“Forget I said anything,” I told him.
He shook his head still silently laughing and when he was done, his arms got a little tighter. “Now we’re talkin’ about what I want to talk about.”
“I’m not finished.”
“We’ll get back to your shit later.”
I made a “harrumph” sound and glared at him.
“You owe me,” he said (again).
“I don’t –”
He interrupted me. “Your first payment is to tell me who else got a piece of you.”
Was that it?
I thought he was going to make me clean his bathroom with a toothbrush (or something else, something that required me being naked but I didn’t want to think thoughts of being naked with Luke not when I was sitting in his lap, on his couch, in his loft, wearing his t-shirt, not ever).
“Okay,” I said happily, shuffled my bottom in his lap, settling in, and I began.
“There was Dave. He was a sex pervert. Wanted me to go to swingers parties with him and had a huge collection of porn. He tried to convince me this was perfectly normal, which, I’ll grant it is but it wasn’t my scene. He ignored me telling him it wasn’t my scene and he got pushy then he got pouty then he got angry then he started being mean to me so I kicked him out.”
Luke was silent but he moved, he fell to his side and stretched out on the couch. During this he took me with him. I was so intent on my story, his actions barely registered and I just stretched out too.
“Before him, there was Rick. He was hot. Seriously. He knew it though. He cheated on me right off the bat, wasn’t good at hiding it probably because he knew I’d put up with it. I did, because I was so into him but warned him not to do it again, full of piss and vinegar and thinking he just strayed. He did it again, I found out again we had a rip-roarin’ and he promised never to do it again. Which, in like a month he did. Three strikes, he was out.”
Luke was still silent and since I was sharing (and still drunk) I didn’t notice that, even in his silence, he was communicating to me, communicating something that should have made me keep my mouth shut. He moved under me like he did in bed so that for a few seconds I was on top of him. Then he slid to his side so his back was to the room mine to the couch. Through all this, I kept blabbing.
“Then there’s Dom, you know about him. Then there’s my sister Marilyn’s first husband, who was a slimeball cheat and a drunk. I think he might have slapped her around a bit but she would never say. I saw her once with a black eye and she said she fell down the stairs. A, they didn’t have stairs at their house and B, how do you get a black eye by falling down stairs?”
Luke didn’t answer. I kept gabbing.
“Then there’s Marilyn’s second husband who made her first husband look like a choirboy. Total slimeball. I don’t like Marilyn ‘cause she’s kind of a bitch but I truly think she loved her first husband and it hurt when he fucked her over. She’s my sister, even though I don’t want to hurt, I hurt when she hurts. Do you know what I mean?”
I didn’t wait for him to reply (not that he would have), I was on a roll so I just kept talking.
“Then there’s Dad, you know all about that. He never came back, never called, never sent a card, nothing. Not when I turned sixteen, when I graduated from high school or college, nothing. Disappeared. Gone.”
I realized belatedly where I was and what position I was in but I didn’t care, it was rather comfy really so I went on.
“Noah was hot too, really handsome and I thought totally into me. He was super sweet, bought me flowers, shit like that. Acted like there was no other woman in the world but me. At first I wasn’t into him, after Dave, well, you can guess. But he worked at it hard, convinced me he was a good guy. I fell for it. All that time, he was planning on screwing me over. Not nice. He left, cleaning me out, and still I felt like a moron. Rat-bastard.”
I sighed, searching my memory banks for more jerks to dredge up, found I was empty, looked Luke in the eyes and decided it was time to sum up.
“So you see, men suck. They’re all jerks. I vowed never to get caught up with one again. Ever. Ever. Ever. That brings us to now. That’s why you and I can’t get together because I’m not going through that again. Once I help Sissy get revenge on Dominic Dickhead, no more men in my life, ever. And that’s also why you need to send me an invoice. I don’t mind paying, really. Noah didn’t get the inheritance money Aunt Ella gave me, I’m not loaded but I’m also not hurting –”
“Babe,” Luke finally spoke.
“What?” I asked.
“You can shut up now.”
I blinked then I thought maybe that was a good thing. “Okay,” I agreed then I asked, “So, are we square?”