wrecked_angles birdmad [a B_T_E postscript] For different reasons than was the case with Terri, Alex was beginning to tire of whatever game it was it seemed Cara was playing. It was a weird set of circumstances to find himself caught in. One one hand, with Terri, he found himself being increasingly hen-pecked by her more dominant personality, which he wouldn't necessarily have minded if it wasn't for the fact that their relationship, on its face, wouldn't have seemed conducive to that sort of situation. It was an improbable situation from the word "Go" and Alex blamed only himself for how it had gotten to the point where it was. "Sooner or later," he told one of his friends as his restlessness grew, "this whole 'straight guy-plus-lesbian' equation isn't going to add up anymore." "Bitch," Danny chuckled to him in an exaggeratedly swishy tone "it was NEVER gonna add up, and you know it." "Yeah," Alex says, "but it was fun while it lasted." "Masochist." Danny says bluntly "Aww," Alex laughs, "you're only saying that 'cause you wanna play 'top' to my bottom." "You offering?" "Depends on who's asking" "Don't tease me." On the other hand, Alex finds himself thinking, the situation with Cara has become intractably weird and frustrating in a whole other way. ********** Alex met Cara just a few weeks before the last days of The Works as he and Terri had been slithering about the dance floor looking for playmates. She approached him first as he had retreated outside to take in the last of the cool spring air by the chaises out by the pool in the club's back yard. Wired on the caffeine and herbal extract-laden "smart drinks" from the bar, he was animated and chatty as he conducted a back and forth bullshit session with a disparate gaggle of gay men in early middle age, pretty ingenues and slightly more lounge-lizard-esque characters than himself. Cara found him oddly fascinating as he held forth, retreating from certain parts of the debate, seeming almost painfully self-aware even in spite of himself. It was, she would tell him later, as if someone had thought it would be a funny idea to put Woody Allen's brain in the body of someone you'd expect to see guarding a door in a dark alley. After a few rounds of perfunctory small talk, she told him what she did for a living after asking him what he did. Having seen what he and Terri had been up to, she told him, with no hesitation, that she was a dancer at a high-end private cabaret further up Scottsdale from the club and that she also, occasionally liked to appear in amateur porn. Expecting him to be caught off guard by her candor, she was caught off guard by his lack of surprise. "Most guys look at me funny when i tell them that" "I might be a boring radio technician now," Alex replied, "but i've done my share of things that might raise an eyebrow here or there. You'd have to go quite a ways to shock me" "Really?" "Really." As the weeks passed, something resembling a relationship began forming between Cara and Alex, with both of them making overtures toward each other of an increasingly sexual nature. Things changed one night during a late evening's dinner at Rosetti's, a cozy, dimly lit Italian restaurant that had carved a niche for itself by being the only high-end restaurant to cater to the after-hours crowd. Cara had been the insitgator all night, and Alex, flattered to be on the receiving end of the attention, returned it in kind, shooting a knowing grin at her as he felt her toes creeping up his leg frum under the table as they ate. Sensing that something was about to happen, he had gone shopping after work the previous evening for a few new bedroom fixtures to finish off the redecorating jag he had gone on after his mother's funeral some months eatlier. It would be the first time he had actually brought anyone home for any purpose that didn't involve meeting his family. As they left the restaurant, Cara got a little wilder, putting her hand on Alex's thigh as he drove and giving him a slap on his ass once they were through the front door. "hmmm...Which way to the bedroom?" she asked, letting out a small, short laugh that seemed to convey the same intentions that were running through his mind. "Follow me," he sadi, taking her by the hand down the short hallway. Pulling him down onto the bed on top of her, they kissed and began fumbling with each other's clothing. Blonde and nearly as tall as Alex, Cara was, in those respects, a stark physical contrast to the women he typically gravitated towards. What she did share with the others was a short, slightly androgynous hairstyle and a build that straddled the line between delicate and athletic, a bit of preference that served as Zoe's influence on his taste in women. Definitely a dancer's body. Unbuttoning her blouse, he slid down, breaking off from her kiss and kissing her on her neck, pushing aside her collar to kiss the curve of her clavicle, Unbottoning the remainder of her blouse and unhooking the front clasp of her bra, letting the cups fall aside, he gently fondled her left breast as he crept back up to kiss her again, stopping only to peel off his shirt as she had unbuttoned it most of the way down. Suddenly, as he moved to resume kissing her, Cara pushed him over ontp his back and kissed him rather violently, her hands clasped on either side of his head in the tangle of his hair. Even more suddenly, she pulled away from the kiss, slapped him lightly across the face with a vaguely puzzled look on her own face and sat at the corner of the bed, re-arranging her clothes "What was that all about?" Alex asked, perplexed. "Maybe now isn't a good time, sorry?" "Alright," he says, casually "No pressure... hell of a time to change directions, though." "Look," Cara says, exasperated, "I said i'm sorry, okay!" "I'm not trying to bust your ass here, Cara, I'm just saying." "I know," she sighed. "Could you just take me home, please?" "If that's what you want" The drive back to Cara's apartment is a long and quiet one. By the time they make it to her place, the first bluish tinges of dawn are beginning to show. "Can i at least walk you to your door?" Alex asks, concerned. "No, thank you, but call me tonight, okay?" "Alright." Driving back home, grateful to have the rising sun at his back after being almost as far out as Henry Ash's place, Alex drives back uncomfortably with the painful sensation he had always thought to be a juvenile myth creeping from his crotch all the way up through his abdomen "Ow... fuck," he muttered to himself as he turned up the Sisters_of_mercy tape playing in the stereo, "so this is what blueballs feels like." Getting home, he went to the fridge and grabbed a bottle of Bass from the door and cooked one of the New York strip he had picked up at the store on the way home with a couple of green onions and ate it, medium rare along with a couple of microwaveable hash browns from the freezer. Sleeping through to eatly afternoon, Alex woke up and grabbed another beer and made a sandwich. Cleaning up the morning's pan and plate and sweeping the hallway, alex tidied up the house and pondered on what exactly had gone on last night and the abruptness of Cara's pulling away. ***** After a couple more weeks Alex found himself feeling like a complete moron. Cara would leave messages on his machine telling him to call, but when he did, she would feign being too busy to talk and on a pair of occasions the phone was answered by an annoyed man who sounded half awake. When she did have time for him, she behaved as if the near-miss in his bedroom hadn't happened and played up to him the same way as she had leading up to that moment. Cara would make very overt come-ons to him, but would then become annoyed with him if he played along. Finally, he had had enough, the final straw coming when she answered his call after he returned one of her messages. It was early evening still, but when she picked up the phone and asked who it was, he could hear a man's voice in the background, short of breath and vaguely annoyed "Who the hell's that?" the voice asked, sounding both annoyed and somewhat short of breath "Nobody important," Cara tried to whisper, "don't wory about it" It didn't sound tlike the other annoyed voice who had picked up before "Okay," Alex starts off, crossly, "and you've been telling me that i can trust you and that you aren't dicking me around. So far it looks like this, you're paying, voyeur clients at the cabaret have seen more of you than i have, your houseguests and whoever the hell else has been picking up the phone have gotten more of your, ummm...attention, for lack of a better word and you keep stringing me along and saying shit to turn me on or to keep my interest just because apparently you get some sort of weird thrill out of turning around and tearing me a new ass the second i start beleiving any of it. You tell me to call you, you tell me you want to talk to me, but then when i call you back you tell me you don't have time to talk or when you do have time, you get all fucking weird on me and acting like I'M the one messing with YOUR head, I liked you, but i'm really sick of your bullshit and i'm not into playing these sorts of games It's simple, if you want to fuck, fine, let's fuck, if you want to be friends, fine, let's do that, but if you think i'm having any kind of good time jumping back and forth from one foot to the other trying to figure out what in the holy fucking hell is going on, don't waste my time, okay... goodbye." He hung up before she could catch her breath. To Alex's relief and complete lack of surprise, she didn't call back. Distracted and a little depressed, Alex put on his boots, black silk shirt and his black lipstick and hit the Atomic Cafe lather that night. He danced a little here and there, made a little small talk and flirted a bit here and there and had a few stiff drinks early on, but switched to Pepsi in time to sober up to drive home when the time came Going home, alone, he lit up one of the Djarum Black cigarettes in the car and cruised around the city streets until dawn. It was dfinitively Saturday morning by the time he pulled into his driveway and the neighbor's big ugly basset hound was blocking his driveway and sitting next to a fresh pile of its own shit. Idling the car, he got the small shovel out of his trunk and used it to fling the shit at the dog. When the dog refused to take the hint, he kicked it, just hard enough to get the point across. Going inside, he grabbed the big green can of FSB and ate the burrito he had bought from the 'bertos on the way home Finishing that, he smoked the last substandard joint he had bought from Bulldog down the street As skinny as Arturo had gotten from being a fucking crackhead, Alex thought, it was a wonder anyone still called him "bulldog." Just buzzed enough not to really give a shit anymore, Alex went to bed, sleeping until just before sunset 040504 ... whitechocolatewalrus wrecked_angels 040504 what's it to you? who go blather from