I crossed my arms. “Why in the hell would I spend that much money on shoes?”
“That is it.” He pointed at me. “Your first thought is the price, even though you could afford it. For people like them, their first thought is: does it look nice? You don’t fit in because you don’t fit in. You don’t see the world like they do.”
“You say them and they, but last I checked aren’t you filthy, stupid rich?”
He shook his head. “My family is rich. I, Eli, am just financially stable.”
“You know that's exactly what a rich kid would say, right?”
He shifted, looking back at the television. “So what do you do with all that money you con off…I mean, earn from your art?”
“Don’t think I don’t know that slip was not by accident, and to answer your question, I run a few charities—what? Why are you looking at me like that?”
“A few charities?” His eyebrow rose. “Really? Who are you, Mother Theresa? You have to have something you use that money on. One thing you splurge for; everyone has something.”
“I guess it would be…” I paused.
“Are you going to continue your sentence or just keep staring off into space?”
I turned to watch the sea turtles.
He turned off the TV.
“What do you spend your financially stable money on, then?”
“Nice clothes, watches, mostly cars…”
“Rich.” I coughed, placing my hand on my throat. “You are just like them.”
“I never said there was anything wrong with them. I just said you were different, and don’t pretend like there is anything hotter than a well-dressed man…a well-dressed me, for that matter.”
God, could his ego get any bigger?
“So what do you splurge on? Share.”
“It’s nothing, traveling and…” I drifted off.
“Guinevere I-would-say-your-middle-name-but-I don’t-know-it Poe, what do you splurge on?” He sat straighter. “It can't be…”
“What?” I felt like his eyes were piercing through me.
A grin spread across his face like he knew, and he turned on the TV again. “Nothing.”
“What?”
He shrugged. “It's just, the only thing a woman like you would be nervous to admit would have to be sex.”
“It’s not sex!”
“You’re getting really defensive right now.”
“It’s romance novels.” I had a collection in my room that would make some women jealous.
“Knew it.” He smirked.
“That isn’t sex.”
“Please, you're telling me you splurge on Dickens? Let me guess, you’ve got everything from Pride and Prejudice to Fifty Shades of Grey.”
I hate this man so much. “They are books—”
“Oh come on, it’s porn on paper, and you had the nerve to knock on my door, telling me I was too loud.”
“You won’t let that go?”
“Some of us like to actually experience sex in the real world and not just in our heads, thank you very much.”
My hands lifted as if to strangle him, but I dropped them.
“At least you're not as prudish as I thought, you're just a closet—”
I slapped my hand over his mouth. “First, whatever you were going to say, don’t say it. And second, just because I’m not screwing men against my wall doesn’t make me a prude.” I took my hand off his face.
“Why not? You're not married, not engaged, you are a free person. No point in not living it up and enjoying yourself—”
“Those women you slept with, did they make you feel better? And I don’t mean while you were doing it or right after. When they left and you were alone, did you feel better? Tell me you did, and I will go out tomorrow night and bring a guy home.”
He got up, taking a seat on the coffee table again as he grabbed my ankle and started working on the compression wrap.
I didn’t flinch this time. “I guess that’s my cue to le—”
“I felt nothing.” He looked me dead in the eye, emotionless, his face almost scary. “You're right. I brought them back, stripped them down, fucked them every way I could think of until neither of us could walk, and I still felt nothing afterward. But what would you have me do, Guinevere? Pine after her? Read books about some perfect person who doesn’t exist? I was ready to give her my life, my name, everything I was, everything I owned; I was about to give it to her, and she threw it back in my face like it meant nothing. So yes, I fuck women, and in that moment, I feel great. I'd rather have that moment than nothing, because nothing hurts. You should know.” When he finished, he gathered up everything on the table and walked into his kitchen.
Getting up, I said nothing, glancing back to him only once before I left his apartment. When I entered mine, Taigi came up to me, rubbing against my legs and following me into my bedroom. The only things in there were the bed and my floor-to-ceiling wall of books. Sitting in the center of my bed, I stared at it all. My books weren’t nothing…they were all different little dreams.
He had sex to provide his moment of relief.
I read about it, and the characters' lives.
We were just the same.
Eli