Jowita Bydlowska - Guy

She looks familiar for a moment, like someone I dreamt of. It’s not the first time she looks familiar. Maybe a girl I knew back when I was a kid. Not someone I slept with. Maybe the familiarity is just because we are becoming familiar.

I say, “Are you planning to go back?”

“Just a minor setback. I never planned to drop out for good. Just needed a break, I guess. Now that I’ve got some things figured out, I’m going back for sure.”

“What are you going to be studying?” I ask her breasts, her perfect tiny breasts, a lick of a curve.

She moves my head when I start kissing her belly. “Film,” she says and pushes my head farther away from her body. I stop kissing her.

I’ve been fucking her for what seems like days now. We talk and we fuck. We sleep. Mostly we fuck and we talk. I can’t get enough of either, and I’m able to stay interested to the point of not wanting a break from her.

There’s no faltering, not even a whiff of that ghastly breath of boredom. This is no guarantee that it won’t happen – boredom has sneaky ways of making itself present. Right now, everything is so intense I feel like some shamanist maniac from India or Nigeria, dancing in flames, but I know there will be no warning when I’ll suddenly wonder what is this for? “Is that all there is?” Yet for now, I do my best to not think about all that. Gloria would be proud of me: It actually feels as if I’m living in the now .

So I pay attention to my now, listen to everything Bride says, fulfill every wish (ice cream in bed, pull her hair, two fingers in her pussy instead of three, etcetera). She doesn’t ask questions. In her mind, she must imagine herself an alpha girl, and I let her be one. I let her be the girl she imagines she is.

She talks about books she loves – non-fiction books about serial killers – similar to what Dolores was into – and what she plans to do for the rest of the summer.

“It’s a secret project,” she says.

“You don’t want to tell me?” I’m aware of the fact that asking betrays me again, betrays my desperation.

“Not yet.”

“Should I be worried?”

“Why?”

“Given your interest in serial killers,” I tell her belly button.

She says, “I can’t hear you. What about you? What’s your thing this summer?”

“You, actually,” I answer truthfully.

“What?” She lifts my chin.

“You,” I say. “You’re my big project.”

“How so?”

“I want you to fall in love with me.”

“And then what?”

“And then I’ll leave you and never speak to you again,” I say, truthfully.

“Ha ha ha.”

“You like that?”

“It’s cute. Good luck with that.”

“What? You don’t fall in love?”

“I don’t know. I think I was born with that part of me missing. It’s just never happened for me.”

“I’d like to be the first then,” I say, and I lick her shoulder. She tastes of sun. I’m giving away my plan but that’s part of the plan.

There is no plan, actually.

“You can try. You’re welcome to try.”

“You’re adorable,” I tell her and bend down to stick my tongue in her belly button again, decide this was enough of a break.

“I guess I want to be with someone who’s not boring,” she says the next time we talk in bed. A whole day and night has passed with breaks for meals and naps and a few short walks with Dog.

“Sure, me too.”

“Is that why you see a lot of girls?”

“What makes you think that?”

“The letter. From the girl. Dolores? And you told me about $isi. And the woman who’s been calling you all day today. Gloria?”

“I thought you were sleeping.”

“I was.”

I like that she’s jealous, but part of me is alarmed by how happy it makes me that she might be jealous. A point for me but two points for her because there’s no ease in this satisfaction; I shouldn’t care, shouldn’t even notice – or I should notice, but it shouldn’t matter.

“You’re not jealous, are you?”

“No. Maybe. But that’s natural.” She yawns. “Just biology. I’m feeling territorial because we’re screwing.”

“Territorial,” I say.

“Yeah. Why are you biting on my neck when we fuck? Territorial. You’re marking your territory.”

I pull her hand and kiss her on the inside of her wrist, the delicate web of pretty veins. I’ve abandoned my usual formulas with this girl. I’m going all in. I’m waiting for some kind of opportunity to infiltrate her more. But I’m making mistakes: I’m asking too many questions, and I want to hear her answers, and she knows I want to.

She says, “I like it that you appreciate women. I know you might not believe me because of that letter. But honestly, I rarely get possessive,” she says.

I know you should never trust a woman who says she doesn’t get possessive, but I’m starting to think not a lot of conventions apply to Bride.

“I like a variety. I’m being healthy about it.” I’m not letting go of her wrist. And she doesn’t try too hard to pull her hand away. She sighs as I lick her there, gently. Her skin is hot; I can feel the microscopic pulse of the veins against my lips.

“Yeah, me too. I’m healthy about that too. I don’t need to prove anything,” she says, and I have to wonder: how many lovers, realistically, could she have had? But then again, if she has the same effect on the rest of the male population as she has on me, the count could be quite high. And a girl who knows her value, who understands her power, is a hundred times more powerful than I could ever be.

The sad thing is, many girls pervert this power by becoming demanding, impossible to please – or worse, they let some asshole tell them that they’re not all that. Then they spend the rest of their lives looking for validation – in diets, in more inadequate boyfriends, and later, in children, in plastic surgeries, in who-has-more competitions. If it wasn’t for men like me, many of those women would never know they’re worth more than they think they are.

“What happens when you meet someone?” I say, as lightheartedly as I can.

“Oh, they like me, I like them a little bit. They cry, I don’t. You know, same thing you do. I leave. They all turn boring eventually. Well, not even boring, not all of them, but predictable. I mean, sooner or later, something comes out, some kind of bullshit, some hang-up, and I get stuck with having to be the caring, loving girlfriend. Which I’m not. Not at all.”

I wonder about the friend she dropped out of school for. I wonder if someone took advantage of her sticking around for too long. If she got trapped with some sad-eyed loser. If she found herself betraying her free spirit. I wonder if this is just bluffing. I wonder too much.

I hope she’s not bored with me.

Eventually, we take a longer break to eat something substantial. I’m happy to be in the kitchen. My body is pleasantly woozy from all the fucking and lying around. I make a Moroccan-style spicy chicken sandwich with tomatoes, olives, almonds and a tomato-currant relish.

Bride eats silently, methodically, as if this were a task. In bed, she’s sensual and playful, game for anything I ask her to do. Here, she’s just masticating. I’ve seen her type of eater before, one who eats just because she needs to get it over with, not necessarily unappreciative of the food, but unable to appreciate the pleasure of eating.

“Very good,” she says when she’s done. She shakes her foot; her flip-flop, hanging off the toes, does not fall off. “Cunt,” she says quietly.

I take my time with my own meal. I chew slowly, letting every bite expand into its full flavour. I love the smooth, springy texture of the olives. I suck the juices out of the morsels of meat. The crispiness and smoothness of the almonds, the sweet, sour kick of the currants.