Him

I'm chasing a stray man.

He's a narcissistic, glass half empty kind of guy. My pet names are demeaning, but spoken in such a sweet way they seem like a lullaby to me. He's time consuming, taking up all of my spare time with dreams of his voice and desperate longing to touch his alabaster skin. All I crave is his attention, and he gives it only in doses he sees fit, or not at all. Still, my heart beats a little faster when I see his face (a forgettable face, not necessarily attractive, but I could never forget it), and all I can think is, 'Please Lord. Please.' I am addicted to what he does not give me.

Leaving isn't an option. I tried it once, just to see if he would stop me. He didn't, and I came back because his careless attitude kept me floating above sealevel. What I get from him is minimal, but I'd get nothing at all if I was not there at all. It was as if I'd never left, to him. The noise in the background, his shadow, a hand always willing to offer everything, and everything he took, but where importance was, I came in dead last. Still, leaving isn't an option. My being belongs to his, and receiving something in return isn't something I do it for.

Everything I ever was before his pale blonde hair and cocky attitude shuffled its way into my life left me long ago, and yet still, a newfound confidence lay there in its wake. Whereas before I had been unsure yet stubborn, now I am confident and yet willing, willing to compromise and slyly still reap the benefits. He has brought me up to the sky and taken me down to the bowels of hell simultaneously. Everything I am now, he has made me. I am his because I can never be anyone else's.

Sometimes I wonder if he did it on purpose. Molded me into his perfect playtoy. That's what he calls me. Well, his fucktoy. His. His. So young I was, when I met him, that everthing about him enamoured me. The mystique of his personality, the amount of zeros that was in his paycheck, the way he treated me. No one had ever called me a 'slut' or a 'kidfuck' in such a way that it was endearing - a way that I somehow knew it was meant to be taken lovingly, like 'baby' or 'sweetheart'. The stern way he kept me in line. I was such a rebellious child; I had never liked authority, but I craved his. His firm warnings left me feeling ruined, but the way he praised me when I did something right, it was like all was good in the world. Everything was perfect. I was floating.

The biggest attraction, however, was his age. I was fourteen and he was twenty-eight, twenty-nine. Old, but not so old everything he said went over my head. The taboo of it, of the things he said, (Would it make your clit tingle, baby slut?) left me breathless. He made me feel things I'd never felt before.
Still, I knew I was one of many. The love I felt for him was the love many other ignorant little girls did, too. I was ensnared, trapped, though; I could never go. He could do nothing that would change my feelings. Fingers roughly digging into my hips, deep bite marks, hands around my throat; everything he did made him who he was and I wanted him all. I wanted his hate and his love (his caring, anything he was capable of feeling for me) wrapped into one (Sinking, sinking into a vat of ice cream, d'you think you can eat your way to the top, trailer baby? Your love for all things sweet doesn't apply to me, too, does it?)

'Don't underestimate the things that I will do.' He always told me. It didn't matter and he knew it. The way he said it, it was mocking, because he knew I'd never leave him. He was my heart and soul.

My difficult upbringing, so poor and full of despair and attempted caring in one, was often mocked by him. I was born with a tin spoon - his was silver. Only after I became his did he inform me it was upgraded to nickel. Never more than that. The sweet way in which his words were spoken, though, took the sting away. I only felt a sort of acceptance when he lovingly pointed out my personal items, bought used, my family, high school dropouts working at convenience stores and Goodwill. Buying their clothes at Goodwill. Nothing he said hurt. It only stung when I reminded myself of our class difference. Everything about him was right; nothing he said was ever wrong, but I was a constant failure. He never told me that. He never tells me that. I only need to know.

His money, his money. Maybe I am gold-digging. Maybe I was once poor enough to know that money makes the world go 'round. Anyone that tells you different is wrong. The things he bought, the way he threw money away so carelessly. Jesus, the pricetags on his clothes. Maybe that is part of the reason I stay, the credit cards and hundred dollar bills nestled away in my purse because of him. Being shallow is something I can live with, because I can be shallow with wads of hundreds and five hundreds and fifty is practically change to throw to the cabby. You cannot be shallow without being well-off.

The life I live because of him is not cruel at all. It is not emotionally void, but it is emotionally unstable. I can live with that. I cannot deal with being stable. I need the bruises around my hips to tell me this is living. I need the beautiful dresses to tell me that I am sexy. I need him to tell me I am wanted whenever he remembers. I need everything he gives me and more because no one else can do what he does.

I'm not weak in not leaving him, but I am weak in staying.