by Romi Hart
“Zander…why did you break up with Renee?”
“Because I wanted you.”
I shake my head. Not in judgment or revulsion, but in pity.
“I think she really loved you.”
“Yes, but I LOVE YOU. I didn’t love her. We’ve been through this.”
“Why? Because she’s not innocent? Her mind is just as…expanded…as yours?”
“Where is this coming from? Come on, Maya, we’re having a nice dinner here.”
“Well, someone once told me that it’s best to be upfront. No lying.”
“Go on…” he says uncomfortably.
“I don’t love you. Nothing has changed.”
“How can you say that?” he says, blinking away his fears. “I thought we felt something.”
“Yes, yes, we definitely felt something,” I say with a smirk. “All three of us did. And before with Antonio, we all felt something. But that’s not love. None of this is love.”
“Love is nothing more than a feeling,” he shrugs. “And I have that feeling with you.”
“Of course, you do,” I say softly. “Because you will always be in love with the chase. You will always be in love with the woman you can’t have. That’s what every girl eventually realizes about you.”
“That’s not true…”
“I mean, God. We’ve already had sex. Why isn’t that enough for you to let me go? What more can I possibly give you? I gave you my virginity, Zander.”
“Yes!” Zander says, ignoring the turning faces of other confused diners. “And I wanted more.”
“Like what? What more do you want from me? Does it really have to be about the heartbreak? You’re never happy until you rip a girl’s heart straight from her chest?”
“Is that…what you think of me?” he says, a wounded look forming on his face.
“How many girls have been in love with you?”
“I don’t know. Thousands? Why should I be ashamed that I have high standards? Why should I be ashamed that I don’t feel the same kind of love for them as they have for me? I DO FEEL LOVE for you, Maya. In a way I have never felt for any of those other women. You keep punishing me for being the man you always wanted. Right?”
I listen to him rant, folding my arms and watching the clueless expression on his face.
“You wanted me for my money, but I showed you my real life. You wanted the good guy, the hero. I showed you that. You wanted the kink, the perversity beyond all comprehension, I showed you my world. A world where you have total power and freedom. I GAVE YOU EVERYTHING, goddamn it!”
I sigh and lose his ferocious eyes.
“I’m sorry…I know I’m aggressive sometimes. I know I’m not as innocent as you are. Maybe…maybe that’s why I like you. Maybe I want to be more like you. I don’t know…”
“It sounds very sweet. It sounds sincere.”
“It is sincere!”
“But I just know, Zander…the minute I decide that I love you back, is going to be the same minute you realize I’m just a pretty girl. A pretty girl that doesn’t fit in your universe. No longer a virgin, nothing special. Just me. And I will become just like Renee, just like all the others. Call me vain…but I just don’t want to give you that power. I’m calling it quits now. Before you can lose interest in me and leave me an angry young woman who’s lost the joy in her life.”
“This isn’t fair. I shouldn’t be the bad guy here.”
“I do love you, darling. Just not in the way you need to be loved.” I ignore his frown and pat his shaky hand. “I admire you, you know. You’ve never lied to me, not even once. You are an amazing man, every bit as enchanting as the character you play on camera. But you’re not a victim. Don’t play the victim, Zander. It doesn’t become you. Every guy dreams of having your life.”
Better I leave now before dinner arrives. He pouts as I get up from the table, far too polite to make him pay for a girl who’s walking out on him. What can I say, I’m old fashioned that way.
“My mom once told me that life is neutral. I thought it was a strange thing to say coming from a Catholic mom, right? But she said life only means whatever meaning we put into it. There’s no destiny, there’s no waiting for the perfect moment. So I took that to mean…will I ever find true love? Will you ever find true love? The question is not IF, but when. When you decide that it’s time to stop searching and time to start living and enjoying a family.”
I fight my tears away. It’s all I have, to hold back from trying. He doesn’t understand. He’ll never understand. And I can’t keep explaining things to him, I can’t keep tiptoeing around his ego when I have decisions of my own to make. The whole world isn’t about you, Zander. Sometimes it’s about what you leave behind, what you give. I don’t know if you’ll ever understand that.
God, I just need to get away from him and think about the rest of my life.
Chapter 8
Zander
Sex is a form of communication. It became as such when we realized the boredom of procreation. Reproducing was such a mechanical process, so mathematic. You raise a child right, you create a respectable human being fit for society. You neglect that child, he grows up to be a sociopathic monster. When we discovered that we could have sex for every other reason BUT procreation, that’s when the real fun began.
Sex became therapy. Sex became a way to increase intimacy between two or more consenting adults. Sex was not just hedonism, it was ART. It existed, it happened, for no other reason except that our minds came up with it.
Fucking a girl in the ass, cumming on her face, calling her a slut while making her lick your taint…all acts of intimacy. All communicative gestures designed to build trust, to better connect our minds and bodies. There is no such thing as filth. There is only a lack of trust. There is only incompatibility. When two lovers meet and they become intertwined as soul mates, that’s when real intimacy begins.
Virgin girls sense this about experienced men. We are master communicators. We are scientists of the human body, of sexology and psychology. We are the Doms that understand their orgasm better than even they do.
But at some point, just as all life dies, so too does soulful communication end. Even something as glorious as naked intimacy must end. The escalation of thought, the perversity of ambition, the liberation of mind and body from the shackles of religion and social order…at some point, it becomes too much for a young almost-virgin to bear.
I do get the feeling Maya has seen the blackness of my soul and has wisely chosen to step back. She’s too smart to dismiss my erotic escapades as deviant behavior. She well knows that sex is merely the language of all human beings and some of us are just much more fluent in speaking than others. And some, of course, are plain autistic when it comes to intimate communication.
I suppose it does look rather strange to see me, Zander Troy, the billionaire hedonist having lunch in a zoo café with Maya’s parents. It’s rather strange how I’ve bonded with these two otherwise opposite people. I’ve done foul, terrible things to their daughter’s body. Corrupted her in ways she never dreamed and will never completely heal from. All at her request, naturally.
But I find myself all out of ideas on how to win Maya’s heart. I told her parents to come meet me at the zoo café to discuss more additions to aviary, but I suspect they saw through that ruse rather easily. They came because they knew I wanted to talk about Maya. Perhaps they could even feel my desperation.
“I’m losing her,” I say, finally forgoing the act of having it all together. I’m tired of pretending as if we’re just friends and Maya is my sugar baby pet. I am obsessed with her. I need her, she is the answer to this constantly looping riddle in my head. I have to possess her because if I lose her for good, I will never feel this “clean” sensation ever again. Is this what love feels like? The urgent desire to never let go? Never give up…
“I don’t want to sound pathetic. But I’m afraid of losing her. And as it’s rather obvious now…I’m completely out of
ideas.”
I look into the father’s eyes and bite my lip, showing a look of helpless surrender which is totally unbecoming of me, of all my family’s legacy. Mark mirrors back my shame and gives me a look of pity.
“Well, I’m sorry that this happened. Women, who knows what they want?”
“Mark!” Merva scolds him. “That’s not helping. Zander, honey, we feel really bad about what happened. But maybe it’s time to face some facts.”
“What? What did Maya say? Did she tell you something?” I look at Mark and rattle my head in frustration. “I’ve tried everything. Given her everything she wants. But she can never bring herself to respect me.”
“It’s not about that,” Merva says. “There are just some major personality differences between you and Maya.”
“But they’re peripheral. I just wish she could see how much in agreement we really are.”
“But they’re not peripheral, Zander! For example, the age difference.”
“It’s not like I’m eighty years old!” I respite. “I’m still in the prime of my life. Do you want to see my abs? Do you want to see my stomach?”
“Yes—”
“No!” Mark says. “That’s not the point. And it’s not really about the age either. It’s the culture, the heritage.”
“The what?”
“The religion, Zander. Religion. Maya is a Christian girl. You’re an atheist, right?”
“I’m Catholic,” I say with a shrug.
“Yeah but do you really believe?”
“I don’t know. Probably not.”
“So there you go. You’re incompatible!” Mark replies. “You remember that scripture that talked about being unevenly yoked?”
“No…why are we suddenly talking about eggs?”
“No, unevenly yoked.”
“Okay?”
“The point is, Zander,” Merva says, “Maya is a very good girl, an innocent girl. She is very childlike. She still thinks of roses and chocolates and flowers. She doesn’t really do the whole ‘get naked and fool around with whoever’ thing like you rich people do.”
“Ah…I see.” I stare wide-eyed, trying not to make a face. Are we talking about the same Maya? God, they really don’t know, do they? I suppose every parent likes to think their child never grows up. That she stays the same precocious twelve-year-old girl they once took to Disneyland. Should I tell her that Maya is just as “kinky” as I am? No…it would be a betrayal to embarrass Maya in such a way. Let them hold onto their fantasy. Maybe our fantasies, however howlingly delusional, are what we deserve to hear.
“She’s a good girl, she wants to meet a good boy, plain and simple.”
“You’re right,” I say with a tired smile. “Maybe that’s the truest thing I’ve heard all day.”
Maybe Maya’s flirtation with the dark side was nothing more than an experiment. Maybe she always wanted, or even DESERVED, someone better than me. Someone with a clear mind. Someone…who never found joy in destroying beautiful things.
“Maybe there’s just a difference in the way you date and view courtship,” Merva says. “Now you, Zander, probably come from the hookup culture, right?”
“The what?”
“The hookup culture. It’s when people hook up, you know. That and pornography.”
“What?! What are we talking about here?”
“We live in Satan’s world, Zander. Pornography is the number one sexuality educator. Boys are exposed to pornography at an early age and become addicted to it. They grow up with all kinds of warped perceptions about what sex really is. And you know, men who grow up watching porn and turning their relationships into porno scenes, they have a lot of problems in life!”
“Yes. Ted Bundy looked at porn,” Mark says stoically.
“Pornography glorifies rape. Violence. And even some of the men, you know, they have problems with erectile dysfunction because of all the porn.”
“Yes,” Mark says seriously. “And the big breasts. Always with the huge breasts.”
“Honey, that’s not necessary to say!” Merva says bitterly. “I’m sure he knows all about the big breasts!”
“I was on your side!” Mark replies. “I’m just saying that’s what porn is.”
“And how would you know that, Mark DeBank?”
“What? People don’t know that? I don’t watch it! I’m just saying, large breasts like in the dirty movies, you don’t see that in real life!”
“Honey, just be quiet. You’re making things worse. But the point is, yes, sex isn’t always about doing what feels good. Sometimes it’s about communicating with words, and being awkward, and being vulnerable. It’s not a game. It’s about really understanding what your partner wants from you, and not just what you see in your partner.”
I’ve been struggling not to laugh for a good two minutes…but the last thing Merva says really hits me like a slap to the face. I lose my smile and think it over. Somehow it hurts me…which means it’s something close to the truth.
“Yeah,” Mark adds. “And here’s the point, Zander. You really have to get good with Jesus Christ.”
“Yes,” Merva says, finally agreeing with her husband.
“All the other stuff is secondary. But if you want your marriage to last, you have to accept Jesus Christ into your heart.”
“Yes!”
I stare in confusion…and now the urge to giggle comes back. “Ah, I see. Well…”
“I mean, if you have Jesus in your heart, you’re not going to watch porn. Or view women as sexual objects. You’re going to repent of your sins and seek to be a man of God. A devoted husband who believes in the bible. That’s the kind of man Maya really wants.”
“UH HUH?” I say, now literally wiping my face trying to push away the giggles. Oh God, I deserve some kind of special achievement award for surviving this conversation. While I came into this conversation desperate, throwing myself down at the feet of Maya’s parents looking for advice…now I smile bittersweetly as I realize that Maya’s parents don’t know their daughter any better than I thought I did. No one really knows what’s going on in Maya’s head except the lovely Maya herself.
This is the unflattering truth we all hate to admit. No one knows. No one knows the future, just like no one knows what goes on inside another person’s mind. True compatibility between people is mysterious. There isn’t always a clear reason why we do the things we do, or at least, not until years later when we can be introspective and see the whole picture. But in the present, we only feel our instincts guiding us. We don’t understand motivations. We don’t see our mistakes coming. We can only do what feels right, whether that instinctive voice saves us or whether it kills us.
I don’t know what Maya is thinking…and maybe it’s best that I don’t know. Maybe it’s better that I stop chasing her, stop trying to win her over. Maybe that’s the lesson she’s trying to teach me, or the lesson Life itself is trying to teach me.
If we love someone beautiful, we let it go. We don’t keep that beautiful creature in a cage. We let that magnificent raptor spread its wings and fly. If Maya really is destined to be great, to change the world and be the Fire that keeps humanity alive…she can do it just fine without me.
My father did tell me once…whatever you do, don’t try to resist forces of nature at work. You will always lose. And a woman as headstrong as Maya is a force of nature. Man only has the privilege to watch her fly from a distance.
Getting over someone is the worst feeling in the world. When you text your immortal beloved and wait hours for a reply, only to realize, “She’s not going to write me back, is she?”, that’s when you realize you’ve been walking down the wrong road. Maybe for hours, or maybe even for years. You can’t turn back now, because to turn back now when you’ve built your entire life around one mistaken perception is nearly impossible.
I could never “turn things around” after I was trained from birth to run an empire in a way comparable to my mother. Even when a good activist n
amed Katey Shall tried to show me the way, tried to convince me to give up my wealth and join her socialist revolution, I reverted back to my instincts, however flawed they might be.
I remember ejaculating softly inside Katey, staring deeply into her eyes as the passion consumed us. Both of us feeling each other in that moment, both of us clinging to each other, as if trying to drag each other into two separate heavens during the moment of orgasm. She cried after sex, not just because I made her come. But because she was convinced she could save me. She could turn my life around. Make me forsake all that my father left me and run away with her to become an ordinary man. She made it sound so inviting…to disappear.
But I was already too far down the road, the path of TROY, the path my family has chosen. I couldn’t look back, not even for Katey. Of course, in my twenties, I really didn’t understand the concept of love at all. I thought Katey was merely hypnotizing me, seducing me, into an alternate life I never wanted. Only now do I look back and see the possibility that it was one version of happiness available to me. One I chose to leave behind because I followed the path.
With Maya, it feels different somehow. She knows the path I’m going on. She never judged me for any of it. She even made my heart flutter at the thought that she could walk with me, wherever I go.
But the joke was on me. She had already seen an intersection ahead and that was her stop. How foolish of me to think that my lonely road would be appealing to someone who had the Fire, who had the zest for life that all we cynical hedonists lack?
“Lie to me,” I say with a smile to Denise and Tara, two buxom young girls, blond and ginger red. I met the two beauties at a party downtown. They’re not escorts, nor even groupies—which for me, who knows, is at least one step up my ladder of depravity. They were simply girls in a bar, looking for a good time. Preferably with a SPECIAL guy, someone ahead of the class.