The Friend Zone

(Twilight Zone music: Di-di-di-di-di-di-di-di, di-di-di-di-di-di-di) There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to a man seeking love. It is a dimension as easy to fall into, as it is impossible to crawl out of. It is the middle ground between fear and joy, between desperation and devotion, and it lies in the mind of an associate, rather than the heart of a lover. This is a dimension of insecurity; Its an area which we call…The Friend Zone. (buhd-oo-bud-up!)

Written by: Michael Hempen on 10/23/11

Brought to you by: Cous’n Hemp’n Entertainment

Featuring: The Ghost of Rod Serling

Episode 8: The Stripper – Part 2:

Fear and Loathing in My Bedroom

Ghost of Rod Serling: In this corner of the universe, a prize fighter in the boxing ring called ‘love’, named Michael Hempen. Two hundred and eighty-three pounds, and a few hours away from a comeback in the relationship arena. Mr. Hempen, who by today’s dating standards is a chubby, over-the-hill relic of what was, and who now sees a reflection of a man who’s left too many pieces of his youth, in too many women, for too many years. Mr. Michael Hempen, who might do well to look for some gentle magic in the hard surfaced glass that stares back at him from…The Friend Zone.

Part 1

Last year I wrote a story about a date I went on with a stripper; THE stripper as far as I’m concerned. I was pretty proud of myself for the mouth sex in that story; no big deal. But as so often happens on my dates, the glimmer of hope that I romanticized about, in wanting to date The Stripper, fizzled out with a whimper instead of a bang…literally; I did NOT get banged. However, this past weekend I had the opportunity to have a second date with The Stripper, and a second change at more mouth stuff.

I have an addictive personality and when I was presented with, what to me seemed like and alcoholic’s rock bottom several years ago, I traded in my booze dependence for writing these blogs. To me, when that bottom hit it just seemed easier to make you laugh than it was to keep waking up in the morning bent over the hood of my car with my car keys in my ass, drunkenly shouting to the neighbors as they walked their children to the bus stop “I’S JUS FLOODED! MINDJER BIDNASS!” So, as you read the story below, know that I don’t judge…but I DO reserve the right to talk shit.

At the end of ‘The Stripper – Part 1’ I told you that The Stripper and I made plans to see each other again for several nights after our first date, but that she blew me off; each time with a different excuse. I figured that she just didn’t really dig me so I thought nothing of it. However, now that I’ve had the opportunity to spend a bit of time with her, I understand the impetus behind this blow-off a little better.

The Stripper moved back to Pittsburgh later in the week after we met and when I wrote that story I thought that would be the end of it. However, after she left Chicago, we stayed in touch. Over the past year we’ve talked on the phone, texted each other, and IM’d on face book. She moved to Florida soon after Pittsburgh and then went on to Tennessee to stay with her brother, living in a shack in the woods. There was much I didn’t know about The Stripper, and to be honest with you, because I never thought I’d see her again, I didn’t really feel like it was my place to ask. Why does someone move around so much? Why does someone live basically in a tent in the woods at 30? Why doesn’t someone with such intelligence and personable presence settle down? Get a job? Write a book? In my mind The Stripper was the ultimate catch, yet she couldn’t seem to settle in one place and although she had a few boyfriends, why wasn’t this woman married to a great guy?

In my experience all the good ones are taken. I mean every time I’ve met a woman that I think is a perfect catch, some other guy has already swooped her up, usually in her early to mid twenties. Perfect women just aren’t single at 30. And to me? The Stripper was about as perfect as it gets. I’ve never heard her say something stupid and she always seemed upbeat and full of spirit. Not only that but she has a deep intelligence, which if you’ve read some of ‘The Friend Zone’ blogs, is a hard commodity for me to find in a woman. The Stripper is the kind of woman that I’ve always wanted to be with, but of course in my world of missed opportunity and inconvenient luck…she moved away.

Last month she moved back to Pittsburgh with her mother. This is home base for her and as we chatted online one night she told me how miserable she was staying back at home; so I told her to come back to Chicago and stay with me. Not in a sexual way, although to be honest I kind of hoped it could turn into a relationship, but so she could get back on her feet. She’s always wanted to be a writer and she was open to the idea of staying with me because it might offer her the opportunity to do what she’s always wanted to do. After all, my place may be boring but it offers the luxury of quiet.

Look, I know a lot of you are saying that making this offer was dumber than Michael Keaton giving up the Batman franchise because he didn’t want to be ‘typecast; and I know a lot of you are NOW saying ‘Who’s Michael Keaton?’ My point exactly. After all, even though we’ve talked over the past year I barely know this woman. But in my defense, I’m not getting any younger and this is a woman that I know I can spend time with. I’m not in love, but I could easily fall in love with The Stripper. Not just because of her looks, although that’s there in spades, but she has a personality that I find very attractive. I can have profound conversations with her and she can easily tell when I’m embarrassed or exhibiting a character flaw of which she has no problem pointing out. And in my mind one of the most important characteristics of love is the ability to not only see through your partner’s bullshit, but for them to see through yours as well. Also, her carefree attitude, desire to better herself, and intelligence are traits that put her in a league of woman that I rarely meet. So the offer stood for nearly a month.

A few weeks ago The Stripper told me that she was coming to Chicago with the girl she stayed with in the city last year. However, this friend was a heroin addict which is the reason The Stripper left last time. I didn’t know this. Apparently, The Stripper was a heroin addict some 6 years ago and has since been clean, and living with someone who still uses was a temptation she could no longer abide. I was always curious how The Stripper got money while she was in Chicago and she told me that because her friend’s father is loaded, they could afford to get loaded. He asked The Stripper to stay with his daughter and look out for her. He paid the rent on their apartment in the city, and The Stripper received money from him to watch over his daughter. The Friend was given a credit card with a large allowance on it, which afforded them both the luxuries of living in Chicago. This time around would be much the same. However, I made it quite clear to The Stripper that anytime she felt tempted, any time she felt she needed a break, she was welcome at Casa De Cummings.

Part 2

Last Monday The Stripper told me that she was leaving with her friend and would be in Chicago the next day. The anticipation I felt was palpable. The Stripper made sexual innuendos every time we talked. But it wasn’t just the sex that I was looking forward too. I wanted to show her another side of the city where she didn’t have to feel beholden to an addict. I wanted to take her to restaurants, maybe just spend some time chilling and watching a movie together. From the snippets of her life that she told me over the past year and the updates I read on her facebook wall, it seemed to me that The Stripper always felt like she needed to impress, and I know that men will often take advantage of a woman’s need to ingratiate herself upon others, to their own sexual ends. However, I saw this as an opportunity to be something MORE to The Stripper. Of course I wanted to fuck her brains out, but I wanted to really get to know her better as a person as well.

Much like the end of our first meeting, The Stripper blew me off for several days. Each day telling me she was on her way, and then not leaving. Again, I felt as though she was pulling my leg in telling me that she was looking forward to seeing me, because she would say “Packed and leaving right now!” and then the next day she would have an update on her facebook wall about doing something in Pittsburgh. Then she would tell me that it was her friend who was dragging her feet and not her. After about a week of this I just put the thought of seeing her again, out of my mind…and then she actually left.

The two ladies arrived in Chicago and both wanted to come see me. The Stripper doesn’t have a working cell phone, so I communicated with her friend through text. These Dostoyevsky lengthed text messages were more rambling than Seth Rogan at a ‘High Times’ cover photo shoot and even more annoying. And while The Friend was begging me not to give The Stripper any alcohol when they came to my apartment, The Stripper was telling me on IM,at the same time, to have alcohol ready for her.

The Friend told me that The Stripper acts like an asshole when she drinks, and The Stripper told me that her friend was being a hypocrite because SHE drinks, but since she’s trying to stay off drugs doesn’t want HER to drink. Here we fucking go. They’re not even here yet and I’m already in the middle of something. I just wanna watch a movie and take a BJ.

Look, The Stripper is a grown ass woman, and since the rambling text messages told me that The Friend was a basket case, I decided not to listen to her. I hid a bottle of 12 year old scotch under the sink in the bathroom and figured at some point in the evening The Stripper and I would share a shot and maybe a make out session. I should have listened to the basket case. SO naive; just thinking with my dick.

So Thursday night they told me they were on their way…7 fucking times…and they never showed up. Friday night, they said they were on their way 3 times and then actually left their place at midnight. Even when they told me they were finally leaving I didn’t really believe them. I mean come on, that’s like 17 blow off’s in the course of a fucking year. Enough already. Well, they finally DID show up at around 2 AM.

The Stripper came in and we hugged each other for a long time as her friend stood by and watched uncomfortably like John Candy at the end of Planes Trains and Automobiles. The Stripper was just as beautiful as I remembered and my heart beat fast as her body clung to mine. When I turned to give her friend a hug I could see the drugs at play. The Friend was tall but couldn’t have weighed more than 95 pounds. Hugging her was like putting my arms around a bird skeleton and I feared that I’d break her and she’d slip through my arms into a mess of broken bones and skin on the floor.

The Friend rambled incoherently alternating between apologizing, asking me to write a book about her father, apologizing again, mumbling incoherently again, apologizing again, telling me about her liver, and then being quiet and staring at the floor for inordinate periods of time. I didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to see that she was on MANY things. The tragedy in The Friends drug use is that she COULD be very hot. She has short black hair and a face like Angelina Jolie…unfortunately she had gotten plastic surgery on her lips making them full and ridiculous looking like two fatty human livers stacked on top of each other. She was obsessed with her appearance and after about 10 minutes went into my bathroom to put on more make up…and stayed in the bathroom for 40 fucking minutes. During that time The Stripper whispered to me her discontent at living with her friend. She couldn’t take the hypocrisy and babysitting her was something of a burden. At one point she asked me to read her some of the chapters of the book I’m working on and we laughed out loud at “The One about a Shit I Took” as we waited for her friend to come out of the bathroom.

Finally, with a fresh coat of caked on makeup, The Friend stumbled into my living room like Courtney Love and The Stripper excused herself to ‘freshen up’ her makeup as well. What is this? A fucking coke bar in 1986? While The Stripper was in my bathroom for another 30 minutes, I listened to The Friend once again, as she battered me with nonsense, at one point ALSO whispering to me that she couldn’t trust The Stripper, saying that she stole from her when she moved out last year and again begging me not to give her alcohol. These two women seemed to be in a spiral of mistrust and close quarter agitation.

Part 3

At around 4 AM, The Stripper told her friend that she wanted to stay the night with me, or what was left of the night. The Stipper asked her for a few ‘benzo’s’ to tide her over until she came home, and The Friend rooted around her purse and put 4 small white pills in The Stripper’s palm. I’m so fucking stupid that I thought benzo’s were benzohystimenes which it turns out isn’t even a real fucking word and I thought that word which doesn’t exist was used for allergies. The Friend left, again begging me not to let The Stripper drink and asking me to bring her home early the next day so they could finish unpacking together. I agreed and as soon as the door closed, The Stripper gave me a long deep kiss and told me that she was SO glad that we were finally alone. We sat down and talked for about ten minutes when she asked me if I had anything to drink. I went under the sink in the bathroom and pulled out the bottle of Scotch I’d hidden…and it was fucking empty. She’d drank every drop of it. I brought out the empty bottle and said “The fuck?”

“Got anything ELSE?” She asked with an impish smile. I was kinda pissed; you don’t drink an almost full bottle of 12 year old scotch in the span of 30 minutes alone in a fucking bathroom. It’s like taking a brand new Mercedes SLS off-roading. Whatever, it was 4:30AM and I was tired as fuck, so I got her a beer and we went into my bedroom.

After I saw the amount of booze she had put away, I had no intention of fucking her. Call me crazy but I like for a woman to be somewhat…CONSIOUS when we fuck, that or I at least need to be as drunk as she is, but I was completely sober. Plus I was tired as fuck, it’s been a while since I stayed up that late and I still had to go into work by noon on Saturday. I put on some music in my bedroom and The Stripper asked me to light some candles. As we lay in my bed, she didn’t really SEEM drunk at all. As she talked, I began to drift off to that twilight state of sleep where you’re JUST on the cusp of it. When she saw this, she shook me awake again and pulled me close to kiss her. The Stripper has lips like no other and kissing those lips was like a thousand fingers running lightly up and down my body. My hard on was full and obvious as I was in nothing but a t-shirt and boxers. A rock hard cock sword beats the shit out of a red bull any day and I found myself wide awake again. The Stripper took off her clothes and began rubbing my junk as we kissed.

At this point something happened. She began acting erratic like a dog jumping up and suddenly barking out the window. While kissing me and rubbing my tripod, she suddenly shot up naked from the bed and asked me to get her some water. My dick went soft again as the cold refrigerator air brushed against it, and when I came back in the room she was laying on her back. She pulled me down on top of her and began rubbing my dork through my underwear again, guiding it to brush against her pussy. Then, out of nowhere she exclaimed “OH MY GOD! I LOVE THIS SONG, REPLAY IT!” The mood lost again, and my dick softening like an old man’s neck, I got up and replayed the song. Then I lay down on MY back and said “Ok, you’re too drunk for this, let’s just get some sleep.”

We both lay there silently on my bed and just as I started to drift off again, I felt her warm hands finding their way to my sack. I imploringly said her name, too which she replied “Shhhhhhhh…” and began kissing my neck. She climbed on top of me, and started dancing around like a stripper while grabbing her boobs and swinging her hair around. I asked her to please stop doing that and just kiss me. I don’t need the whole production.

She brought her face close to mine and then out of nowhere started laughing hysterically. Ok, enough of this shit. My dick is up, it’s down, it’s up, it’s down; my dick felt like the elevator in a 100 story building where the only bathroom is on the top fucking floor. Quit playing mind games with my dick.

Then she lay back down on her back, went completely silent and said without looking at me and in a very serious tone like a petulant child “I want you to fuck me Terry.” This girl knows how to say THE hottest things, but…I told her that that wasn’t going to happen. She was too wasted and we could fuck in the morning if she felt that strongly about it. Then she gave out a deep exhale, bordering on disgust and with a huff like she was doing a chore, leaned over and began blowing me. GOD did it feel good. After a few minutes, she lay back down on HER back and said, again like she was paying a bill “Ok, fuck me now.” What? I just laid there on my back feeling unmanly because I wasn’t going to fuck her, in all of her beauty, and at the same time feeling stoic in my choice. Sorry, but I just ain’t that guy. Then she started crying. Jesus, I just wanted to go to fucking sleep.

I leaned in to hold her and whispered that we’d fuck later when she wasn’t so drunk. I wanted our first time to be better than this. I told her that she could trust me and she’d understand better in the morning. She sobbed “You don’t like fat chicks…you don’t wanna fuck me because you think I’m fat.” Was I being guilted into fucking a drunk chick? I told her that she wasn’t fat at all, which was the absolute truth. In all honesty this was the hardest decision I’d ever been faced with because she had a PERFECT body. Not too skinny, but not fat at all. Her perfect round 36c breasts sat upright on her chest with tiny nipples that begged to be sucked. Just a wisp of hair above her crotch, like a Hitler Mustache; not enough to be a mess, but JUST enough to let you know this was a woman and not some 22 year old with a shaved twat. I held her while she cried, and she suddenly shouted at me to get the fuck off of her. This wasn’t the raised voice of an upset lover, but a bellowing shout of hatred…at 5AM. I immediately went back to my corner of the bed.

I lay their silently, feeling my once proud and strong hard on laying flaccid against my inner thigh; not twenty seconds later she came to me and started to kiss me again. A deep passionate kiss that once again raised my flag to full mast. The sobbing had completely dissipated and she brought my hand to her vagina. That’s it, you put my hand on your vagina and we’re fucking.

She made her way down to my dingus and began blowing me again, after about 3 minutes she put the condom on me. Something about a woman putting on the condom is just fucking hot. I pushed her over onto her back and she raised her legs to my chest. I put myself inside of her slowly as we kissed between her knees. We both let out a deep exhale as I entered her slowly, and she immediately told me to fuck her hard, to which I acquiesced to her request. Her face showed passion and intent. As I plowed into her, making my headboard crash into the wall sounding like helicopter blades cutting through the air, she grabbed my head and kissed me hard. I was on fucking fire. There was no laughing, there were no odd requests, and the heat between us warmed my bedroom with the growing sunlight. I changed my position slightly and got up on my knees, pulling her ass up so my dick would rub the front wall of her vagina. She gave out a loud screech and then said between gritted teeth, with ferocity in her eyes “FASTER!” Her legs began to tremble and I could tell that she was on the verge, as was I. It was heaven. Fucking is SO great, isn’t it? HIGH FIVE!

A few more strokes and we’d BOTH be there. I threw my head back and looked up at the ceiling as I breathed heavily. Almost…there. I wanted to look into The Stripper’s eyes as we both came and when I brought my head back down there was a COMPLETELY different expression on her face…one of tired complacency. Not 2 seconds ago she was completely into this but now she looked at me with disgust and sorrow, and before I knew what was happening she punched me in the face like a man, put her foot on my chest and kicked me backwards off my own bed. I fell to the floor, slamming the back of my head into the dresser as I went. The pain was excruciating but in my tired confusion, my first thought was that she came. I’ve seen women do some weird shit when they cum and I was so proud of myself at first that I ignored the pain and groggily lifted myself up off the floor.

When I came back up to the bed, she was sitting upright at the edge with her feet on the floor. She had her head in her hands and she was once again sobbing. Then she said something that made me feel more horrible than I’ve ever felt in my fucking life…she said through her hands and tear streaked eyes “How could you Terry?…I thought you were different”.

Any feeling of pride I had felt moments ago dissipated and turned me into a lilting pile of shit. That feeling of deep genuine goodness that fucking puts into your soul, was gone in an instant and I felt like a complete asshole. I had to think about it for a moment…did I just rape someone? If so, I’d have to kill myself, there’s nothing for it. But no, SHE came on to ME! She was into it…FUCK, that’s a lie that people who rape women use to justify themselves. Oh my God, I thought…I’m a fucking rapist!

I didn’t know what to say…I was stunned at my own confusion. I was replaying the last half hour in my head trying to remember ANY signs that were given as to her not wanting to fuck and came up with nothing, but that didn’t excuse my actions. I knew she was drunk and I shouldn’t have done it, even with her consent. I was disgusted with myself. I sat next to The Stripper and put my arms around her, apologizing as she sobbed. She screamed at me once again to get the fuck off of her and then laid back down naked on the bed with her back to me, crying as she did. I sat there befuddled, when she suddenly started shouting incoherently about random things “I’M NOT IN TENNESSEE ANYMORE!”, “WHERE ARE THE BAGELS?”, and “I LOVE THIS SONG” erupted from her as she lay on her side. She was no longer crying, but randomly screaming into the fresh morning air. I told her she needed to be quiet, after all I have neighbors, and she began crying again. Then she shot up into an upright position and yelled “Oh my god DID YOU CUM?”

I told her it didn’t matter, just lay back down and try to sleep. She yelled again “I CAN’T SLEEP, I HAVE A HANGOVER! I NEED MORE ALCOHOL TO MAKE IT GO AWAY!” I told her no fucking way and she had to keep her voice down. She started crying again. Oofa.

Once again I held her and told her it would be ok, calm down, you’re safe. She turned to me and said “fuck me”. C’mon…that is SO hot when a woman says that. I knew I shouldn’t, but she started kissing me again. Hard ‘fuck me’ kisses. So I fucked her. What was I gonna do? Again, she was way into it, moaning and cooing as we went back to our original position. After a few minutes she pushed me off of her, dug her head into a pillow, pushed her ass into the air and said “c’mon, fuck me harder”. I didn’t last 2 minutes in that position, and when she felt my cock throbbing with the impending explosion inside of her she told me to take the condom off and cum on her back. I pulled out, ripped the condom off, and shot my load. I’d forgotten how far I can shoot my load. If I was lying on my back it could have hit the ceiling fan. On my knees, it was like putting your thumb over the opening of a garden hose and the first shot went right OVER her back and into her hair. It was like a warning shot across the bow. I put my hand over my dork and as I was making those horrible cum noises that a guy makes and living in that moment of PURE ecstasy…she threw her braceletted arm back and clocked me in the fucking face again while shouting at the top of her lungs “YOU ASSHOLE! YOU GOT IT IN MY HAIR!”

Pain ripped into my cheek as one of her bracelets cut me, but I was STILL cumming. The joy of cumming was interrupted by what felt like a broken jaw. “DON’T…fucking hit me again” I said, starting as a shout, but tapering off as I tried to control my temper. I was starting to get pissed. One only has so much patience at 6 in the morning. Then she got up on her knees and began shouting at me “YOU OWE ME 200 DOLLARS! GIVE ME MY 200 DOLLARS!” The Stripper rolled over on her back and started laughing like a lunatic.

I lay down next to her, finally ready for sleep that wouldn’t come. For the next three hours she shouted nonsense and begged me for alcohol. Alternating between bursts of yelling, and fits of crying. I didn’t have to be a genius to know there was more than alcohol going on here. Finally, at around 9 am she fell asleep. I got dressed and went to work.

Part 4

When I came home at Four, The Stripper was still sleeping. I gently woke her up and asked if she wanted me to take her home. She asked if we fucked the night before, and I told her we did…and I was fantastic. I told her about the punch and she apologized for being so wasted. She told me that she’d wanted to fuck me since the first night we met last year, and asked me if she could spend the night again; then she kissed me before I could answer and we fucked soberly as the sun set outside of my bedroom window.

I told her she could spend all of her nights here, but she couldn’t drink anything; I HAD to sleep that night because I had to work a 14 hour shift on Sunday. I was beginning to think that The Stripper really wanted to be out of her situation and maybe even clean herself up, and in my selfishness and fear of being alone myself…I was fine with that.

She was genuinely upset at how she acted the night before and apologized to me many times, telling me that it was because of the mixture of alcohol and the pill she took; which I found out was Clonazepam. She told me that if she didn’t take these pills, which were prescribed by her doctor, she’d have seizures…I’ve since learned better. I thought it odd that her friend pulled these pills out of a dirty diaper bag when they were supposedly prescribed by her doctor, but she assured me that she had simply left HER pills at home and luckily her friend was on the same medication. She kept asking me for more alcohol and promised me she wouldn’t take any more pills, and in fact she gave ME the pills she had left…or so I thought. I told her that what she needed was to eat, and since the best hangover medicine is food and water, I took her out to dinner, so to for put some food and liquids in her body.

I went to the bathroom at some point during dinner, and The Stripper ordered herself several shots while I was gone. She must have also taken another pill because when we got back to my place later, I practically had to carry her up the stairs. I brought her into my bedroom and put her on the bed. She screamed and begged me for more alcohol which I refused to give her. I told her that I didn’t have the patience to babysit a grown ass woman and that I HAD to go to sleep. I was pissed off now and fucking was the farthest thing from my mind. I hadn’t slept in 38 hours and I HAD to be at work the next day for 14 hours; inventory. I told her that if she wanted to drink I’d gladly take her home. She began apologizing again and telling me she wanted to stay.

She calmed down after about an hour and seemed to have sobered up. We fucked again and this time having no reservations about her clarity…I came in all of 15 seconds. We lay on the bed and joked about my prematurity for a time and then fucked again. This time to much more satisfying results for us both. At around 1130 I FINALLY drifted off to sleep to the sound of falling rain outside my bedroom window. I dreamt of an old wooden ship adrift on the ocean. As a storm pelted the boat, it tipped and bowed furiously. Thunder crashed overhead, yet I remained calm and relaxed in the tumultuous throes of an endlessly angry sea. I could feel myself soaked in cold rain water, and from out of nowhere something hit me in the head…hard. I woke up and grabbed my ear, the pain was real and when I rolled over to see where the blow had come from, I got clocked in the forehead with The Stripper’s elbow. “Getmesumwater” she slurred as she lay on her side facing away from me. I looked over at the clock and I’d been asleep for 15 fucking minutes. Anger shot through the pain in my head and I bolted up out of the bed.

“That’s enough. Get the fuck up and get dressed.” I regretted saying that almost immediately, but I also instantly realized that The Stripper was too fucked up to even know that I said it. She sat up and looked at me with sad puppy dog eyes and said “I don’t want to go”. I told her that she HAD to calm down, she HAD to go the fuck to sleep, and she was killing herself with these fucking pills. More lies and excuses poured out of her mouth, and although I felt bad for her, I was still pissed and told her I was taking her home. I grabbed her clothes from on top of my dresser, pulled the covers off of her and threw her clothes in her lap. I simply don’t have the patience to deal with this. As she sat up on the end of the bed sobbing, I noticed that my sheets were soaked where she was laying and the stark realization of what she had done washed over me like a kid who walks in on his parents fucking.

That’s right folks…she pissed my bed. This wasn’t like a small amount of piss either. Like a tinkle or when your little chow dog accidentally pisses on your bed. This was a HUMAN amount of piss and from what I saw? That piss had been stewing in her for quite some time. THAT’S why I dreamt of being wet, and now that I realized it, MY entire side was soaked. This puddle had spread out almost from the headboard to the foot of my bed. I told her to take her clothes out into the living room and get the fuck dressed. I pulled everything off the bed, threw it in the laundry basket, grabbed a towel and laundry detergent from the closet and started scrubbing. I must have washed and rinsed that mattress down a hundred times and it still didn’t feel like enough. As I cleaned, my temper receded; I flipped the mattress over, threw on a new set of sheets (all I had were the Star Wars sheets I had since I was a kid) and went out into the living room. The Stripper was fully dressed and sobbing on my couch. Again she apologized profusely and empathy overcame anger.

I didn’t want to hear apologies though; they dripped off of me and brought back horrors from my OWN past. Growing up I dealt with my mother’s alcoholism on a daily basis. At night she’d beat the shit out of me while in a drunken stupor, sometimes in front of my friends, and the next day she’d wake up and apologize, begging my forgiveness. That night after drinking a bottle of vodka she’d go RIGHT back to beating the shit out of me repeating this cycle for years. Now there’s a woman in my bed going through the same cycle with me only instead of beating the shit out me, she was fucking me…you know the saying; men marry their mothers.

The Stripper still tried to lie to me about her addiction claiming that the pills were prescribed, but I wasn’t having it. She told me that she didn’t want to go back to her friend’s yet, and to be honest I was so fucking tired I didn’t really feel like driving her all the way into the city in any case. We sat on my couch together and talked into the night.

She told me that she didn’t want me to think that she could only fuck me when she was drunk and I told her that I thought she could only be FUCKED when she was drunk. It had nothing to do with me. In a moment of clarity she told me that she couldn’t enjoy sex with anyone because of an abuse committed upon her by her grandmother…yes, by her GRANDMOTHER.

It’s the kind of tragedy that most people hear, say ‘that’s a shame’, and then go back to their life without ever thinking about it again, leaving the person it happened to alone and with no recourse but to go back to feeling that they’re a piece of shit and do ANYTHING they can to drop off the planet because they think that they don’t have the courage or the strength to kill themselves.

I’ve been given these types of revelations before and every time I hear it, it makes me fucking furious. And in the rare instance when people who DO commit these atrocities get caught, my fury only deepens when they’re sent to jail instead of being hung up by their genitals on the field of a crowded football stadium while random people from the crowd beat them with blunt objects until they fucking die.

I can only imagine the fear and hopelessness that comes with moving from place to place on a more or less consistent basis. Having an addiction is bad enough, carrying around that baggage with a tragedy like that stuffed deep down into a side pocket in life’s luggage like a melty warm chocolate bar that’s leaked all over your toothbrush, shaving kit and favorite anal thermometer must be horrific, but doing that while feeling that nobody gives a shit about you can only be a nightmare that nobody should endure.

Blaming oneself for the unbelievable atrocities that someone else put upon them is an age old tradition on this planet. Although for some of us, this course of self pity may seem outlandish, we have to consider the alternatives…especially if the person who committed these acts got away with it. Who the fuck DO you blame? There are many types of family dynamics out there and I’m not smart enough to be able to point them all out. But there are secrets in the world that would shatter your eardrums and melt your brain if you heard them. They STAY secret because people are embarrassed and ashamed of what happened to them, rather than desperately seeking to revenge themselves upon their aggressor.

Life is a one way street. There’s NO going back. Most people want to meet someone they can trust and fall in love with, someone they can have children with and build a life. But if that story that we have hidden deep inside of us, down in the shadowy recesses of our very souls, were ever to come to light…who could love us? And without that love, life is frightening and uncertain. But what these people don’t realize is that by keeping that secret, by bottling up that frustration, rage, and fear…they only push people away by endlessly running from something that’s attached to them like a face hugger from Aliens. I can only hope that by trusting me enough with that story, Jaime can feel a tiny bit of peace.

Anyway, to me, and I KNOW I’m not the only one who feels this way, but to me I wanted to hold her until the pain went away. I wanted to tell her that it would be alright, I wanted to give her MY strength even at the sake of turning myself into a quivering pile of shit like Chet in ‘Weird Science’. But in all honesty what can you SAY to someone with a story like that? More importantly, even if the right combination of words exists…how can you make them believe you or trust anyone ever again? Unfortunately you can’t, all you can do is listen. My hope can only be that if I listen long enough, if I listen consistently, trust will come and with that trust will come a hope in her that someone DOES care, because in a world of people I really don’t give two shits about? I actually DO care about this girl.

I told her that whatever she was running from, I would protect her. Whatever she was hiding, she could lay that burden on me, and whatever she was afraid of wouldn’t get near her while I was with her. They were the sad promises of someone who thinks they can mean more to an addict than their addiction. I left for work that morning after The Stripper had fallen asleep in my bed; she looked more content in her sleep that I’d ever seen her. Maybe just listening helped her a little; I gained a tiny bit of insight into why my mother became a Drug and Alcohol Counselor. Before I left, I dumped every ounce of liquor I had into the sink except the small amount of Jack Daniels I had left which I would need after this event was over.

Part 5

I worried about The Stripper all day. And while doing an inventory at another manager’s store, I told the story of that weekend to my friend and fellow manager, Martha. Martha was nice enough to let me out of my inventory obligation and told me to go home before The Stripper ‘Risky Business’d all of my stuff. I came in at 6:30PM to find The Stripper sober and watching a movie on my couch. It was a GOOD movie too with Adrian Brody, and I was once again reminded of why I was so enamored of this woman.

When I saw her sitting sober on my couch, I couldn’t help but notice the shame and sorrow on her face. These must be the emotions she tries to hide when she gets fucked up. I wanted nothing more than to tell her placating truths in order to ease that sorrow. I wanted her to laugh and feel comfortable. She needed to know that she had no reason to be ashamed of herself around me, that although I may not understand her suffering, she could confide in me and that I would never hold her accountable for her actions while in the grips of those addictions. She would never have to impress me because her very existence makes ME appreciate life that much more and if anything I was indebted to her for that. I wanted to hold her and take some of her pain as my own; I would gladly trade my resolve for the indignity she felt.

When she saw me looking at her with compassion instead of pity on my face she began to cry. I held her for a long time on the couch. She began kissing me through her tears and told me that she needed me; passion played her part again. Later in the night The Stripper told me that she needed one of her pills because without them she would have a seizure, and then she told me that she needed alcohol because her hangover had gotten worse. I hung my head and gave up.

I told her that she was welcome in my home anytime, but I wouldn’t let her drink here and if she took those pills at any point she could take a cab back to the city. I told her that I wasn’t judging her but that I couldn’t watch her kill herself. If she liked me as much as she said she did? That’s the price of admission. I went to where I hid her pills, took the quarter bottle of Jack Daniels I had left and put them both in front of her. “You’re a grown ass woman” I said, “Knock yourself out”. Then I went to bed.

The next morning I drove her home and I don’t expect that I’ll ever see her again.

Part 6

I can understand why people smoke the weed; it relaxes them. I understand why people snort the coke; it gives them a boost of energy. I EVEN understand why people smoke the meth; who needs a healthy body weight and teeth anyway? But these pills? Oofa. What relief can you POSSIBLY get from this shit? All they do is turn you into an asshole and when you sober up you don’t remember the asshole things you did. It’s like when Bruce Banner turns into the Hulk, after all he’s just a big green asshole, but at LEAST he’s saving lives. All this habit does is shut your brain down and if you want to forget your problems, why not just go the fuck to sleep?

These pills kept her AND me up all weekend, they kept her from eating anything and they ruined MY enjoyment of sex! THAT alone is enough to make me go on a drug dealer killing spree, The Punisher style. Here I was all excited to be getting laid, next thing I know I’ve got a black eye and half my body is covered in another person’s urine. What the fuck?

And to me? That’s rock bottom right there. If I piss in someone else’s bed? Nobody needs to TELL me I have a problem, off to celebrity rehab I go (I just assume celebrity status as I have nearly 200 Instagram follower; no big whup.)

Look, we all have demons but I can tell you from personal experience that there is nothing more gratifying than grabbing that red faced, go-tee’d, pointy toothed mother fucker by the horns, pushing his head down, and kneeing him so hard in the nose that his yellow eyes begin to water. These demons ONLY have strength as long as WE give it to them. THEY are beholden to us, NOT the other way around, so fuck them; they smell of brimstone and piss any damned way.

What really sucks is that although I DO have the patience to help The Stripper with this particular drug problem, I don’t have the means. You need to BE with someone while they’re coming off of this shit. Alone and bored in my house would just give her opportunity and excuses to use again. Feeling like you matter both to someone else and generally in life is what keeps your mind occupied enough to stay OFF of drugs, but I don’t have the money to entertain her, help her go to school, and buy her clothes so she can look for a job…hell, I barely have enough money to do those things for myself. I don’t have the time to sit with her while she goes through withdrawals because I have to work at my shitty job for 60 hours a week. In short, the choices I’ve made in life that led to MY shit existence are now going to ruin someone else’s life…or keep it ruined. Never saw that one coming.

Don’t get me wrong here; I know that none of this matters if she’s not WILLING to stop. You can’t help someone if they don’t want that help. But in MY psychosis I see someone that I care about a great deal, once again choosing something else over me, in this case it’s the drugs. And I can’t help but feel that if I were a better man, a better LOOKING man, that might give her reason enough to choose ME over them. But whether it’s drugs or a man it still feels like a wrecking ball crashing through my heart. Whoever said “It’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all” must have only loved and lost ONCE, because this shit gets old after around the 4th time.

I think that most users find themselves alone and shivering in the darkness because they treat everyone around them as if they WERE stupid…and unfortunately in most cases they’re right. The people they fib to are either dumb or so concerned about their own lives that they just don’t give a fuck. But this planet is fucking isolated in the universe, these lives, ALL of our fucking lives are fleeting to say the least; Drug users or not. You have to give a shit about someone outside of your personal space and I’m not just talking about Sally Struthering a dollar to kids in Africa with distended bellies and flies living ON their eyeballs. I’m not saying that you should go up to every addict you see or homeless person and try to save their lives…all I’m saying is LISTEN. Someone you know needs help and instead of judging them, instead of harping on them, instead of keeping them isolated from you…just. Fucking. listen. Sometimes people JUST need someone to talk too, sometimes a person just needs to tell someone how they feel, in short we all just need to feel like someone on this rock gives a shit about us. If you can’t give five fucking minutes of your time to hear someone’s story? Then get the fuck off my planet you selfish dickhead.

The Stripper asked me several times over the weekend why I liked her and why I cared. Yes, I’ve said before that love STARTS at the point of attraction, but beyond the depth of her eyes and the softness of her lips, The Stripper and I share an understanding of life’s problems. And although our solutions to those problems may differ, to me she’s someone whose life is worth more than most of the tumbling dickweeds out there, including myself. There is passion and devotion inside of her, but it’s buried deep beneath a mountain of pain, and in my hubris I was willing to move that mountain off of her.

I’m not a stupid man, I may not have much personal experience with drugs of any kind but I DO know when I’m being bullshitted. The reason why I never expect to see The Stripper again is simple…she knows I ain’t having it. I won’t believe her lies and I genuinely care about her well being enough to help her get clean…and to an addict? That makes me a more creepy antagonist than Kevin Spacey in ‘Seven’. But my hope is that she KNOWS, that she’ll remember before she goes too far that someone is willing to be there for her, someone who won’t judge her, who DOES care about her. And when the night gets too long, the darkness envelopes her completely, and the cold rain soaks through to her soul leaving her a quivering mass of used flesh, shattered self worth, and bruised dignity lying in life’s gutter…that someone will be there to be called upon; Because I know that in the crevices of my mind, where life’s loose change sometimes falls never to be seen again…that there is hope for GOOD times, as distant as they may seem in anyone’s future.

And remember that ladies, because I’m willing to be there for all of you in your lowest times and your best. STILL fucking single…