I watched her as she extrapolated about the depth of the friendship that had developed between us since we started sleeping together, making it a point to express that nothing romantic would ever come of this affair and confessing to not wanting to lose the friendship over it if things were to get… messy. She was right. The friendship was nice. But so was the sex. My relationship with her was… comfortable… almost… potentially… hopeful. I knew at some point we would have to decide… the sex or the friendship? I was aiming for the sex obviously. How shallow of me! I know! I felt awful for wanting the sex over the friendship. Then I felt even worse when she said she would be devastated if our friendship were to end right now. Shit. Shit. Shit. I wanted the sex. It was the hottest & steamiest sex I’ve had… in a short while. Down deep inside of me, I knew I couldn’t have it both ways… the friendship and the sex… without the strings.
I tend to lose myself in meaningless encounters to burry the obvious… the self-inflicted cynicism of a long lost broken-heart and the hopeful true love that never seems to come. I enjoy the flesh, avoid the intimacy, keep the brain cells busy at all cost because God forbid I should open up to another truly meaningful relationship. But I thought... this time might be different.
I sat next to her. Said that the friendship was a priority. Knowing I was lying through my teeth. I wanted to be selfish for a change. I wanted… the sex. Again. And again. And so I sipped my wine, feeling like a total fraud. I could only recall Tommy Stinson’s version of the Rolling Stone classic “You can’t always get what you want”… and… I spent the night at her place, fell asleep close to her, smelling the scent of her long hair and feeling the curves of her body under my fingertips for what I thought it to be the last time.
I walked home the next morning not knowing what last night’s conversation would bring us. Not that there was an “us” to start with of course. But like the song goes… “You can't always get what you want - And if you try sometimes you find - You get what you need”… The entire affair was probably just a fluke… the need for a non-threatening intimacy that passes for more than what it is in the hopes of something real to come of it…
Ally L.