These women thought I was going to chase after them just because they’d deigned to give me a fuck that was about as pleasurable as a walk in the park.
“But, I thought—”
I stopped her before she could get on some bullshit. Or worse, start crying.
Shit, I hated having to go through this whole pointless dance the morning after.
I took a few steps closer, looming over her petite frame, and stared down at her indifferently like nothing had happened between us the night before. Likeshewas nothing.
“Listen, little girl…” I began to recite the same script, going through the same motions in front of the same audience: Megan, who had settled in happily to watch the show. “I fucked you, and you enjoyed it.” I reached out slowly and touched her lower lip with my thumb, remembering the lewd way that beautiful mouth had wrapped around my cock. I felt her shiver with arousal and smiled. “You did good. I’ve got to hand it to you. A real slut in training. I’m sure you’ll improve with practice, but you won’t get it with me,” I said in a sultry murmur, all crude, calculated sweetness. She glared at me and swatted my hand away clumsily. I gave her a thin, fake smile and went on, “I don’t give a shit about what you feel or think or want. Get out of this apartment and forget about me. Do not get your hopes up; there won’t be a second time.” I didn’t raise my voice—I didn’t need to. My haughty, arrogant tone was enough to break her. I watched her scatter into pieces on the floor like so much confetti.
Used and then discarded.
Exactly what had been done to me.
Exactly what Kim did and called it love.
If that was love then, fuck, I’d loved them all.
I was a true romantic.
At least I, unlike Kim, insisted on always having consent from my partners.
“You’re a…a real…”
“Asshole?” Megan offered from back over in the kitchen. “Girls call him all sorts of things: perv, bastard, fuckboy, sociopath… The field’s wide open, really. For the record, I’m on your side, babe.” She raised a hand in the air as if to ratify her support, but the woman was so freaked out that she couldn’t respond. She retreated a few steps away from me and clutched her purse to her body like I was a monster she was going to have to outrun.
I laughed heartily, as cruel and malicious as I could make it, and bit my lower lip to put on my false face—a face that had been increasingly fucked up for months now—while I waited for the insults to start.
They all did it; I was used to it by then.
“Can you make it to the elevator, or do you need a push?” I sneered, andshe shook her head, horrified. Her eyes glazed over, and I could tell she was willing herself not to cry. I felt nothing about that.
I hadn’t felt pity for anyone in a long time.
“Piss off, you know where the door is.” I gestured to it with my chin. She turned her back to me and ran out, slamming the door so hard behind her that Megan flinched.
“Damn, that’s one way to get rid of a girl. You need to get some new material, though. You can’t keep putting on the same show every morning,” she said through a mouthful of toast, sitting on the stool once again. She was still wearing my sweatshirt.
“Keep your nose out of my business,” I snapped.
My moods were shifting even more abruptly than normal; my personality was in constant flux. Sometimes vulnerable, sometimes nonchalant, and sometimes irascible and irrational. I was trying to fight everything I felt inside, trying to stuff it deep, deep down, but I couldn’t quite manage it.
Because there was nothing left in my life.
There was no family, no siblings, no hope, no ocean eyes to lose myself in, and no smell of coconut.
Nothing.
Except the nightmares.
And the two packs of Winstons I smoked every day.
The occasional fuck.
Work.
And the darkness.
