So Twisted

Blurb: After nine long years Randy bumps in to her old flame and realises even after the heartbreak she's still undeniably attracted to Holden. They say first loves last. Only now she's a little older and (she likes to think) a little wiser. But will she make the same mistake twice?

REVISED. There were glaring mistakes that I just had to fix. I'm thinking of continuing it actually.

"A pretzel. Think of love as a pretzel."

I blew a stray strand of hair out of my face, and dipped my Oreo in to a glass of milk. I was sitting at Alyssa's kitchen bench as she ranted about her current infatuation. Robert S. Kenny was a thirty four-year-old junior partner at Henderson, Martin & Oliver—a mid to top tier Law firm in Sydney City. In my opinion Law was a tedious occupation. Yet, if a great defense attorney earning six figures a year were to come and sweep me off my feet, I would have no qualms. So here we have Mr. Perfect, very GQ, very Metrosexual, and very much married. Perfect Alyssa had a problem with being the "other" woman and disliked the term "home-wrecker". Yet she is (apparently) undeniably, unequivocally, I-would-cut-off-an-arm-to-hear-his-voice in love with Robert Kenny, adulterer extraordinaire. I on the other hand was just a little disillusioned with the male species, but that's not what should influence my advice here, no, Alyssa wanted validation that she wasn't a bitch because heaven forbid she might be considered one for sleeping with a married man.

"It's salty?" Came her reply.

"No. It's filling yet ultimately twisted."

"You're just pessimistic." She huffed, and turned from the bench to stand in front of the open fridge as if it would cure her of her lovesick woes. "Just because you've never been in love," she told me from the fridge still looking at it vacantly.

"You mean just because I've never been in love with a married man."

She turned. "Hey! I resent that."

She turned back to the fridge, this time she opened the freezer and took out a tub of ice cream, and then came to me with two spoons, obviously wanting me to disregard the diet I was on simply because she wanted to indulge in food because she couldn't indulge in sex with GQ. Hell, who was I to complain? It was chocolate ice cream. Who, in their right mind, turned down chocolate ice cream?

"You know, who says I've never been in love?" I asked, as I slipped the spoon in to my mouth.

"Well, you're really not in to love. If you knew what love felt like you'd be in love with love."

I nearly choked on my spoon and looked at her. I quirked up an eyebrow. "How do you know the reason I'm disillusioned with love is because I have been in love? Have you ever though of that?"

"You, in love? Randy is there something you've neglected to tell me?" She took another mouthful of ice cream as she quirked up her brow in an inquiring manner; as if I had some deep, dark secret that would rip me at the seams should I ever bring it out in the open. Sure it what happened had influenced my outlook on life, love and relationships. But maybe being burnt once makes you hesitant to be burned again. So rather than being in a normal, healthy relationship you engage in a string of fuck buddies. That's what the other sex is there for right? A willing vessel to ease your frustration before they want something more and you tell them that it was meant to be a no strings agreement—before dropping them unceremoniously.

"I'm not some love Scrooge Alyssa. I'm sure it's out there for me." I was lying through my teeth, of course. The truth was, I was one of the biggest love Scrooges. "Love will hit me when it wants to. I'm sure of it. I've just never had it come for me yet." Ba-humbug! Another lie, I was compulsive.

"I guess the day I see you in love is the day Robert leaves his wife."

I looked to Alyssa. "So, never? Are you saying I will never fall in love?" Of course I could have told her the story, but who wanted sordid details? Why would I want her to feel sorry for me? It was done. It was over. It was a place that was painful to go to. I was content in my relationship limbo.

Alyssa only grinned wickedly. "Who says he's never gonna leave his wife?"

"You're living in a fool's romantic paradise." I only told her matter-of-factly. The truth was I wanted her out of this relationship not because it there was something unethical with infidelity, but rather, the effect it would have on her once it inevitably ended. I knew it would end, and it would end minus GQ and minus her heart. She could live in her fool's romantic paradise, but one where it didn't involve her getting hurt, because it was a given, especially in her situation.

"Let me fantasise Randy." She sighed. "I know as well as you do that he'll never leave her. I know I'm just his plaything. I know that I'm his bitch, and his Friday night bootie call. I know that Randy but let me live in this illusion for a few more minutes."

I only shrugged. She was getting despondent again, and I didn't deal well with too much emotion. "End it before you fall even deeper. Don't be an emotional masochist."

She was watching her spoon as she used it to dig in to the ice cream aimlessly. "I can't have meaningless flings Randy, I want more than that. What you do to satisfy yourself suits you, but that doesn't suit me."

"Hey, I don't go out and have sex with five hundred different guys. I have my standards, not to mention I've been fuck buddies with Andrew for close to two months now. That's some sort of record. Look, it's not like I have multiple fuck buddies at the one time. I keep things monogamous thank you very much." So that was another lie. I had two timed before, but that was because the breaking up was in its transition stage. It only happened once; actually, maybe twice. But that was it. I wasn't some cocktail of venereal diseases.

"He's gonna ask you to get serious you know that. He's falling for you. I see it in the way he looks at you."

I shrugged. "Then maybe it's time to drop him. Then go on a break. I think I need a break."

"Randy you know you can't keep doing this."

"Like you said, what suits me suits me. Whether it's a consistent fuck buddy or random fuck, you're still getting fucked when you want to right? Are you gonna eat that?" I asked referring to the ice cream. She shook her head and handed the tub to me.

"See you don't even refer to it as making love or sex, you use the word fuck. It's so meaningless and vulgar."

"It's a vulgar act. What can I say? I'm definitely not making love. . . and sex, well sex is still too soft." The last time I actually "made love" to someone was a long time ago, and even then I questioned whether he was actually making love to me.

"So, I don't get it will you be just fucking the rest of your life? What happens when your boobs reach your gut and your skin is so wrinkly you have to iron it just to get your girdle on? Don't you want to find the one where their companionship isn't just about a quick screw?"

"Oh, the very elusive The One. I swear that's just a concept Harlequin concocted to rope readers in." I shook my head and ate another spoonful of the sweet chocolate. I really should've stopped. But dammit it was chocolate, and I had a penchant for chocolate ice cream. "It's all an illusion this One. At the end of the day you're with a person that fits your requirements for a partner. He has a stable income, is relatively attractive to you. You see a future, a car, two point five kids blah, blah, blah, the whole she bang. Of course I don't need to point that out to you the eternal romantic." Sure maybe at one time I had wanted the same things even though those ideas were in its infancy; only he had stopped them from maturing. I knew then that everything you were supposed to want was just an illusion. Not to mention one only needed to look at the divorce rate to be cynical about love. It was ridiculous. Financially it was burden, with the cost of weddings and living together. Who could be bothered?

"See I know you wouldn't be saying that if you were with the love of your life."

"Excuse me, I need to barf."

Alyssa only shook her head. I hated it when she did that, as if I was some sort of lost cause. As if no one could save me from my nine-year rut. If she only knew, she'd know this was all to safeguard any future incidents that would hurt me. I didn't like pain. In fact I cowered in the face of it. I was a coward and I could admit that. Why must I subject myself to something I disliked? It was common sense. If you don't like it then don't put yourself in a position that would increase its likelihood of happening to you.

"So I've decided during this little exchange between us that I will give up on Robert."

"That's good," I told her. "But I've heard it before. Sure everything sounds good in theory but will you actually follow through with it this time?"

Alyssa nodded, her eyebrows fixed, a determined look on her face. "Yes definitely. In fact I will call him tonight and I will tell him that this is over and we will go to Sally's cocktail party this Friday and we will have a good time and I will forget about all this Robert business and put it behind me."

I nodded. "Good for you. Put it all behind you and don't dwell on the past lest it influence the way you live your life." God I was such a hypocrite. "Think like that overweight, balding man on channel 9 that likes to call himself a doctor. You will overcome this. You will meet someone new. You will not indulge in comfort eating due to relationship insecurities ever again."

"See this is what's so good about having a friend who's an advice columnist for B. Of course your readers don't know that you balk at relationships and any topics that even remotely relate to it."

"I give good advice, but I'm just not so great at listening to myself."

Sally Pritchard-Stevens was a pretentious thirty year old who graduated from the same Media and Communications class as I did. Born and bred in the North Shore she believed she was some sort of society bitch. Truthfully she had the money and good genetics, and unfortunately that was all you needed to make it. Not to mention she was an executive producer for her daddy's cable station, so it was good to see that nepotism still had a place in the workplace; she had gotten married recently and she just had to continue showing off the lifestyle she had never had to work for. Her new husband was some sort of hotshot producer for an American cable station that was being introduced in Australia. She was the host of the cocktail party Alyssa and I were attending, along with Andrew who had been very clingy recently.

"What are you thinking?"

I was looking out the window of the front seat and I turned to Andrew who was watching me as we stopped at a set of lights. Andrew wasn't a bad guy. In fact he was nice to have around sometimes. But I couldn't deal with being suffocated. I was inclined to believe that he wanted more than a physical relationship. We had never actually been out on a date. I'd have to say that in two months this was the first engagement we had gone to together officially. Unfortunately, he had probably gotten the idea that it meant we were official too.

"Nothing," I muttered.

The car started again and he continued to speak. "You look really good in that dress."

I smiled, he was always complimenting me. I was wearing a green cocktail dress that stopped just above me knees. It was quite simple and not at all outstanding enough to warrant a compliment. But I enjoyed them. "Thank-you," I told him genuinely. I definitely had to get out of this before he confessed he didn't want to be just fuck buddies anymore, or else it would get messy.

Sally Pritchard-Stevens lived in a penthouse in Circular Quay, with a prime view of the harbour, and literally it was just a minute's walk to the Opera House. We pulled up to the back street and I couldn't for the life of me believe that there was actually parking. Sally's penthouse was on the tenth floor with an interior that resembled something out of Vogue Living. I could admit that I was jealous of her and her lifestyle. That was probably why I wasn't happy for her. I would have been if I had known she worked for all of it. Making our way to the Sally's floor Andrew and I rode the elevator in silence not knowing what to say to each other. When you stripped away the sex, there was actually nothing between us. Thankfully when we walked in to the party Alyssa hauled me away. Unfortunately that didn't last very long and later on in the night he cornered me while I was standing on the balcony enjoying the view on my own.

"Hey."

I finished my glass of champagne and turned to him, hoping that my eyes were bloodshot enough to appear as if I was tipsy.

"Hey Andrew."

"So, how are you?" He asked standing next to me, and leant the balcony railing casually while I looked out. He had an annoying habit of being able to position h is body in such a way that encouraged us to be face to face. I had a feeling what would come next but I didn't say anything that might bring up the topic of "us" in to the foreground; just in case he wasn't really out there with me for the purpose of roping me in a relationship.

"Oh, you know, killing my liver with alcohol, and yourself?"

He lightly laughed and shrugged, "Nothing really. There are a lot of posers I don't care for in that room."

I grinned and looked to him. "You mean our friends?"

He laughed and turned so he was leaning against the railing as I was. "Do you know what Steve asked?"

"I don't know. What did Steve ask?"

He took a swig of his beer but didn't turn to me when he answered, "When we were going to get tired of just screwing."

"What did you say?" I asked quietly.

"That I got tired long ago, but if screwing was all you wanted then I would if it meant I could still see you."

"Andrew—"

"No it's true. So if this is all you want then it's fine by me."

I sighed and stood up properly. "But it's not for me."

He stood up as well and faced me. "What do you mean?"

"If that's the way you feel then we shouldn't be doing this."

"But I thought that was what you wanted."

"It is what I want. But we can't do this if we're not on the same page. We can't have something that's meant to be meaningless if it means something to one of us. It'll only end ugly."

He finished the rest of his beer and looked at me long and hard. I attempted to hold his steady gaze but I couldn't. "I'm falling for you Randy. I have been for a long time. I stopped sleeping with other women for about a month now. That means something."

"It's funny how we define relationships based on who we're sleeping with and with how many. But it shouldn't be like that. We have to end this now before it gets any deeper."

As if realising my intention to leave he took me by the arm to hold me in place. "What are you scared of?" He probed gently.

"You, me. . . everything. If what you're looking for is a normal, healthy relationship well you're not going to get it with me Andrew. We set out from the start it was no strings attached. But there are strings now, lots of it. In fact in future they're only going to get all knotted up. So we should stop this now before we tangle ourselves in to something we can't resolve or fix."

"What if I want to get tangled up with you?" He asked darkly. The double meaning was not lost on me.

I opened my mouth to speak but he bent down and kissed me deeply, stopping me in the process. It was his last resort, I knew. It was his way of convincing me to stay. But I didn't kiss him back. It was an empty kiss and when he pulled away he knew it too. I smiled weakly at him and touched his face gently. "I'll see you around, ok?"

He nodded. "Do you need a lift home?"

"I'll manage."

And without looking back I left him on the balcony. I was heading for the door when Alyssa intercepted me, noticing the distressed look on my face.

"Randy what's up?"

"I broke up with Andrew."

She shook her head in the way that she had a habit of doing when she wanted to reprimand me. "I told you that boy was falling for you."

I shrugged. "I'm going now."

"Do you want me to come with you?"

I flashed her a smile in an attempt to dissuade her from leaving with me—knowing she needed this party to distract her from GQ. "No I'll be fine. You stay here, it's only seven Lyss, I'm just going to go home and indulge in Bridget Jones."

She nodded, and I left.

Summer nights in Sydney are warm. Even next to water the breeze wasn't cold. When I stepped out I watched people who were milled along the quay—most of them couples strolling under the lights that dotted the walkway. I had taken my heels off and stood on the concrete barefoot.

"I'm jealous—you never wore your hair in curls for me."

I frowned. See, I never thought I would hear those words at that particular moment and especially not with the voice it was said in. I turned to see whether it was addressing me and I froze. I was face to face with the very man who had skewed my perspective on all things love and sex. He was definitely not nineteen anymore. He was taller and had filled out his frame better. He looked good. He was looking better than I wanted him too.

Shit.

Was this is a fucking joke?

Standing in front of him I always felt so vulnerable. There were two reasons for that; one because I lost my virginity to him; and two because he cheated on me with someone who had much more experience than me at that time. But I couldn't help the rapid that rushed through my body as I looked at him standing there; with that infuriating smile of his. Did I want to melt? No. But I did. I always melted for him.

"Holden?" Maybe I was hallucinating. Maybe if I pinched myself hard enough he would disappear and I could wake up nineteen again.

He began to walk towards my immobile body. If I had half the sense I usually did, I would have hit him with the heels that were hanging off my fingers. I should have told him to fuck off. I should have thanked him for screwing up my love life; how he spoiled me for anyone else because I was still in love with him even after nine years. I should have walked away but I didn't; instead when he approached me and asked, "How are 'ya Shorty?" I smiled uneasily and looked down, unable to meet his eyes; too scared of what I'd see in them—scared of what he'd see in mine.

"What are you doing here?" I asked him craning my neck up. He just kept looking at me, a quirk at his mouth. I was starting to get nervous.

"You look really good tonight." I raised my brow as he answered my question. "I had a gathering I was attending on the first floor. Yourself?"

"I was on the tenth." I paused before I continued to speak. "So what's got you so dressed up? It must have been a special occasion."

"My engagement."

"Oh." I didn't know why, but I was disappointed. Of course he would be getting engaged. In fact he probably should have been married. I looked away from him suddenly feeling so awkward. I wanted to walk away, I really did. But something was stopping me—my feet and my heart. I didn't have the heart to walk away from him just yet. "So why are you down here then?"

He shrugged, "I don't like negative attention."

I frowned at his cryptic response. "What do you mean?"

"Come walk with me?"

He was being very random. "I really should be going."

"Come on Randy I haven't seen you in almost a decade, come walk with me. Grace me with your presence."

I shouldn't have said yes but I gave him my acquiescence anyway. We walked in silence not knowing what to say, trying to figure out what this all meant if it meant anything at all. We were just passing the Museum of Contemporary Art walking against the quay railing when he spoke again.

"I broke off my engagement."

"I see."

He grinned self-deprecatingly. "The funny thing is, I was standing on the balcony looking out, trying to get some air because the announcement had made me claustrophobic, and I thought I saw someone walking in to the building looking like someone I knew a long time ago."

He turned to me then, and I continued to look at him while he spoke. "I don't know what it was but it clicked. I broke off my two year engagement with my fiancé."

I stopped walking. "What's that supposed to mean?"

He sighed and ran his hand through his hair. "I haven't seen you since first year. I transferred after, you know, after everything."

"Of course I knew that. Don't think I haven't forgotten everything." I said much more venomously than I had intended.

He turned to me and nodded. "I understand that. But when I saw you again it was like the last nine years of my life had fallen away. I wanted to be nineteen again."

"What are you trying to say Holden?"

"I'm saying that I just broke off my engagement to speak to you."

I shook my head. "Oh I see." I started to walk away confused, and all of a sudden royally pissed off at him, at everything, at his way of interpreting our situation. Fate was a bitch. I was content in living the way I had been to that point and suddenly, unexpectedly like a fucking Deus ex machina, as if it would solve all my problems, Holden was dropped in to my life again. He was a living reminder of everything I went through, and everything I never wanted to go through again.

"Randy wait, come on, don't you see how tonight has affected the rest of my life? I just fucking broke off my engagement after seeing you. Doesn't that mean anything?"

I turned to face him. "What the fuck is it meant to mean Holden? I mean sure for a time after everything that happened I would hope we'd reunite but that was nine years ago."

"I know that this was more than an instinct. It means something Randy. It means everything. I wouldn't have seen you on the day of my engagement if it meant that marrying Kate was the right thing to do. I've been grappling with marriage ever since she obliquely got me to propose to her. Don't you see? And on the night, when it's official, when I've set out the rest of my life, I see you. And you look gorgeous, and my heart's beating, and I'm thinking how much of a mistake it is to marry her because she wasn't the one and she was never the one."

"Stop it. Don't use me as a fucking excuse for your messed up life—to get out of something that you're too pissed scared to do." God I was so hypocritical.

He walked towards me as he spoke and every word that came out of his mouth made me flinch. "I never got over you Randy. I wanted to patch things up, sure, but everyone kept telling me to give you your space. Before you know it it's been a month and I. . . I find out you slept with Chris. I mean god Randy that tore me up."

"It tore you up? God that's fucking rich."

Holden shook his head. "I left. I couldn't take seeing you all the time and not having you. It was the biggest fucking mistake of my life."

"What? Leaving?"

"Leaving you, yes, doing it in the first place, but now you know once everything's healed. You were—are—my first love Randy and I still love you. It means something when almost ten years after I saw you last that one glimpse of you now and I get an aching feeling. It means something."

"Stop saying it means something Holden. Is it so difficult to feel?" I was tired and could feel myself welling up. I didn't need to hear this from him, not now, maybe nine years ago, but not now; not when the damage had been done and I was living with the repercussions of my insecurities.

"I am fucking feeling right now. Randy," He said again, standing in front of me, "Shorty, I missed you."

I looked up at him fighting the tears that were so desperate to fall. "Fuck you Holden. This isn't about you." I said quietly.

"What?"

I clenched my free hand and tightened my grip on my shoes. I forced myself to look up at him, at that goddamn face of his and spoke louder. "I said this isn't about you. You know what, actually, it is. It's always been about you." I attempted to turn my hurt in to anger as I raised my voice. "You didn't just screw me Holden, you screwed me up. Thanks to you I'm deathly afraid of relationships and I probably have six STD's that I'm not even aware of. So don't tell me you missed me, don't come back in to my life after nine years of no phone calls just to tell me how good I look tonight; because as far as I'm concerned you're not supposed to give the time of day to the person who broke your heart."

My voice faltered slightly but I kept my gaze firm. I wanted to cry but not in front of him. I turned to walk away. Then for the second time that night, as if a kiss was meant to fix everything, he pulled me by my hand and did just that; and for one obliterating moment it did. It fixed everything—just to feel as I was. I let him answer everything I was looking for. I let his tongue slowly explore my mouth and I allowed mine to taste him again, a foreign yet familiar feeling, as it all rushed back; the longing, the attraction, the sex; the hurt. Maybe I shouldn't have but I did, I indulged in a bittersweet sin.

I was drowning.

When we pulled apart I extracted myself from him and walked away. I just walked away. I let everything I'd ever felt and everything that I would feel, fall. I disregarded his call for me as I left him. And I didn't look back; the way I should have walked away nine years ago. With my free hand I wiped my eyes not caring my smudged liner and mascara made me look like a derelict coke addict. I walked aimlessly on to a ferry. I spent the rest of the night watching the harbour—the stars, the skyline—on the outer deck, under the inky night, on the bench, and on my own—the way it always was. The way it always would be. I drew my knees under my chin and closed my eyes forgetting about Holden, forgetting about Andrew, about me and the life I had made for myself—just feeling twisted.