The Lie

by Chad Kultgen

  So I was just in my bed one afternoon and I thought I should give Kyle a call. I really didn’t know what I was going to say. I thought I might like ask him out for coffee again or something or maybe dinner. I mean I didn’t even really know if I wanted to try to get back together with him or anything. I just kind of wanted to hang out with him and be with a guy who I knew actually cared about me and would listen to me and everything. But when I called him he didn’t answer and I didn’t want to sound retarded on a voice mail so I just didn’t say anything. I hoped he’d see my caller ID and call back, but he didn’t.

  I waited a few days, and when he still didn’t call I just guessed he was happy with whoever his girlfriend was and he didn’t want anything to do with me. It kind of made sense. I mean at the time I did it, I wasn’t really sorry for sucking Brian’s dick and dumping Kyle, but as time went on I figured out that was a pretty shitty thing to do. Even now after I know what I know about Kyle I wish I wouldn’t have done it. I mean I wish I would have just broken up with Kyle before I sucked Brian’s dick.

  Anyway, a few days had gone by and I had pretty much given up on ever talking to Kyle again. One afternoon Andrea called me up and asked if I wanted to go get some lunch down on Yale Boulevard at this new Mexican place. I don’t remember the name, but they were having like a ninety-nine-cent margarita lunch special or something. So we went.

  We got a table, sat down, and ordered some drinks. She was like, “So the reason I asked you to lunch is because I haven’t seen you at any of the parties over the last couple weeks or so and you seem to like be kind of withdrawn and everything. You doing okay?”

  I hadn’t even really thought about going to parties or anything since the thing with Brian and Josh. But when Andrea mentioned it, I realized other people had probably noticed that I’d withdrawn from the whole thing a little bit, too.

  I was like, “Yeah, I’m fine. Just been really tired. Some of my classes this semester are like kicking my ass.”

  She was like, “Oh, well, you know we’re throwing a party with Pike next week and you did such an awesome job with the Heaven and Hell party…I was wondering if you’d want to help plan that one.”

  I was like, “I don’t think so.”

  She was like, “I can tell something’s wrong. We’ve become pretty good friends over the past year and a half. You know you can tell me.”

  I don’t know why I didn’t want to tell her. I guess I was ashamed that I let it happen. I also didn’t want to get Brian in trouble. I didn’t care as much about Josh. But Brian had been like a pretty good boyfriend up to that night. But I decided I should just tell her. I thought it might make me feel better about the whole thing.

  I was like, “Okay. On the night of the Heaven and Hell party I went back to the Pike house with Brian and I was seriously fucked up and you know that guy Josh Paulson that always hangs out with Brian?”

  She was like, “Yeah.”

  I was like, “Well, he and Brian did like a three-way with me.”

  She was like, “Gross—two guys?”

  I was like, “Yeah.”

  She was like, “Was it fun?”

  I was like, “No. I was like so fucked up that I couldn’t move and they just kind of did it.”

  She was like, “Oh my God, Heather. Why didn’t you tell someone?”

  I was like, “I don’t know. I guess it’s not like that big of a deal. You have to promise not to say anything.”

  She was like, “I won’t. I’ll leave it up to you, but if those assholes raped—”

  And then the waiter came and set down our drinks, which I started drinking like immediately.

  When he left Andrea was like, “If those assholes raped you, you have to tell somebody.”

  I was like, “It wasn’t rape—it wasn’t like they tied me down or hit me or anything and I’m fine now so…”

  She was like, “You said you were so fucked up you couldn’t move. Are you sure you weren’t drugged or something?”

  I was like, “I was drugged. I drugged myself, Andrea. I took like E and was doing coke all night and was super fucking drunk.”

  She was like, “Yeah, but you’ve done that before and you weren’t like paralyzed from it, right?”

  I was like, “I guess.”

  She was like, “Like I said, I’m not going to say anything, but you know deep down if they like deserve to get called out for what they did then you have to be the one to call them out.”

  I was like, “Yeah.”

  She was like, “And I totally understand why you haven’t been at any parties and why you don’t want to help with the Pike party next week but eventually you’re going to have to find some way to like look past this and start hanging out. Some of the other girls have been asking what the deal is with you, too.”

  I was like, “I know. I’ll be okay. I just like need a little time to like not think about it every day, you know?”

  She was like, “Yeah. Have you talked to Brian since it happened?”

  I was like, “He asked me out to dinner once but I didn’t go and I haven’t talked to him since then. I don’t think I’m like going to talk to him ever again.”

  She was like, “That’s pretty fucking terrible.”

  I was like, “Seriously.”

  It felt good to tell her about it but I also knew what she was saying about like getting back into going to parties and everything was true. I pretty much knew I wasn’t going to tell anyone else about it. Like I mean I knew I wasn’t going to call them out or anything. It sucked, but it wasn’t like it was violent or anything and I knew calling them out would probably be more trouble than it was worth in terms of staying in the Kappa house and having to go to parties and everything with people who were their friends. I figured I could just like find out which parties Brian and Josh were going to be at and not go or if I saw one of them I could just leave. Or I could just like ignore them or something.

  I had like four margaritas at lunch and then Andrea drove us back to the house. I wasn’t like super drunk but I wasn’t sober. So I got out my phone and called Kyle again. This time he answered.

  He was like, “Hey.”

  I was like, “Hi. How have you been?”

  He was like, “Fine. How about you?”

  I seriously had like no idea what to say. I was just drunk enough to not be able to talk very well and just sober enough to know that I should say as little as possible before I said something I would regret.

  So I was like, “I don’t know. I’ve actually been thinking about you a lot. Would you like want to go get dinner with me sometime or something? My treat?”

  He was like, “Uh…yeah. Sure. I guess. Yeah.”

  I was like, “Cool. Tomorrow night?”

  He was like, “Yeah, I can do that.”

  I was like, “Cool, I’ll pick you up at seven.”

  He was like, “See you then.”

  I hung up the phone and felt happier than I’d been in a long time. I kind of thought we might talk about getting back together, but I wasn’t sure. I mean I figured whoever he was dating he probably wasn’t as into as he was with me when we were together, so I didn’t think it would be hard to get him to choose me if he had to make a choice. I already knew which outfit I was going to wear. I had this shirt that really showed off my boobs from Forever 21 and this pair of Seven jeans that my ass looked seriously awesome in. Then for the first time since the thing with Brian I actually thought about sex and it was with Kyle.

  chapter eighteen

  I was taking quite possibly the most foul shit of my lifetime, induced by hours of hard drinking the night prior, when my father called me. He rarely called me so I immediately wondered what the reason might be for that call. I then remembered my drunken decision to call him and inform him that I had decided to refuse the life laid out for me. I couldn’t remember if I was that specific in the message I left but my question about how much I had actually divulged on his voice mail was answered when he asked
what I had wanted to talk about.

  Although I was more than certain that I ultimately could not follow the same path he had, once again I felt overwhelmed by calm, as if merely having made the decision made the telling of it to my father seem less pressing. I lied to my father and told him that I had been thinking about getting a new car, which wasn’t entirely untrue, and sought his advice in the matter. His most recent purchase was a Range Rover, which he seemed to like, but he recommended that I live it up while I still had my youth. He reminded me that the semester was nearing its end and he asked me to delay the purchase of a new car because he was actually thinking of getting me one he thought I would like as a gift to let me know how proud he was of what I had acheived to date, which was little more than doing exactly what had been expected of me.

  He ended the call by telling me that he loved me, which was more rare than receiving a phone call from him at all. I quickly remembered ending the voice mail I left him with a similar “I love you,” which must have sparked some latent paternal emotion in him. My decision was unchanged, but it remained untold at the end of the conversation.

  I hung up the phone and was preparing to wipe when I received another call, this one from Kyle seeking my advice. He explained that Heather had called him the day before and invited him to dinner. He questioned her motives, wondering if she could possibly want to get back together with him. The mention of this possibility brought an excitement to his voice that worried me. His basic question to me was how to conduct himself in order to make their reunion the most likely outcome. I finished my shit and sat on the toilet without wiping for the remainder of the conversation.

  I asked him why he would ever have even the most remote interest in welcoming back a whore who sucked another man’s dick while they were together. He seemed to think that enough time had passed since that event to allow for some fundamental change in Heather. I tried to explain to him that people don’t change, they just have momentary steps outside of their true character, isolated actions contrary to their true nature. If she seemed like a changed person it was due to one of these moments. Kyle maintained that the dick she sucked might have been the isolated action and her true character was what he was seeing now. I had no rebuttal. It was like arguing against the existence of God with a born-again Christian. If people are unwilling to see reason, there’s not much that can be said to open their eyes.

  Nonetheless I gave it my best attempt. I tried to take him back to the moment when he was made aware of Heather’s transgression. I attempted to conjure those old feelings of betrayal and hatred that had made Kyle capable of fucking the whore I set him up with. It was a fruitless endeavor.

  I then tried logic. I reminded Kyle that he currently had a girlfriend who was better suited for him in every way than Heather ever would be, maybe than any woman he would ever meet would be. Rationally speaking she was easily in the top 5 percent of the most compatible women in the world for Kyle. Surprisingly, Kyle couldn’t argue this point. He agreed with me, but cited that Erin just didn’t make him feel the same way Heather did.

  When I brought to his attention that in order to become involved with Heather again he would have to smash Erin’s heart into dust, he said it would be difficult but he would do what he had to do. I tried to make him understand how bad he would be hurting Erin, not because I cared about her but because I knew he did. I likened what she would have to go through emotionally to what he felt when Heather sucked another man’s dick. He said he fully understood the emotional impact it would have on Erin but claimed it would be worse for her if he stayed with her never being able to be truly happy and always wondering what could have been with Heather.

  I attempted one final line of reasoning by comparing Heather to the devil, which neither Kyle nor I believed in, but he understood the metaphor—pure evil, but an evil with a mind and motive behind its actions. I asked him if the devil asked him to dinner would he attend. He laughed but I pressed the point. If you were asked to dinner by someone you knew ultimately was a bad person or had hurt you in some way that was so profound you had become someone different, as I maintained Kyle had by citing the evidence of his newfound ability to have a one-night stand and his newfound inability to be happy with a girl who was perfect for him, would you ever want to give that person the opportunity to lay another trap for you? The answer seemed clear to me, but Kyle dismissed my analogy as ridiculous.

  At that point I questioned why he called me at all if the advice he sought was so easily tossed aside. He told me he was nervous and he realized he really did want to get back together with Heather and had hoped for my blessing if that was to be the outcome of the night. I assured him that he would always be my friend, no matter what horrible cunt he ended up with. If he wanted my blessing in the matter of choosing a slut to end his life with, it would have to be Erin. I could not in good conscience tell him that I thought it was a good idea to be involved with Heather in any way.

  I gave one final attempt at breathing some sanity into his clouded mind by asking him if he knew of her excessive drug use. He claimed he knew she used drugs recreationally but didn’t think her use was excessive and he supposedly understood that some people in college have to go through such a phase of personal exploration and in his mind there was nothing wrong with it. I further reminded him that it might very well have been that so-called recreational drug use which led her to sucking another man’s dick and quite possibly a whole host of other whorish activities that Kyle had no idea about.

  I ended the conversation by wishing Kyle good luck, and explaining that that meant I hoped Heather was taking him to dinner to ask him to help her move or to tell him that she was pregnant with another man’s child or that she was getting married, et cetera. I restated my final position on the matter, which was that Heather was the worst thing that had ever happened to Kyle’s life since I’d known him, and I warned him to be careful above all else. If she did initiate some kind of conversation about reuniting, I asked that before he made a decision he give me an opportunity to talk to him one more time. He promised he would and he thanked me for talking with him.

  I hung up the phone, wiped my ass, and thought for a few more moments about the possible outcomes of Kyle’s dinner with Heather before going back into my bedroom and refucking the slut I had fucked the night before who was still in my bed. After I fucked her I tried to initiate a conversation with her about the nature of people and if they’re capable of change, but she seemed uninterested so I made her suck my dick and tried to imagine what it would be like to truly love a woman as Kyle seemed to. I was unsuccessful.

  For me, the lie of love, like so many other lies in which most people found false value—God, morality, the idea of right and wrong, et cetera—melted away in the flame of truth and reason.

  chapter nineteen

  That night, in terms of making mistakes, was one of the worst ones in my entire fucking life, hands down, no-holds-barred, no questions asked. There were a few times in my relationship with Heather when I had the opportunity to just walk away and everything would have been fine. That dinner was absolutely one of them and, of course, I fucking didn’t.

  I had to tell Erin that I was going out with Brett. Brett and I hadn’t hung out as much as we used to since I started spending virtually every night at Erin’s place. I used that as the reason why he wanted to hang out. I also told her that we might end up getting drunk and I might end up staying at his place. I didn’t even know why Heather wanted to go to dinner with me but I wanted to prepare for all possibilities. Erin was completely fine with it, suspecting nothing and completely trusting me. I really did love her. Fuck. I still can’t believe I fucked that up as bad as I did.

  Heather picked me up at McElvaney at seven, like she said she would, and took me to Nick and Sam’s, the same place I took her once to try to show her how much I cared about her and that I was capable of doing something nice for her. I didn’t know if her motives were the same or if she just liked the place or if sh
e wasn’t creative enough to figure out a place of her own or what the deal was. She looked fucking incredible. Her tits were pushed up and she looked like she might have even lost a little weight or something. She was wearing these tight jeans that made her ass look like you just wanted to take a fucking bite out of it. I liked having sex with Erin a lot, but I don’t think I ever had the same kind of visceral, animalistic urge to just fuck her brains out that I had almost every time I looked at Heather and especially on that night. Despite all of her faults, that’s one thing Heather knew how to do really well—look like she wanted you to fuck her.

  The ride over was kind of weird. Neither of us said much. It was small talk mostly. She said, “How have you been?”

  I said, “Fine. How about you?”

  She said, “Pretty good. How is your girlfriend doing?” This was an interesting question. She brought it up fairly early in the night, which I thought could have meant one of two things: (1) She was trying to remind me that I had a girlfriend and this dinner had nothing to do with anything remotely approaching a romantic night out with her, or (2) she was hoping I didn’t have a girlfriend so she could fuck my brains out, as her wardrobe indicated.