Bang

"He cheats on me you know," Janice said suddenly. She appeared suddenly in the door behind me, a slouched form leaning against the door frame with downtrodden eyes burning holes in my carpet. I turned slowly at the sound of her voice and stared at her. At one time, I had pursued her. A woman six years younger than me, long dark hair, winter grey eyes and a smooth angular jawline that for some reason always reminded me of water with its fluidity. When I first met her always wanted to place my hand to her neck, hold her head at just the right angle while I pressed my lips against her skin, felt her blood pulse and quicken as my tongue caressed her skin.  But that time had long since passed. Now I saw her as just another person, barely a coworker that I had to tolerate for seven hours Monday thru Friday.

I considered the woman that now stood before me. For the most part she was still as small as ever. Her high cheekbones and angular neck just as alluring as those years ago. But the bottom portion of her had changed. An enlarged chest, paid for by her current boyfriend. And a thin waist but a firmed a*s that stood out in whatever she wore. Today she wore a pencil skirt, gray, with a traditional white blouse. She stood there so casually after blurting out about her boyfriend and the way he treats her, and it seemed as though she thought this would elicit a reaction from me. Was I supposed to fly into a rage? Was I to shout down how she could do better, deserved better, and that I was the true man for her? Again, those days were over. I wasn't interested. I paused. That wasn't true. My interests were shallow and carnal, and beneath both of us. 

"And yet you are still with him," I said with a casual sigh as I turned around and resumed my work. I didn't want to indulge her, but at the same time I was a bit curious. She had allowed this man to come into and take over her life, even suffering breast augmentation for him, and now she finds herself in a position where her value is even less than before. I could see it, and I was curious as to whether or not she could as well. Women like her never failed to fascinate me. When they had your attention they acted like they couldn't care less, and when they didn't have it they did all they could to get it. It had been nearly two years since she last had mine (minus the small dalliance during the summer party last year) and I wasn't even remotely inclined to play her games again. She was a woman who fed on attention; her desire to be looked at barely edging out her desire to be admired and adored. She believed that relationships were always to be of an intense variety, every moment a dramatic caricature more common on a daytime soap opera than anything even remotely real life. 

I on the other hand felt above all that. I didn't see the point of clinging to such fantastical notions when real life was hard enough. I felt I had wasted much of my younger days chasing a dream of a perfect relationship and all that love stuff and now, just shy of 30, I was tired of it. Sure I still believed in love, but at the same time I truly believed that lust held more sway than anything else. It went beyond mere attractibility...one could be physically attractive and yet not inspire the proper amount of lust to capture my attention. For me, now, that is what I am after. Someone who meets and then exceeds physical attractiveness and hones themselves to be an object worthy of my lustful worship. I am sure there are many that would find fault and attempt to induce shame in my wanton objectivication of my sexual partners, but it is what I wanted all the same. 

Right now Janice was well below what I would deem acceptable. While at times she had endeared herself to me and seemed an ideal match, with further probing I found her devoid of the substance I sought, or any substance at all. While her eagerness had a charm all its own, her methodology was severely lacking. In short, she was what my college friends termed "A dead lay." While attractive and able to make any man rise to the occasion, she lacked anything deeper that made you want to come back for more. 

Perhaps this is why her current boyfriend treated her the way he did. Perhaps his attempts at controlling and augmenting her were inspired by a want to change her into something more than she was. Perhaps he figured if he modified her outside first he could then manipulate the inside. The thought intrigued me, but I wasn't a fan of the abuse she suffered at his hands. Regardless of her own will to stop it, I didn't have to enjoy it.  Modifications could only work after a fashion, and only for a while. In order to affect a truly systemic change of one's psyche, something more drastic would have to happen. And I didn't like thinking of what that drastic act would be.

I suddenly realized that the whole time I was musing about all this and the ways in which a true change for Janice could be wrought, she was still there, in my office, now staring at me. I wondered how long she had been talking before realizing I was no longer listening, how long she had stared at me while my eyes glazed over and I lost my focus on her. Throughout that time she had calmly waited, no trace of anger anywhere on her face or in her eyes. This too intrigued me. Had she been so cowed by him that her inner fire was now gone?

"Do something different," I said to her suddenly as I regained my focus on her. Her head tilted to the side and I could tell she was waiting for me to expound upon my thoughts. 

"He cheats on you, well so what. You were naive to think that he wouldn't. He is vapid and shallow and full of himself. Of course he cheats on you." She opened her mouth to protest but the words seemed to catch in her throat. Instead she closed her mouth and crossed her arms, then looked away from me.

"There is no need to be ashamed Janice. We see what we want to see. He blinded you to his dealings by making you think he had a genuine interest you. He had you modify your body for him, and you thought surely he would stay with you since you became what he wanted. In reality, you became a thing to him, something he could change when he wanted, and discard just as easily. And that is what he has done. Only you hang on."  Still she did not look at me as I spoke my words. It didn't bother me. I said what I wanted, scored my points and was now ready to move on. At one point in my life I had wanted her, wanted a relationship like the type she thought she had with this other man, but now I was beyond that. I was beyond her. My dealings with people like her taught me that relationships were fraught with more problems than they were ever worth.  I no longer cared.

 

"Now is the time for you to do something different," I told her as I turned and stood. The slight crick in my back told me I spent a few too many hours hunched over that desk.  "Why don't you take some time to try to figure out what you really want and stop letting others tell you?" I grabbed my coffee cup and headed from my office. I knew that I could have stopped and tried to further talk things through with her; I knew she probably wanted just that. But my time and sympathies were two things she lost rights to a long time ago. I said enough. The rest was hers to sort out.

Stepping into the hallway I was assaulted by the rest of my department. On the fourteenth floor, the bright sunlight from the floor to ceiling windows that lined the exterior walls of our department left little shadow to shield my early morning eyes. I made my way to the copy room to get a refill before pressing my nose back to my computer. I worked in the customer service department of the second largest web insurance firm in the greater Texas area. My job was nothing glamorous or courageous, just enough to keep me comfortable in my rather large two bedroom apartment not too far from downtown Austin. The money was more than enough for a single man with no family or dependents to speak of, plus the easy hours left me with plenty of time to develop my other interests. Right now I was in the middle of development for a new novel, something edgy and sci-fi that required any love I could have possibly given a woman, and I liked it that way. If my interactions with Janice were any indication, relationships were a complication I didn't have time for.

Coffee has always been like a pressure valve for me. As a devout practitioner of Stoicism I found it remarkable how often my restraint was tested, and most of the time I never noticed until that first sip of coffee just how tense I was. It had nothing to do with any craving: I needed the caffeine and it was the fastest safe delivery source. But there was something about that warm dark liquid that, when it hit my lips, it had the ability to make my shoulders release whatever weight I carried into that copy room. Now was no different. I made the cup like always; filled three fourths of the way and an addition of two sweeten low packets. I knew all about the cancer dangers and so forth of my preferred sweetener, but I was a simple man and in this I refused to change.

 

I glanced at the clock as I sipped my coffee. Not even one o'clock and I was already bored with the day. Much of my work was already done: I had the annoying (to others) habit of working diligently and undisturbed by the office gossip around me, and this left me with a lot of free time. Often I would take extended lunches or even leave early for the day to spend more time writing. Because of Janice I was here later than I had estimated the night before. I drained my cup and decided to leave. There was really nothing left for me here and unless I wanted to stick around to watch Janice beat up on herself more, I could put my time to use elsewhere.

"I'm taking lunch, I said with a sigh as I grabbed my jacket and laptop bag from my chair.  I walked down the hall and boarded the elevator without a single look back, and purposely waited until the doors closed before I turned around and let out another sigh. I just didn't care. It was the same odd feeling, the blasé depression that I felt a lot these days. It didn't necessarily slow me down or make me sad, just made the world around me seem dull, uninteresting. Nothing seemed to hold the same importance or sway that it once had, and even at times my writing didn't resonate with me the way it once had. Many told me it was simple writers block, but as the days turned into weeks, then months, I knew it was more.

I had no intention of going back to the office. I didn't see a point. Surrounding myself with others who worked while I played games at my desk just didn't hold the interest to me as it would have several years ago. Exiting the elevator and then the building, I rushed into the October weather with relish.  The stifling climate of the office left one feeling oppressed and suffocated, and the cool winds of the beginnings of Fall swept all that away from me. I felt relieved to be away from all that. It was 2:30 in the afternoon and I was a single man without any commitments. A quick drive from downtown put me back at my apartment with relative ease. Living in big cities most of my life taught me that traveling in the early hours of the afternoon often meant little traffic. It was one of my motivations for getting my work done so quickly: I enjoyed leaving early. I arrived home to my fifth floor apartment only to discover my favorite show already in full swing. "The Dueling Neighbors" as I and the rest of the tenants called them, they lived one floor and two doors down from me. A couple for the last six years, these two had only recently decided to move in with one another,  and now after a mere six months of bliss we tenants were treated with the ugly other side of their relationship. Those of us that took the time to speculate as to the nature of it felt there was no way these fights were new. And when we saw the couple in public, it was hard to fathom what they fought about.

They were both seemingly well to do people. She was a tall, long haired ebony amazon with the poise and symmetry of any top fashion model. In fact from what I had been told from those that took the time to talk to her, that's the reason she moved here. She was an aspiring model trying to find work.   The man, he I knew from the neighborhood. He was Mike Willis, a part time construction worker and full time body builder also in the modeling game. That's how they met. A couple of gigs booked together found them suddenly spending a lot of time together, and a relationship was born from their similar ambitions. Still, with the amount of fighting they did, one would expect them to see the error of their situation and move on.

  Today was certainly no different. As I passed their floor going up to mine, I smirked as I put the key in the lock and entered my place. "Even on a Sunday at 2:30, they are still at it," I mused aloud as I tossed my keys and my bag down, poured myself a drink and flopped down in my armchair next to my window. From the window, you could hear everything. The fire escape seemed to intensify the connectivity of our respective apartments, and as the cacophonous fallout from the couple below rose up and filled my place.

"You f*****g b***h!" This was obviously Mike

"F**k you a*****e, I don't have to explain myself." The Glamazon.

"I know you are sleeping with him, goddamn camera s**t." Mike again.

"You're such a f*****g a*****e. We are playing the same game, trying to get ahead."

"So you admit you are f*****g him. Goddamn it, why are you such a w***e?" There was a long pause here. I figured Mike's question must have cut a nerve.

"Do not, EVER call me that again." The sharp cold fire of her voice confirmed that I was right. The Glamazon was pissed.

"But you are f*****g him." Mike stated. Not a question, just a statement of a perceived fact.

"You really think I would do that just to get a gig?" The hostile question. Not an admission, but not an admonishment either.  I loved it. I took a long sip of my drink and waited for the response. I was sure I wasn't the only one. On the outside, the tenants of this building would want everyone to think we couldn't be bothered to think beyond the spheres of our own lives. But, having talked to quite a few people here, I knew the exact opposite was true. We relished this s**t. We kept drama from our lives and yet eavesdropped to get a vicarious injection of it from these two. I finished my drink and reached for the whiskey bottle to pour another.  I looked out the window as I waited with baited breath for the end of the silence. For something from the apartment for me to sink my teeth into. Would he see her challenge and supply an answer? Did he truly believe her to be a s**t or was this just anger?  In my eagerness to hear the rest of the drama, I choked down my nearly full glass of whiskey and edged forward on my seat.

"F**k you, I'm out," It was her voice.  So sure was I that the boyfriend would speak first, I was nearly floored by the sound of her voice.  The powerful resonance of it only held the slightest timbre of hurt, and the sound of the door slamming shut was the finality of an argument that we tenants never thought we'd hear. I finished my drink and peered out the window, waiting until finally she emerged from the front door of our complex and disappeared down the long street.

Reviews

[HeyJadeXO]

I am hoping there is more to this story it is very intriguing and relatable. I agree with the review below the character did overstate that he isn't interested,but this wasn't anything that stopped me from wanting to read.Great work !

[Juan More Story]

I can sense some existential angst within the character! Is this a work in progress? It definitely hints at there being something more, and am interested to see what it turns into. Good job in crating the setting and build-up.

I will say this though, is that in the beginning it was somewhat repetitive when he kept saying he had was over his coworker. If he really is over her then you can reduce the number of times he says it. If he isn't done with her then maybe add some contradictory thoughts to convey ambivalence or that he is really lying to himself