She wrinkled her nose and stuck her chin out slightly as she stared at me with eyes of disbelief. “Why do you say that?”
“I don’t pay much attention to time,” I responded.
“You don’t have to.” She waved her hand in my direction as she spoke. “The entire world does, but you don’t. You surf, you sleep, you surf, you sleep. You probably don’t even know what day of the week it is.”
I agreed with her completely. I didn’t know, and not only did I not know, I really didn’t care what day of the week it was.
“I’m not interested in having my life or the events in my life dependent on a clock. Go to work at this time, come home at that time, it’s time to eat, it’s time to get up, I have to run to a meeting at 11:45. I don’t know how people do it.”
Liv had been my best – and only – friend since we were in fourth grade. According to her, we had been best friends since kindergarten, but I didn’t completely agree. My first few years in school were difficult, and even though it seemed everyone wanted to befriend me, I had very little interest in becoming friends with anyone. By the time I was nine years old, I realized to survive I may not need to be friends with everyone, but I certainly needed to be friends with someone.
Liv became that someone.
I picked up a slice of avocado only to have it slip from my fingers when it was half-way to my mouth.
“I envy you,” she said.
“Because I don’t wear a watch?”
“No, because you don’t have a schedule,” she said. “And you should use a fork.”
I reached for the salt, sprinkled a little onto the avocado and picked it up. “I couldn’t live like that. And you doing so is by choice, and nothing more.”
“You don’t have to pay rent, and I do. Big difference, Dude.”
“We’ve been over this, Liv. You could do what you do from home. Independently you could probably make more money, certainly have more freedom, and be happier. It’s your own fault.”
She lowered her fork to her plate and sighed. “I don’t know. I think it’s the risk, it scares me.”
“Don’t complain, then,” I said flatly.
“I can complain if I want.”
I widened my eyes. “You shouldn’t. You have the capacity to change it, and you choose not to take the risk. Complaining only brings disappointment into your life. Why be disappointed if you don’t have to be?”
“You make me mad,” she said.
“Okay, be mad. Mad, and reliant upon others to sustain life. Oh, and single by choice.”
“That’s another thing.”
“What’s that?”
She placed her fork to the side and reached for her glass of wine. “The single thing. I hate it. It’s driving me insane, but I deleted all the apps off my phone and I swore I wouldn’t do it anymore. I mean, it really sucks. I swear, I have no idea how you do it,” she said over the top of her glass.
As she took a drink of wine, I finished chewing my chicken and considered my response. My being single was no doubt a choice, but it was also something I viewed as a necessity. I fully realized a long-term relationship with anyone would be an impossibility, and therefore chose to live a life of solitude.
“I guess it depends on exactly what it is you’re after,” I said. “You’re not going to find the man you’ll marry on Tinder, okcupid, or e-fucking-harmony, so why waste your time? Or their time for that matter?”
She took another drink of wine and shook her head. “You aren’t listening, I said I didn’t know how you do it. How you can be single and happy for like ever. I’m going insane, and it’s only been three months. And, it really doesn’t matter if it’s my future husband or just some dude to bone, both are human contact and sexual interaction.”
I coughed out a laugh and almost choked on my chicken. After taking a drink, I leaned forward, rested my forearms against the table, and gazed at her. Liv was beyond what anyone could describe as beautiful, and in all honesty she could have her pick of the entire single population of the city if someone took the time to get to know her. Her problem, at least in my opinion, was that she didn’t perceive herself as valuable.
To be willing to sexually give herself to a man she really didn’t know – under the feeble impression she did know him because she read whatever he chose to include in his online profile – spoke volumes of her emotional evaluation of herself. In summary, she was far too willing to attach herself to almost anyone who would pay her a moment’s notice.
“And, that is exactly what the men on those websites want. Sexual interaction. Nothing more, and there’s no way they’ll settle for anything less. They’re on there to get fucked,” I said.
Her mouth fell open and she stared back at me. “How can you say that?”
“Seriously?”
Her disbelief caught me off guard. I glared at her for a moment, pushed myself away from the table, and leaned against the back of my chair. To think she believed the men on the online dating sites were after anything other than sex was laughable. I realized I should address the topic cautiously, but also felt a need to make sure she understood my true thoughts.
“You know, when you started doing that a few years ago, I gave you my opinion, and it sure hasn’t changed since. Most of the guys lurk on those sites are looking for someone to fuck, and after they get it they go home to their girlfriend or wife. After a few weeks or a month, they make an excuse to break up, and then move on to another victim. They’re a bunch of narcissists feeding their self-esteem by their own personal count of the women they bone,” I said.
She gave me a pffft, and reached for her wine. “You don’t know that.”
“You’re right, I don’t. Answer me this, how many dates have you gone on since you started?”
She swallowed her wine, cast her eyes toward the kitchen cabinets, and stared blankly for a while. “Like, since the beginning?”
“Yes, Liv, the beginning.”
“I don’t know, maybe fifty.”
I leaned forward and rested my elbows on the table as I nodded in agreement. “Fifty. I’d say that’s pretty accurate. Probably one a month give or take, for four years.”
She took another sip of wine and wagged her eyebrows playfully.
“Now, how many twenty-five-year-old women in this city do you think have been on fifty dates in four years?” I asked.
She lowered her eyes to her plate and seemed consumed by the question. My guess was that she was going through her short list of girlfriends, and was truly trying to count the dates she knew they had been on in the amount of time we had been out of school. After a long silent pause, she glanced up.
“None?”
I nodded. “I’ll agree. None. I’d say most of them, if they’re single, have been on two or possibly three a year.”
“You always do this,” she snapped as she leaned away from the table.
I chuckled. “What?”
“Change the subject,” she said. “I asked you about you, and you turned it into me. I asked how you stay single, and you didn’t answer. You never answer. You just say you’re satisfied or whatever. Why don’t you answer me?”
She reached for her wine, finished what was in the glass, and stood from her seat. In a half-drunken stumbling maneuver, she stepped to the counter, grabbed the bottle of wine, and pulled the cork.
“More?” she asked, holding the bottle at arm’s length.
I laughed to myself about her drunken behavior. She didn’t get drunk often, but when she did, she was generally pretty cute.
“I’m good.”
She poured her glass as full as she was able and sat down. “So, you’re single and I’m single. I think you could have any girl you wanted, and you tell me I could have any guy I wanted. We’re both going without, and it’s fucking ridiculous.”
I shrugged and glanced down at my plate. I was no longer interested in eating, but felt a need to since she had taken the time to prepare it. As I considered taking another
bite of chicken, she cleared her throat loudly.
I glanced in her direction.
She tossed her head back, flipped her hair over her shoulders, and pressed her biceps into the sides of her breasts. “I swear, we should just date each other,” she said with a laugh.
I pried my eyes from her bulging breasts, dropped my gaze to my plate, and cut a slice off the end of the chicken breast. Although throughout the course of our entire friendship we had never discussed it, I couldn’t say the thought of fucking Liv hadn’t crossed my mind. In fact, I had spent some time while waiting on a wave doing just that – thinking of fucking her. Dating her, however, was out of the question. I had no desire to be in a relationship with her and chance losing my only friend when the relationship went to hell, and there was no doubt in my mind that it would go straight to hell at some point.
I poked the tines of the fork into the piece of chicken and hesitated for a few seconds, hoping she would change the topic of conversation. My efforts to act as if I heard nothing, however, didn’t last long enough for me to raise the fork to my mouth.
She cleared her throat again. “So, are you going to just keep doing that?”
“Doing what?”
“Acting like you didn’t hear me.”
“You’ve had too much to drink.”
“One glass or three glasses, we’d be having the same conversation, Luke. I’m twenty-five, and I’m sick of it. I know we have each other, and I love this. You know, our friendship.” She waved her hand back and forth between us. “But I need some dick.”
I did my best to act preoccupied with the chicken. It seemed to do nothing short of urge her to press even further. As I reached for my fork, she continued.
She lifted her glass of wine. “No matter how you want to look at it, this is the first time in four years that I’ve been single.”
I chewed the piece of cold meat and poked at the remaining chicken breast with the tip of the fork. She was right, but I really didn’t want to think about it. I wanted her to change the subject. Knowing her as well as I did, however, I realized she probably had no intention of doing so. There would never be a woman on earth with the natural ability to please me more than Liv, but finding a woman – any woman – to be able to fulfill my sexual desires would be close to impossible.
“Well, you know, not actively looking for someone to date,” she said. “And, the more I think about it, it’s the only time since you’ve been single that I wasn’t dating. So what do you think about that?”
I peered over the table and tried to purse my lips. Instead, my mouth twisted into a smirk as I spoke. “About what?”
“I swear. You’re Mister evasive. I know after Valerie you said you were done, but there’s no way you’re done. Not like done.”
When Valerie and I broke up, I swore I’d never be in another relationship, and I hadn’t so much as kissed a girl since. Convinced the possibility of me being compatible with a woman was zero, I saw no future in even trying.
“I’m thinking we should…I don’t know…maybe try and...”
“Try and what, Liv?”
“I don’t know. I was just thinking. I mean, we’re best friends and we never argue about anything. And, well…I mean…”
I had spent all of my days since my one and only relationship ended trying to rid my mind of thoughts of sex, and of women for that matter. As attracted as I was to Liv, dating her was out of the question.
The thought of having sex with her, however, was something I struggled with as I waited for each and every wave.
But I wasn’t satisfied with simply having sex.
When it came to sex, there was something wrong with me. Terribly wrong. Attempting to fulfill my sexual desires ended my first relationship, and I was quite certain it would end any relationship I had in the future. If Liv really wanted to date, she would have an expectation of sex. If we took our relationship along that path, it would inevitably end and end quickly.
I had no interest in losing my only friend.
I stared down at my plate, wondering if she was speaking out of sexual frustration and had no intention of acting upon her statement, or if she was half-drunk and being somewhat truthful. It was also quite possible she was suggesting we attempt nothing other than being more active friends, and begin going out on dates, but remain friends.
Thinking of the possibilities caused me to feel as if the temperature in the kitchen had increased thirty degrees. I wiped my brow with the back of my hand, glanced up, and studied her.
She sat in her chair with the stem of the wine glass dangling between her thumb and middle finger. With her long brown hair pulled up into a bun and her eyes clearly indicating the effects of the three glasses of wine, she looked remarkable.
She always looked remarkable.
“We can’t date, Liv. It’s out of the question,” I said flatly.
Her idea of dating was entertaining to think about, but it wouldn’t work. We were adults. Adults who dated eventually ended up having sex, and sex, at least for us, would end the relationship. Considering my sexual hang-ups, to agree to date her would be to cast our friendship aside. I wasn’t of the opinion my sexual preferences were wrong, but I was convinced they weren’t widely accepted.
She attempted to raise her glass and sloshed a portion of the wine onto the table in front of her. After her eyes fell to the spill, she raised them to meet mine and grinned. “Because?”
“Because I can’t risk losing you.”
She licked the wine from her lips. “Is that the only reason?”
It wasn’t, but for the sake of the conversation we were having, I didn’t need to expand my response to include my sexual deviance.
“Yes,” I lied.
“Fine.” She placed her glass of wine to the side and leaned forward. As she fixed her hypnotic green eyes on mine, she continued. “Forget dating. Forget a relationship. Let’s remain friends. I agree, losing you is something I can’t chance. But, I’m fucking dying.”
“How so?”
“I need some dick. I really do. You’re single, I’m single. I think we should just start fucking. You know, be fuck buddies. What do you think about that? You and me being fuck buddies?”
I sat and stared with my mouth agape, mentally prepared to provide her with a long list of reasons why we couldn’t be friends and have sex with each other.
Instead, I gawked at her as if she had just found a way to cure cancer.
She leaned away from the table and picked up her glass of wine. Her eyes widened as she raised it to her mouth. “Well, at least you’re thinking about it.”
She was right.
I was thinking about it.
And, although I knew it probably should have, it didn’t sound like a bad idea.
Not bad at all.
CHAPTER THREE
LIV
After being friends for two-and-a-half decades and never once discussing it, I found it hard to believe we had reached a point where not only were we talking about sex, but seriously considering becoming sexually active with each other. It was now two weeks after my suggestion of becoming fuck buddies, and we sat in the living room discussing it at length. It was the third time we talked about it, but this time seemed to be more serious. After discussions of sexually transmitted diseases and me reminding him I was on birth control, the conversation migrated to the sex act itself. Luke claimed to be some kind of sexual deviant, but as far as I was concerned, his personal diagnosis of what he perceived as a fault was just one more reason for us to be fucking each other.
“Sex is sex. I mean, really. Nothing against you, but I don’t see how it’s going to be much different,” I said.
He gazed down at the floor for a moment and appeared to be in deep thought. I mentally stood firm in my opinion that his warnings of my inability to accept his sexual offerings were unwarranted.
“So, I guess surfing is surfing.” He turned to face me. “You’ve seen me surf, right?”
??
?Uhh. Yeah.”
To see Luke surf was much different than watching anyone else attempt to do so. Typically, rows upon rows of surfers would wait for the waves, paddling to catch each and every one. Most failed completely at catching anything. Luke, on the other hand, waited for the perfect wave, and appeared to always catch it right before it broke, riding it in a manner that made it seem like he was personally taming it from a thirty-foot tall treacherous beast to the flattened white foam that softly washed to the shore.
He cocked one eyebrow. “Can you compare my surfing to all surfing?”
I shook my head. “No. Not at all.”
“Remember when we were in high school, and you came to see me compete for my black belt?”
“Sure.”
“How many matches did you watch before it was my turn?”
I shrugged and tried to remember the competition. “I don’t know, like, maybe, eight or ten.”
“Did any of them seem as talented as me?”
I shook my head. I couldn’t say I agreed with his theory that I would recede into a ball of emotion and sit in the corner babbling, but he was making some very valid points regarding the difference in his abilities as they compared to everyone else’s.
“You made your point. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to be an emotional wreck over this. You said you weren’t abusive, and that you weren’t into that sado-whatever-shit, so I think I’m good to go,” I said.
He brushed his hair from his face and laughed. “Good to go, huh?”
“Yep.”
His eyes fell to my waist and slowly rose the length of my torso, stopping as they met mine. “And, to clarify, I said I wasn’t into violence and that I didn’t have sadistic tendencies. But, our opinions of what’s sadistic may differ. I’ve taken a long look at myself, and I’m a sadist, by definition. I obtain satisfaction from not only being in charge, but from watching my partner suffer. Mentally suffer.”
I chuckled.
He stared at me without an ounce of emotion.