"Well, there's someone I met and hung out with over the summer," Mark said, his head buried in his kitchen counter. "And she might stop by tonight because I told her I couldn't go see a movie, I had plans. And she said, 'like a date?'"
Mark looked up at me, sort of uneasy. "I told her, 'Well I don't know if we need to call it that.' She said, 'Well, that's OK, you've been honest' but then she said, 'What would you do if I stopped by there at two in the morning?' So, she might stop by and I don't want you to be surprised."
Mark and I weren't exclusive, we weren't in a relationship. I'd just left one and was concluding, yet again, that those things only led to hurt and disappointment. What Mark and I were doing was drinking and fucking. It was fun, but right around midnight his doorbell rang. He let her in. She introduced herself. I said, "You're a couple hours early."
She sized me up--competition--then made the sort of small talk that is supposed to establish positioning. It got increasingly uncomfortable. All she wanted was for me to leave. All I wanted was for her to leave so I could leave. I think this went on for three days before I said, "Ok, well, I want to have sex with him so..." I shrugged my shoulders and turned my palms to the skylight.
"You're cute," she said.
I was shocked, "Thanks."
"But not cute enough."
It wasn't going anywhere good.
"Where'd you meet her?" she whispered. He whispered something back.
We sat there, suspended in our icey moment, until Mark told her, "It's time for you to go."
He walked her to the door, out on to the steps and I heard a howl. I finished my beer. Mark came back in. "She bit me."
"She what?"
He repeated it for my disbelief and then we had sex.
So, I think you can understand why, when I saw her at happy hour today I tried to sneak out of the building without her noticing I was there.
She was there with a local music critic. He's married and they've been having an affair for years. At one point his wife found out and made him end things with the neck-biter. They pretended to end it but they still see each other.
What's funny is that Mark is the asshole and I'm the slut.
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