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Sunday, July 25, 2021

Égoïste

I used to have a real job. A real boss, 401k, bi-weekly paychecks - the whole 9 yards. And because I wasn't bound by the constraints of family, friends or a social life, I used to work relatively long hours. The only problem with that is, at that time, I lived about an hour commute away from the office. So working until 10-11 o'clock 5-6 nights a week, then driving 40+ miles home, sleeping for 4-5 hours, then getting up and driving another hour back into work got a little old after a while. So I was left with 2 basic options - either sell my house and get a place in the city OR find a cheap little studio downtown to crash after working late. I opted for door number two. I found a place about 2 blocks from my office. It was an unfurnished loft in a converted bottle factory (glass, not baby). Nothing extraordinarily special about it - about 600 sq ft of open space with ladder access to a raised sleeping area, but it was perfect for my needs. And it had a lot of good light, which was unfortunate because I didn't think I'd see much of the place during the day. I signed a 6-month lease with an option for month-to-month after that. I bought a cheap couch, a platform bed and stashed a week's supply of clothes in the closet. It was pretty sweet for a while. Kinda like my own little private hideout, a safehouse that only I knew about. Until I made the mistake of letting someone else in on the secret. There was this admin in Finance. We had exchanged pleasantries and innuendo for a few weeks until one night when we were the last two people in the office. I was working late. She was working late. We went for drinks afterwards. We wanted a little privacy. You get the picture. This went on for the better part of 2 months. We'd work late, get drunk then go back to my place and have at it. We even took advantage of the close proximity to have a few long "lunches" as well. We'd come back to the office with our hair mussed and clothes wrinkled, but I don't think anyone suspected anything nefarious. A little background on her - early 20's, graduated from a private catholic college in Texas, tight swimmer's body, dating a 3rd year med student. It would be fair to say that she didn't have a lot of bedroom experience up until that point in her life. And the experience she did have wasn't much more than the drunken-frat-boy "grope'n'poke" variety. Since her boyfriend spent a lot of time at school, they didn't have much of a chance to spend much time together. So she really came of age bedroom-wise while we were together. So anyway, this goes on a bit longer until she starts feeling guilty about her boyfriend and decides that she needs to spend more time with him. She tells me that she can't do this any longer and breaks it off. She even gave her notice at our company and started working for the census bureau. I was definitely ok with it because I was getting even less sleep than when I was driving all the way home each night. And it wasn't like I had anything invested in her except the physical thing. So I stopped seeing her...... for about a month. She developed this habit of hanging out with her friends at a downtown bar and getting too drunk to drive home. So she'd walk over to my loft and knock on the door to see if I was there. This happened once every couple of weeks. I'd let her in, put her to sleep in my bed then I'd go sleep on the couch. Then she'd come over to the couch and start kissing my neck. I'd tell her to knock it off because I had to go into work early. Then she'd start rubbing my chest. So we'd end up making out for a while. Out of a convoluted respect for her relationship with her boyfriend, I wouldn't go any further than that. A few months of this goes by. It starts getting pretty old for me. I got the place so I could get some sleep after working late, but now I was sleeping way less if at all. So she comes over late one Friday night. After her engagement party. Smashed as she could be. I tell her that she can sleep on the bed but she better stay there. I lay down on the couch and go to sleep. I wake up about 7am when I feel her on top of me, completely undressed. I tell her to cut it out. She starts doing certain things to me (for the sake of decency, I'll leave it at that). I push her away and tell her to get off me. She starts doing something to me even more provocative. I'm a man. I have weaknesses. I roll over on top and enter her. Nothing intimate. Nothing affectionate. Just going through the motions to get it over with. I look down to see her avoiding eye contact with me as her eyes almost start to tear up. I couldn't freaking believe she was pulling that shit. I roll off her said things that I regret. Pretty much a total prick. Things like "what the hell did you expect me to do?" and "what's your f-ing problem?". You know, being the sensitive guy I am. She stopped coming over after that.