Exes. in Musings

I slept with Shane, Alex, my ex-husband’s, best friend.

i know it sounds like i was being spiteful, vindictive and a fucking total whore. and maybe i had one two, too many drinks.

but he came up to me at this fancy hotel bar that i was in with my friends. and he had a suit on and a tie, and his hair was slicked back, and he chit-chatted with me very superficially and i guess at one point he became really drunk and super-uber protective of me—a guy asked me for a napkin and he put his arm around me and shoved me onto his chest and said “what you want man?” and i was really thrown-off by it and elbowed him and said “he wants a fucking napkin Shane, what the fuck?”

when i excused myself from my friends for a cigarette break, he grabbed my hand and said “good, I need to talk to you” and led me down to the smoking area.

once i got outside, he smoked with me. i felt so weird. his energy and vibe was so predator/prey. i was pressed against the wall, he was so close, invading my personal space. but i allowed it because i don’t really know why, he just looked really, really fucking hot. in a way that i’ve never seen him. i’ve always seen him as the scumbag that has a different guy every month. the scumbag that tried to have sex with me while i was fucked up on drugs and Alex was fucking me and he wanted a “turn” while Alex had a turn on his trick of the week.

“let me ask you something Andy” he said reclining against the wall, his arm outstretched above my head “no lies aight? think i’m not his boy, i’m not shit. Ok?” he said dragging on his cigarette “he would hit you?”

i felt like it was a ton of bricks collapsing on my head. “I’m drunk bro! i don’t want to talk about this shit” I tried to move toward the hotel entrance and he blocked me. “he use to fucking hit you huh?” he said putting his hand against my chest pushing me lightly. “I don’t know Shane!” I said sternly.

“so you’re telling me that i was the asshole, who checked up on you for him and found you naked and on god knows what drugs, and you can’t let me know” he looked at me deeply and intensely. “and now it all fucking makes sense when you’re not around and he’s fucking dodging my questions as to why and then I put two-and-two together and you would come to chill with me with long sleeve shirts and drinking soup through a busted lip, fucking suicidal, crazy hot mess and you dodge my questions. it all fucking clicks bro!”

“shane you’re fucking drunk” and i moved over to escape him and he grabs my shoulders and i flinch and get angry, he snaps out of it realizing my pseudo-PTSD about being grabbed. “sorry, fuck, sorry” he said swiping my shoulders “funny thing about you is that you’re insanely hot and you don’t even know that it’s not about how you look” he said nudging my chin up to his face. “i’m a fucking dirtbag” he said putting his arm around me and walking to the hotel entrance “I know I’m a dirt bag, you don’t know how stupid sweet you are, you couldn’t tell me he would hit you though?”

and I started to cry. we stopped at the entrance and he ripped out his handkerchief and walked me to the nearby bench. and i told him that yea, that his best friend, his soccer buddy, his college buddy, his wing man, his fucking all around buddy, would fucking hit me, drunk or sober, no matter how i would try to dodge, avoid, do different, be better, had slapped me so fucking hard my nose would bleed, or slam me against a wall so hard i would see black and as i cried, he grew angrier and angrier…and for some reason that kept illiciting this weird attraction from me to him. and when i stopped talking and just started sniffling into his handkerchief, he ran his hands over his hair lowering his head and said “you know you never deserved that? when you said you would dodge shit, i realize now how you would dodge conversations with me, never wanted to be alone with me, moved away from me even when he was there” and he grabbed my hand in both of his and placed his own hands with mine in them on his lips and breathed heavy “fuck!! bro!! you couldn’t even tell me? i was just an accomplice to his abuse?!” he looked at me and shrugged. “all this time i would fucking jerk-off to you and tell myself that i would fucking worship a guy like you, fucking worship you, fucking on my knees crawl to you over glass because i’ve seen you wait on him hands and feet!!” he said as he stood up “all this time, and you’ve been being assaulted around me, like nothing when i would tell alex you’re fucking awesome as fuck bro!” he pulled me by my hand.

i stood up. i became completely dizzy from all the prosecco. he kissed me straight in the mouth, cupping my face with his hands. his lips were super, duper soft and at first i resisted, but then i fell into him. i fell into his body. as i did, he let my face go and placed my arm around his neck and wrapped his arms around my waist. i felt him slowly part my mouth with his tongue and i accepted… it was interrupted by my girlfriend calling me and i broke out of his embrace. his hand slid down my arm as he turned around and held my hand. I talked to my girlfriend and she giggled and asked for my credit card for the check and he pulled out his own and gave it to her, she walked back in confused.

“you never liked me. i always liked you, even when i hated you, it was because i fucking couldn’t have you” he said wiping his mouth. “Shane, this is so fucked up” I laughed nervously. “what’s fucked up is that he hit you and you just took it and said shit” he walked in front of me. “Shane I’m drunk, you’re drunk, I need to go home” “I’m fucking drunk as shit, but that’s the way a man kisses someone they fucking love” he said as I climbed the stairs behind him. “you’re fucking drunk and a real man is still loyal and refuses to dishonor that loyalty as fucked up as it may have been, but look at you” he stopped mid stair up to the bar “what’s fucked up is that he met you first and i couldn’t even hope”

we walked to the bar and i continued to drink trying to make some sort of sense of what happened. and when it hit 2 am. i was completely wasted doing cocaine in the bathroom and trying to Uber myself out of the bar. thinking that my new apartment was only a 5 minute drive and brooklyn was a 20 minute drive, i decided to go to my new space.

shane did coke in the bathroom with me, and as i said “good-bye” to my friends, he followed me like a lost puppy.

“I live like 15 blocks away…you live hella lower and east” and he smirked… “Cool! Buy a bottle of champagne and see your NYC Shoe box!”

and i agreed.

he laughed at the fact that i do have a doorman, but it’s not as glam as my midtown apartment. my apartment only has an air mattress and some of my clothing rack from storage, it’s lower to the ground so I see the skyline but it’s blocked by buildings. I live in a studio, so my bedroom is only divided by my clothes rack, compared to my 2 bedroom, 2 bath.

he opened the champagne and i pulled off my shoes. As he sat on the air mattress we just inflated he poured two red-solo cups and he pulled off my socks pushing the cup in my face, kissed my feet and began massaging them.

I laughed at him. “You do this to all the guys you want to bang Shane?” “Fuck no. I hate feet. I wouldn’t fucking touch sweaty feet. Something about you and your feet just —i don’t know make me feel weird” he said as he pressed firmly on the arch of my foot with his thumb. “Then stop, you don’t have to” I pulled out of his hand. “I don’t but I want to” he said pulling off his jacket, slipping off his shoes, loosening his tie.

he looked so different to me. his olive skin. his bright green eyes. his shoe polish slicked back hair. his super manicured hands. it was magnetic from the moment that i said to myself that i wanted to kiss him, it still didn’t process in my mind how my face ended up kissing him.
I smiled after I felt so good, and a pang of weirdness just came over me…and i pulled away, but he pushed forward toward me… “no homo, but mad homo, i’ve beat my dick so hard to you Andy” he said laying on top of me laughing… the wrinkles around his eyes, the smile lines as he dug his face in the crevice of my neck and inhaled deeply pushing his hand underneath my shirt.

After that it all became a really super intense intimate moment with him. When I woke up next to him, I didn’t feel icky…I felt weird, because I always threw him to the category of scumbag. I also in a way considered him like my husbands brother. When he felt me leaving the air mattress he sits up and I drag a sheet I used as a pillow over me.

He ripped me over to him and I yelled at him and he wrapped himself around me and word for word said “I love you. Maybe not like in love with you, but genuinely care for you. I’ll always be here, maybe last night won’t amount to anything, maybe we’ll get married and you can be the good boy that tamed the whore bag or maybe I’ll be the guy that let you know you deserve to be loved. But last night means something to me, and that’s all. Whatever comes from it, I won’t force, but I will force myself to be a part of your life. Deal with that!”

and i became so angry. but i realize that it was because when i’m in my funk i push everyone away and am so cynical.

he got dressed. i got dressed. he hugged me in the street for a whole minute, and forced me to embrace him and live in the moment with him.

I worked. At 7 I rush out and I see he had texted me…

“Still smell like you bro. I hate that all I want to do is hold your hand…how HOMO is that!?” “I’ll make you dinner—fuck—no. I’ll buy dinner and put it on a plate and say I made it, that’s better” “I know I’m not expecting anything from you but friendship, but can friends just cuddle? I took a shower and I can’t smell you on me”

My reply was Shane… you’re fucking crazy. I’m in the midst of a divorce with your best friend, I don’t have the time to deal with guys or relationships. Friendships, cool.

“Let me correct you, EX-best-friend. I didn’t know he was a fucking abuser. Like I said…can’t friends cuddle though? Be at my place in like an hour?”

and I giggled to myself and felt guilty for liking him. if he were someone else besides Alex’s best friend…I would go along with it, but there is something morally reprehensible about even thinking about him in any other terms than brother or friend.

Yet, I ended up at his apartment. No sex. Chinese food.
I also realized that I miss someone looking at me like I’m magic. Like I’m some strange other worldly unicorn. He stares deeply into me when I speak, even if it’s something completely stupid, he listens intensely.

I fell asleep next to him, and he built a barrier with sheets.
By the time I woke up I woke up face to face with him. his hand on my hip. and i just lived in that tiny moment until i fell asleep again.