Screwing My Ex

The other two new faces were sitting on the couch. Mandy was a soft butch in her early thirties with dark hair cut pageboy style and a pair of eyes that were made for the description "shifty". The other woman I've already described, because her name was Amber. I assumed they were a couple because Mandy had one arm around Amber's shoulder and a hand on her leg. Amber didn't seem to mind. I noticed how Mandy seemed to keep physical contact with Amber no matter how she moved. When Amber leaned forward to hear my friend Samantha talk, Mandy moved the arm behind her to keep a hand on Amber's back. When Amber sat back, Mandy put her arm around Amber like she was claiming territory.

A little while later I ran into Kaye in the kitchen. "Where do you know Mandy and Amber from?"

"You know those college Alumni meetings I go to?"

I smiled. "Kaye, those aren't Alumni meetings, they're excuses to go to a bar."

Kaye shrugged. "I met Amber at one. She graduated two years ago, moved here and wanted to meet new people."

"You notice anything funny about Mandy?"

"Other than the fact that she can't keep her hands to herself?" Kaye scrunched up her shoulders and made a face. "Ugh, creepy. I can't stand clingy women."

"This coming from a someone who talks about her girlfriend like she's better than chocolate."

"Maggie is certainly not better than chocolate." Kaye said. Then she was quiet, and I waited for it. Her face betrayed the effort of trying to prevent her mouth from saying anything else. It didn't last long. "She's as good as chocolate, because nothing is better than chocolate."

I laughed, but noticed Kaye looked like she was holding back tears. I put an arm around her. "Is it Michelle?"

"Mostly," she said.

"Do you want to talk?"

Kaye shook her head. "No."

"Do you want to help me drop a couch on Michelle?"

Kaye laughed. "No."

"Want to get blind drunk and moon people?"

Kaye hesitated. "Probably, but later."

I gave Kaye a hug and then helped her burn hors d'oeuvres. As I brought them around to people I ran into Maggie and mentioned what Kaye had said about her and chocolate, hoping that might help if she was having any thoughts of straying. Even though I didn't know Maggie that well, I didn't want to think she was capable of it

Soon the party was going full swing. There was plenty of drinking, a little drug abuse, and a bathroom that served as a revolving door for encounters. Some of those encounters were between people who had never met before, others were between people in a relationship, and a few were a dangerous mix of the two. It made waiting to pee a little exciting.

I was doing just that when the door opened and a lone guy came out. No excitement there. I went in and had the door almost shut when a hand stopped it. Before I had a chance to say anything Amber slipped in. She turned to me with a pack of cigarettes in her hand.

"You mind?" she said with a twinge of hurt puppy in her voice. "I'm really jonesing and Mandy will go nuts if she sees me having one."

I smiled. "No problem." Amber smiling back at me was like finding out everything was right with the world. I pointed at the toilet. "You don't mind, do you?"

"Nothing I don't do everyday."

I pulled down my panties and did my business. At one point I looked up and noticed Amber staring at me like she was contemplating something. Then again maybe she was just staring into space and mentally making her grocery list. When she gave a slight smile I knew it was the former. Amber blew smoke out of her nostrils and I suddenly felt very self-conscious. She smiled and said, "Tell me something interesting about yourself."

I thought about it and then shrugged. "I collect hunting knives."

"You don't look like the hunting type."

"That's because I don't."

A wry smile crossed her face, like she was enjoying this. "Then why do you collect them?"

"It's the feeling they give me."

When I got up and flushed Amber walked over to me. "I'm sorry," she said while holding up her pack of cigarettes, "I didn't offer you one."

"Thanks." I pulled one from the pack and stuck it in my mouth, but before I could get out my lighter Amber struck a match and held it up. Our eyes locked as I put my face forward, the match setting fire to the cigarette between us. When I pulled back Amber kept the match held up, letting it burn down until it was just on top of her fingertips. With a second to spare she blew it out.

I let out some smoke and our eyes found each other again through the haze. Suddenly Amber took a step towards me, closing the space between us to a few inches. The power of her intention was almost palatable. Maybe it was the booze, or the fact that I couldn't stand Mandy's clingy nature, or the fact that I'd been catching glances from Amber all night, but I didn't stop her.

We stood there staring at each other. Soon tension became anticipation. Finally I couldn't take it anymore and said, "So..."

Suddenly Amber shoved her face into mine and we were kissing passionately. I'd been single for a while, quite a while actually, and had almost forgotten how good kissing feels. It all came back – the softness, the wetness, and the odor of saliva on skin. My hands moved up her stomach and settled on her breasts, and I could feel her nipples through the fabric of her blouse. Just as I gave a gentle squeeze someone pounded on the bathroom door. Amber jumped back. We could hear laughter and the voices of people we didn't know, but the moment was lost. Amber smiled and I opened the door and we walked out.

The next morning I felt like shit, and that had nothing to do with a hangover. It wasn't that I didn't like the kiss; in fact, I loved the kiss. Thinking about it made me warm and fuzzy and excited in all the right places. What made me feel like shit about it was the fact that I let it happen. No, I wanted it to happen. Amber was a taken girl, very taken by Marcy's standards, and I had never thought of myself as the kind of girl that kisses another girl's girl, especially when the girl's other girl is in the same building. I think I just confused myself.

I wasn't sure why I did what I did. Part of it I blamed on the long stretch since my last sexual encounter, and the even longer one since my last girlfriend. I also blamed it on Amber's allure, something about her was just intoxicating. A combination of her look and the way she carried herself that made the air around her seem like it could combust at any moment. I wanted to put some of it on Marcy for being so annoying, but I knew that shouldn't matter. I also wanted to give Amber some credit for initiating the kiss, but I knew that shouldn't matter either. In my book other people are going to do what they're going to do because that's their choice. What I do is my choice, because I only have control over me. I didn't break the kiss or push Amber away, telling her I was flattered but what we were doing wasn't right. Deep down I knew I didn't want to do any of that. Even worse, right now I wanted to kiss her again.

What I needed was someone to talk to, a friend from whom I could get advice and support. Unfortunately I couldn't call any of them. Sure, there are a few who could have related to my situation because they would have done the same thing, but sans the guilt, which is exactly what I didn't want to hear. And as much as I wanted Kaye's thoughtful, intelligent advice, I knew that right now wasn't the time. There was this sinking feeling in my gut that she was going through something similar, except she was on the Mandy side of the equation. Any advice would be tainted with her personal problem, not to mention the fact that I'd get read the riot act for being a Michelle.

So I decided to handle it myself, and myself decided to let it go. I would lift all the guilt of my actions, and inactions, off of my shoulders. I allowed two last minutes to feel bad about the situation, and then just forgave myself and moved on. But the get-out-of-jail-free card came with a price, and that price was letting go of my desires to be with Amber again. I couldn't think about her, try to contact her, or masturbate about her. If we ran into each other again I would be polite, sociable, and completely immune to her charms. No more lip locking, saliva swapping or melon picking. I was Amber-free and Amber-proof.

This all worked wonderfully. Right up to the next moment I saw her.

That moment was a few days later at The Litter Box. Amber showed up solo, and she squeezed between my friend Margaret and I even though there was a free seat across the table. We started talking, and everyone and everything else just melted away. Not far into conversation she dropped the fact that she and Mandy were having relationship trouble. A few minutes later she laughed and clapped at something I said, and as she put her hands down one of them rested on my leg. At that moment someone could have started shooting in the club and I wouldn't have noticed or cared. I was too busy starting up the internal war between what I wanted and who I wanted to be. This was an opportunity to be one or the other, but I didn't know which way to go.

My eyes happened to be looking at the door when I noticed Kaye walking in. I started to wave, but when I saw the look on her face I excused myself from Amber. Kaye didn't walk towards the table; instead she went straight to the bar and ordered three shots of vodka.

"You okay?" I asked as I walked up.

She downed the first shot. "No."

"Want to talk about it?"

She downed the second shot. "No."

"Planning on killing Michelle?"

Kaye had been lifting the third shot to her lips as I asked. She hesitated for a moment, the rim of the shot glass just barely an inch from her mouth, the heat from her breath fogging up the side of the glass.

"No," she said, and then downed the shot.

"Good," I said. "From now on I'm just going to hand you a questionnaire. It'll save me some time."

Kaye turned and leaned against the bar. "Tell me something. Do you think that there's a person out there, someone you'd be willing to...to throw everything away for? Someone you'd be willing to risk everything that's important to you?"

I could tell the alcohol was having an effect on her. But Kaye's questions also made me think. Looking over at the table, my eyes focused on Amber. I stared at her for a few moments before I answered.

"Yes," I said. No question about it now I realized, no doubts or second thoughts or guilt. And fuck Mandy and whatever sob story comes later. I was going for it.

When I turned back to Kaye she was already gone, just disappeared without me noticing, and little did I know that it was the last I would see of her for a long time. A few days later I found out she just up and moved away to another city, and when I spoke to her on the phone she said something about wanting to find more challenging work. Kaye teaches sixth graders, how much more challenging could that be?

At the time I didn't know where she had gone, and I was worried about how she was behaving, so I started back towards the table to see if she was there and suddenly realized I had problems of my own. Amber was talking to Julie, an ex of mine who has a big mouth, a small heart, and inhibitions that are nowhere to be found. Before I knew what she was like, I made the mistake of telling Julie about my Slasher Movie history in high school. Amber was getting an earful about me, and more than likely she wouldn't be interested by the time Julie was done talking. There went everything.

I stood there frozen, the rage building up inside of me. I was angry with Julie, but even angrier with yours truly for not jumping in when the opportunity presented itself. Now it was lost forever.

"Blossom, you okay?" Margaret asked when she noticed me standing there. Suddenly everyone from the table, including Julie and Amber, were staring at me. I ran.

Amber had me bent over and legs spread, her fingers pistoning in and out of my pussy while her tongue rimmed my asshole. The bench I was kneeling on was made of long pieces of wood with spaces in-between, which made it very uncomfortable. But I could see the two of us in the mirror on the opposite wall, and it turned me on so much to see us having sex that the uncomfortable pain was bearable.

Pulling her fingers out of my pussy, Amber moved them to my clit and started playing with it as her tongue pressed into my anus. I pinched my nipples as the velvet of her tongue moved inside of me, going in and out and around my sensitive rosebud, and when she increased the speed of her fingers on my clit it all drove me to one of the best orgasms I could ever remember.

After a few moments of repositioning, we lay together on the bench, breathing heavily as we were coming down, Amber leaning against me, my jacket just inches away from our heads. I started to reach towards it when Amber asked, "So, how are your folks?"

The simple pleasantry of the question after such an intimate act caused me to burst out laughing. Amber laughed too, and I realized she'd done it to lighten the situation, trying to keep us from talking about more unpleasant things. "They're good. Driving each other crazy as usual."

"Yeah, but they're happy around each other. Always wanted to know how they did that."

Her words struck a memory in me. "You know, you never talked about your parents. Every time I tried to bring them up you'd change the subject or get pissed off at me. Why was that?"

Amber sighed. I looked over and noticed that her eyes were closed and a hand was at her forehead. "Do we need to talk about this now?"

I shrugged. "As good a time as any."

She opened her eyes and looked at me. "I had a teacher once tell me that fathers are important. Always thought that was funny he never thought mothers were important too. All I had was my dad. Mom ran out somewhere early on, I never got the whole story on that one."

"Your dad never re-married?"

"I'm not sure he was married to my mom in the first place. Probably her luck, he wasn't really the marriage type." She snorted. "Not the relationship type either. He had a problem breaking up with women."

"He didn't want to hurt them."

Amber chuckled and rolled her eyes. "Yeah. So he devised this system, I guess. He'd start seeing the next one before he broke up with the last one." She looked at me. "That usually sent the message. Guy was a bastard."

I stared at Amber, completely at a loss for words. Apparently no one ever taught her irony.

"I thought you had a gyno appointment!"

Amber blurted out the statement as she pulled the covers over her naked body. It wasn't a completely ironic action. Even though I'd seen her without clothes plenty in the past year and a half of our relationship, for the first time I was seeing her really naked.

The blonde Amber was laying on top of before I walked into the room leaned up on her elbows. "Well ain't this a bitch," she said. Amber must have met her at the gym. The muscles in her arms and torso spoke of hours of weightlifting and if the deep voice wasn't natural it was definitely a result of steroid use.

"It got cancelled," I said, then turned and stormed out. Amber didn't even try to chase me. When I came back to the apartment later she had taken all her stuff. Not even a note to try and explain.

I spent the next four months in a rut. Go to work, come home, watch TV, read, go to sleep. Wake up and repeat. There were two one-night stands somewhere in there, but neither one felt worthy of pursuing. They say time heals all wounds, but mine just seemed to keep getting worse. I was in love with Amber, and that love deepened the more time we spent together and the more memories we created. Those feelings weren't going away overnight, and added with the sting of betrayal, it was tearing my insides apart. The more time went on the worse I felt.

This all led up to last night when I went out with my friend Mitch, who told me a night out would make things better. He brought me to a place called Snips to see a few bands play. It was the kind of dive every local band plays - two small rooms, one with a bar and the other with a small stage that barely fit the drum kit, basically a place for people to take up space for a cover charge. Mitch spent most of his nights there while his days were filled with one part time job at a supermarket and another part time job running numbers for a local bookie. While Mitch is no brain surgeon, he's exactly the type of person you want to be with when you're just looking for mindless entertainment.

The band on the stage was called Carcass Crowd Surfers, and they were the worst band I'd ever heard in my life. They played heavy metal, which I'm not a fan of in the first place, but these guys somehow managed to make it worse. Their sound was somewhere between shredding an iron with a hand grater and stepping on the tail of a goat. I stepped up the pace of my drinking just to outrun the headache that was building from my ears inward.

At one point Mitch asked me, "So how's the post-Amber recovery going?"

"I woke up today and thought about killing myself before breakfast."

Mitch stared at me. "So why didn't you?"

"My cat."

He smiled. "Didn't want her to lose her mommy?"

"I didn't want her to take a shit on my face afterwards. Not the way I want to be remembered."

"Huh, at least it's a way to be remembered." Mitch leaned over to me. "You know what," he said breathing whisky fumes towards my face. "I'm going to open a place like this, but I'm going to call it The Shit Hole. Might as well call something what it is."

When I got home I realized I'd had a horrible time and decided to finish the night on some kind of up note. Looking for something to help pleasure myself, I went to the drawer where I keep all my sex toys. There were vibrators, clit stimulators, a pair of handcuffs, a set of vaginal beads, a set of anal beads, a tube of lube, nude pictures of ex-girlfriends, and, sitting at the bottom of all this, a hunting knife.

I shut the drawer quickly and sat on the bed. How the hell had the knife gotten in there? Did I put it there? I must have, because it wasn't there last week. At least I don't think it was there last week. I tried to remember the last time I had my knives out. Two days ago, I was sharpening them. Later that night I went through a fit of anger about Amber, realized I'd been off my pills the whole day. Anger flooded back into my brain as all the thoughts I'd had during the fit came back, all the pain and embarrassment and heartache. Then I remembered the letter I'd received the other day, and suddenly I knew leaving the knife in there was no accident. It was meant to remind me of something.

I got up and walked over to the drawer, opened it, and said, "You're just what I need."

Lying on the bench, I held Amber close to me. My eyes settled on her neck and I could see it move with her heartbeat. I could feel my own heart beating heavily in my chest and imagined they were beating in sync. I used to think we were one like that. We were a permanent, constant part of nature and nothing could break us up. We simply existed together, unable to exist apart.

Without looking at me, Amber sighed and said, "I miss this."

It was like a switch was flipped. Suddenly every scrap of anger inside of me coalesced and brought back the monster. She missed this? Missed it! She's the one who fucked it up! And the way she said it...like we had some amicable parting of the ways! Hell, even if we argued our way into a breakup. She fucked someone else!

I needed to hurt her. She had to feel my pain, the searing, hateful pain that had torn my heart into pieces and left me feeling like a hollow version of what I once was. Suddenly I remembered how dangerous the world felt again once she'd left, how alone I felt. When you're with someone you've grown as a person, and when they break up with you suddenly all that growth is whisked away. It's like getting a third arm and then having it cut off. Okay, these examples are getting a little disgusting, back to the revenge.