slow, long pull of my smoke. I have a love-hate relationship with these things.
While any idiot born in the last fifty years knows that cigarettes are cancerous killers and horrible for my already damaged throat, they also continue to serve as a balm for a deeper pain inside of me.
My bones ache in a way that makes me feel weighted. The agony is deep in the marrow and I’ve spent the last few years of my life chasing the cure to what’s ailing my fucked up ass. I thought some peace and quiet in a place like this could help, but maybe not. Maybe I should figure out another way to lift this dark cloud off of my soul. I just don’t know what it is.
After my abduction years ago, my brother Seven stayed in college but I quit school. The doc said I had PTSD or some shit after the trauma of being kidnapped and stabbed in the throat, but whatever name they give it, I just know that I am changed.
And I’ll never be the same again.
I spent a year dealing with multiple throat surgeries and speech therapy sessions and was angry about it every step of the way. I’m in a constant state of conflict because while I blame my family (especially my father) for living a life that put me in that position, I also love the shit out of them.
After I healed, at least physically, I left home. I was barely twenty-one years old, but I needed the time and space to get my head together. Plus, I was really having a difficult time dealing with how different my relationship with Seven was becoming. Once upon a time we were inseparable, but as I succumbed to my misery, we grew further and further apart.
And now, I just prefer to be alone.
My cell phone rings and I’m so into my own head that I almost don’t recognize that it belongs to me.
“Hello?” I answer in a hesitant voice, not really wanting to speak to anyone right now.
“Bronx?”
It’s Seven.
“You good?” I ask immediately, wondering if my brother is in trouble because why else would he be calling?
“That’s a loaded question.”
“Is it?”
