Tasting Never

to the tortured souls whose blood is the heartbeat of the earth.

may you find your happily Never after.

1

Rick
is a perfectly nice guy.

But
not for me.

Rick
is the kind of guy you can take home to your family, show off, and
know that at the end of the day, he'll be there for you. I'm not
into guys like Rick. I should be, but I'm not. I think there's
something wrong with me. I need a guy like Rick to put me on the
straight and narrow, to help me stop doing the things I shouldn't be
doing and start doing the things I should.

Right
now, my back is to a wall and I'm kissing the neck of a guy I don't
know. My therapist says it's because I have 'daddy' issues. Like
that's supposed to mean something to me. How can I have daddy issues
when I barely knew the prick? He didn't walk out on me and mom like
my therapist thinks. She thinks that because I've never told her the
truth. My dad died right in front of my eyes, called out my name
seconds before the light went out of his face and left him cold.
That's all I remember about him. Other than that, my mind is a
blank, a series of shadowy pictures without words. They don't make
any fucking sense.

The
guy I'm kissing unbuttons his pants. I think about telling him to
use a condom, but I just don't feel like it. I'm on the pill anyway.
He thrusts into me while I'm watching Rick through a crack in the
door. He's drinking punch, not alcohol, and smiling with big, wide
teeth in a face that's handsome, but not too handsome. Rick's the
kind of guy that your friends compliment you on, tell you he's
gorgeous, but they never try to sleep with him. The ones they really
want, the dangerous ones, the ones with pasts that burn like fire and
melt everything around them … Those are the guys that I
always seem to fall for. The one I'm having sex with right now is
one of those. I don't even know his name.

“
I
love you,” the guy says over and over, and I roll my eyes.
I've heard it before, a hundred times, and I just don't want to hear
it anymore. I pretend to have an orgasm, moaning and groaning and
scratching his back, and all the while, I'm watching Rick. We have a
date tomorrow night that I think I'm going to cancel. I thought
maybe I'd take Rick out, see how chivalrous he really was, but
tonight, he's wearing khaki pants and a red sweater. I don't date
guys like Rick.

The
guy I'm fucking finishes and tells me how great I am. Then he
disappears and I don't see him again, not that night or any other. I
light a cigarette and leave the room before any of the drunken idiots
at the party stumble in and find me there with my panties around my
ankles. I step out of them and stuff them in my pocket, aware that
my skirt is too short and that my ass is hanging out. I just can't
seem to find it in myself to care.

“
Hey,”
Rick says, intercepting me before I can reach the front door. “We
still on for tomorrow night?” He looks me up and down, and I
can see that he's curious about my disheveled appearance, my mussy
hair and my swollen lips, but he doesn't ask about it. I don't think
he even gives it a second thought. Rick doesn't know that girls like
me exist. He's heard about them on TV, maybe even masturbates to
them, but he doesn't really believe that they exist in this world or
any other. I really should keep my date with Rick, go out with him,
and grow up.

“
I
can't,” I say, biting my lip seductively and touching his
cashmere sweater with a shaking hand. I don't know why it's shaking,
but I don't like it, so I pull it back and let it fall to my side. I
blow cigarette smoke in Rick's face which is rude, but that I do
anyway. There's a monster inside of me, eating little bits of me
everyday, and I can't seem to stop it. It makes me do things I don't
want to do, say things I don't want to say. It makes me tell Rick
that I've got to study for a test that he really believes I have.

I
kiss him on the lips and leave an orange-red stain before I walk out
the door and down the front steps. People wave at me as I go by and
say they'll see me around, but I don't really know who any of them
are, so I avoid their stares and their friendly smiles. It's all
fake, just a big load of shit that I can't buy into or I'll die. If
I ever believe in something again, and it turns out to be false, then
not only will my body crumble beneath me, but so will my soul. I'll
disintegrate, disappear into the wind and blow away. I'll be
nothing. I'll blank out and the energy of who I was will just go
away, melt into the ground and come back as something unimportant,
like a dandelion or a caterpillar. I can't find it in my heart to
care.

I
walk back to the dorms because I don't have a car. My roommate isn't
home which doesn't surprise me. She's in love with another girl, one
that's straight as an arrow. They have sleepovers in her dorm room
and 'practice' kissing one another like they're in high school or
something. That's fine with me because it means I have the room all
to myself, gives me a chance to be alone. I feel most comfortable
that way. When you're alone, there's nobody there to hurt you or let
you down. It feels too good to have that guarantee of solitude.

I
fall on my back on the bed and try to breathe through the tears that
come to me unbidden. I don't want them, never asked for them. I
couldn't even tell you what I was crying over or why. I just do.
Every night, I lay here and I try to find something in myself to live
for. Every night, I fail and wonder if I need a guy like Rick to
show me the way. But then, I'm a big girl, and a feminist, too, so
why do I think a guy could save my soul?

I
never thought to wonder if I was looking at it the wrong way, if
maybe it wasn't a guy that I was looking for, just a person. And
maybe I didn't need them to save my soul, just to give me the other
half of it. Maybe that was it?