1993

“I don’t think you have any idea what you’re reading about. At all.” This I told him, to which he responded with a “I wish you were just beautiful, not beautiful and snarky.”

I never thought of myself as such things. My cat stretched, arching its back beside me. I didn’t care much about the cat. I’m a dog person, to be honest. He gave me the cat on my birthday last year just because I showed him pictures of cats. I also showed him a picture of a successful colleague of mine, but I didn’t get a successful boyfriend on my birthday.

He stood up from his chair and walked up to me. He touched my lips with his fingers slightly, he said “It doesn’t matter whether I do understand it or not. We all gotta fake it ’til we make it”, he murmured as he went back to his desk full of scattered paper.

I shrugged. I hated it when he touched me. His hands are usually greasy from eating crisps while playing video games on his pc. He wasn’t playing right now but I still think his hands get abnormally greasy for no reason. I opened my night stand’s first drawer, took out a baby wipe and wiped my face with it while he wasn’t looking.

I will be ending things with him next month. He’s an abomination. I hate him so much I sometimes want him dead. The mere thought of him being around my place irks me. I just have to find a way wherein I come out cool and collected. I don’t wanna show weakness. Besides, I’ve been talking to this other guy for months now. He’s more compatible with me, but he’s married. I don’t mind becoming a mistress, though.

Next month because he has to take this exam to level-up on his career. In the first couple of weeks of dating him, I wasn’t able to sense how much of a loser he was. He failed that exam twice since he’s met me: first time when we just met; second time on our first year together.

That is why I will only leave him then. I am not a bad person.

He just went to take a shower, but forgot to bring his towel with him. He came out wet of course, his 2-inch bloodless penis dripping with water. You can’t help but stare at it’s size. “Such a pervert,” he called me out. I smirked. He didn’t look like a meal. His body looked like that of a twelve year old boy with the face of a 27 year old man.

Do you know what happens when a man turns 27?

They look like someone who would date a 40 year old woman because they failed every relationship they had with someone of their age or younger. He cares about his looks but doesn’t do anything about it. He may also be in a long term relationship with someone he doesn’t like. He’s just settling because nobody else wants him except for the girl he’s cheated on so many times but still won’t leave him because she’s not very smart. He’s too young to be rich and too old to brag about nothing. Nothing means his pc gaming and the number of anime memorabilia he has collected from his measly salary. He’s mostly short of cash even if he should be married by now. If he’s married, he’s unhappy. He often shares shitposts on Facebook and is probably a Republican.

Queer Eye’s target market. Basically, they’re either about to commit suicide or have lived long enough to hate everyone for not giving them enough reason to push through with it.

My boyfriend is 22. I’m 30. It’s not that hard to imagine how much I make more than him.

He grabbed our cat’s butt to shoo it away. He moved beside me with a flop and started kissing my thighs.

Then he told me to get ready. He looked into his night stand to grab a toy, some of them were sharp, some were soft. He chose a small pocket knife, so I guess he wanted to do some role-playing tonight. I answered that I still had work to do. Took me 30 minutes of making him wait that he eventually went straight to sleep. I started feeling this intense headache but I continued answering emails.

A notification popped up from my phone. It’s Ben. He’s asking if he can call me. I texted him back:

Call me.

Please.

I will. Wait.

I took my phone with me to the apartment’s tiny porch and rang his number. He answered with his usual greetings.

I was giddy, you’ll barely recognize my voice. I met Ben at work, he’s an actual 27 year old, but he didn’t look a day over 25. He looks like the 22 year old on a very good day. We’d meet each other twice a month, I’d tell my boyfriend I’m staying at my parent’s home but I’ll be at Ben’s place.

Ben makes me reach my climax whenever we fuck. He’d lick and suck me so well, I mistaken what I feel for him as love. He’s also into bondage and devirginizing porn. He’s into blood for some reason. He also makes the best beef curry I’ve ever had in my life. I knew it was all sex, but I can lie to myself. I can be very good at it to which is why I’ve been with the man in my bed for 3 years now and he still thinks I love him. I don’t think I’ve loved anyone, ever.

We talked on the phone for over an hour and then I felt something solid hit me on the temple. I was still able to turn around and see a figure of who assaulted me. I saw someone, standing a little below 6 feet, holding a black thing. Looks like a baton or a pocket umbrella. I wasn’t able to make of his face even with the porch light on. That’s all I remember seeing after losing consciousness for a few minutes. I understood we must have been robbed because it couldn’t have been my boyfriend. My boyfriend was short, a little over 5 feet. I was sure it wasn’t him. I entered my house and a smell of rust greeted me. I immediately looked for my boyfriend, knowing he’s probably gone hiding. I looked all over my bedroom but nobody was there, except for the pools of blood on the floor. Nobody else was in the house but me. Nothing was stolen either. But blood is terrifying and meant someone’s bleeding, so I got ready to go outside.

I looked for my phone but it was nowhere to be found. I looked for shoes and wore a bra on. If he had been murdered, I’ll be the primary suspect so I first thought of looking for help as soon as I can. My apartment sits in a suburban neighborhood in the middle of the city so it was hard. People aren’t used to being awaken in the middle of the night.

Then someone squeezed my shoulder. I gasped in surprise to see someone who isn’t supposed to be here, be here. It was Ben.”What the fuck are you doing here?”, I asked, as tears dropped without warning. “Come home, everything’s fine,” he replied. “We just finished.” I am confused, but I went with him. “You’re not wearing any slippers on this time,” he said. This made me dizzier. I touched my face and there was blood. I looked at myself and there was blood all over me. “Why are you here? How did you find out I got robbed?” I kept asking questions about what had transpired at my house, why there was blood everywhere. I didn’t ask him about my boyfriend because I haven’t told him I was in a long term relationship. He didn’t talk until we got to my gate, he said “Please clean yourself up, then clean the bedroom floor.” I slumped down in front of our gate. I lost it and started screaming. “Help!” I screamed. “Ben, where the fuck are you!?” I continued screaming. Nobody came to find us. There were no houses nearby. He entered the house and yelled at me to come inside, “As soon as you’re done,” he said.

I cleaned the bedroom floor of my blood and took a shower. When I got out, I was told to show my arm by the man with me. He took out the bandages and wrapped the 22 bloody stripes running up my arm.

“We completed up to 22 this time before you started hitting your head on the table corner. Well done, babe.” He said this as he kissed my throbbing temple.

He then went to the kitchen with his pocket knife to clean my blood off of it and put it back into the night stand. He locked it. The cat flopped itself on my lap and made purring noises. “Fucking get that thing out of my bed or I swear I’ll kill that thing next.”

“We wouldn’t have to do this twice a month if you weren’t such, ah fuck!” then he turned to his side of the bed. I shooed my cat to get out of the room. “Sorry love,” I told it. I am really good at lying to myself.