A Cruel Game

          It wasn’t supposed to be like this, no, the game was not meant to end in such a manner. We had always been innocent in our play, though somewhat outside of the standard market of entertainment. Looking down at these premature graves of innocent, even good, people, I find myself questioning, Was it worth it? The answer is a resounding no, nothing is worse the loss of a friend or a loved one, even more so do I dread the snatching away of another’s loved one. Somehow deep down inside I knew the game would eventually have to end like this, we all played far too well this last match though. We used to stare out windows analytically, plan the next steps, begin the next round with ease, but this time it was too intense, and I knew it. Had I known this round would last so long, I never would have taken steps to begin it. Had I known that such things would be revealed before the end, I never would have asked him to play again. The other players didn’t have a choice, but had I known that this course would ruin them, I never would have chosen them to play. It was not good, that is my final decision. No matter how well we played, this end result was not good. Do I regret it? Well yes of course. Will I retell the tale? I have to; someone else must know the treachery of this vile game.

          I stared out my window as a beautiful young brunette walked by on the street, my computer buzzed complaints of overworking and inadequate cooling, but I paid it no mind, it was only gathering data. She had a perfect shape to her body, she had a chest but it was not so large as it would attract the average pig’s eyes, she was petite, and her chest matched. Her hips were just so, not unbearably wide, but not lacking either. The rest of her body was slender, with enough meat on her thighs to attract a young man’s eyes during observation. She had creamy tan skin from head to toe, not a tan but an inherent skin-tone. Her name, ah her name, was Monica, Monica Nightingale, an older last name: it gave her a bit of mystery. She was a violin player, or she was learning to play at the university she attended anyway. It seemed she was also majoring in literature studies, English Literature. She was definitely smart enough to do so, she maintained a 3.5 to 4.0 grade point average the whole time she was in school. As far as I could tell she didn’t have any flaws either. She enjoyed drinking, but she wasn’t a drunk, occasionally she would get intoxicated but generally she only drank socially and only in small amounts. Other than that she had no bad habits. She was beautiful, she was smart, and she could even be described as funny, seemed simply perfect.
          Where are my manners, that man staring down at this beautiful young woman walking down the street, right the one with the hazel eyes and the dark brown hair; that would be me. My name’s Sven, Sven Thompson, slightly less exotic and mysterious than the other name in question here. I stood somewhere around 6 feet tall, I was stuck at that height from the point I got out of middle school. My hair was thick, and generally shaggy, I didn’t spend a lot of time fixing it up unless it was a special occasion. Typically when I went out I wore a button-up over-shirt of some sort, but looking out my window at her I was wearing a simple white t-shirt. Ripped blue jeans were in style at the time, so of course I wore them, but I tried to maintain some not so ripped jeans as well, just in case I needed them; sometimes it was important to look nice. I guess I would be described as smart also; my specialty fell in the line of computers and technology instead of books and literature though. I like to call myself a comedian, but some people thought I was funny; others did not, depending on sensitivity. Other than that I would like to say I was without flaw; but I was pretty perverse, and there wasn’t much else to me, women, slacking off at work, and messing around with my computer when I got home, that’s pretty much it.
          About that time, as she faded out of sight beyond the edge of my window, my door swung open, which meant one of two things, I was getting evicted or Daniel was there. I had paid my rent so I was pretty confident it was Daniel.
          “So where is she, this perfect girl?”
          Yeah, that voice definitely belonged to Daniel.
          I turned to face Daniel Stewart, my best friend, well essentially my only friend. He was a bit of a technology nerd as well, but he preferred a different type of occupation than me, and a different type of literature than her. He was all about Japanese comics, or manga as he liked to call it. As such his bleach blonde hair was kept very neat on his head, occasionally held back by a near unnoticeable hair clip, but generally just magically in place, it wasn’t quite natural as far as I was concerned. He had pale blue eyes, eyes that always seemed to grab attention, no matter who or what you were; I sometimes wished I had those eyes. He was the same height as me, but he had actually grown into it throughout high school. He tended to wear graphic t-shirts from his favorite comics, and black jeans of some sort, cargoes or just regular pants. He was slimmer than me, a hard thing to acquire without diet and exercise, neither of which he maintained, and loved to show it off with tight shirts. Flaws? He had some, but I can’t quite pinpoint them. I guess he was shy on some levels.
          He stood there in my doorway, surrounded on either side by my shelves that were lined with assorted clothes and pieces of electronics. Different layers of motherboards, video/audio cards, processors, assorted microchips, software CDs, and two closets full of pressed shirts and jeans, could be located on either side of him. The floor before him was a bit of a mess, papers I had crumpled up and tossed at the trashcan, missing half the time, littered the floor, and different print outs of girls’ faces, with red Xs and checks, some circled and some crossed out, seemed to be everywhere. I very greatly enjoyed our game. I sat in a chair now beside the window, no longer leaning my forehead against the glass, and I motioned toward the bed, where Daniel flopped down.
          “This perfect girl just walked by,” I stated, “Surely you passed her on your way here?”
          Daniel chuckled, “Sven, how would I know if I passed this girl, if I’ve never seen her?”
          “Well, Daniel,” I said with a smile, “She’s perfect, you should be able to pick her out from any crowd.”
          “I didn’t,” Daniel replied simply, “So sorry.”
          I picked up a picture with no writing on it, a picture of her face.
          She had a very slight face, befitting her thin body. Her nose was a very dainty thing, barely jutting out beyond her lip. She had two perfect almond shaped eyes, colored a bright green; they shone like emeralds. Her lips even looked soft, to find out that they weren’t would have been quite a shocker, but they were ever so slight enhancements on her face, gentle pink ripples that stuck out enough to make an impression, with gentle dimples at either side when she smiled. Her ears were pierced, and here she wore two small diamonds, accentuating pearly white teeth, smaller than average but perfectly aligned. She was gorgeous.
          “That’s fine,” I said turning the picture to face him, “Because this is her.”
          Daniel smirked, “I’ve always found it a little creepy how stalker-ish you can be,” he reached out and took the print out from my hand, “Yes she is quite beautiful. You ever feel bad about the way we treat these girls?”
          “It’s merely a game, Daniel,” I replied, looking away from his pale blue eyes, “Occasionally I might feel bad, but ultimately it’s not like women don’t do worse things.”
          Well at least I had always heard women could do awful things. Since the eighth grade I had not been in a relationship lasting longer than three months, possibly to avoid such horrible things, yes perhaps that was why I avoided real relationships so sincerely. Or maybe there was some other reason, hidden deep down.
          My eyes settled on Daniel’s again as he looked up from the photo, he smiled and stated with his usual exuberance, “Well, dear Sven, the game’s afoot.”

          I suppose at this point your curiosity is peaked as to what this game of ours was. Well it was a simple test of who knew better how to be a man, not a gentleman, but a man. Take note also that it was not a responsible man that we proved ourselves, merely a man. The point of the game was to sleep with the girl first, but it couldn’t be some lame intoxication one-night stand, the goal was to convince the girl so thoroughly that we wanted her, and assure her that she wanted us, to the point that she simply had to have us. Well one of us, the first one to sleep with her was the winner. This had been a competition between us since the tenth grade, when Sven told me that he was more attractive and I’d better start dreaming lustful dreams if I wanted the head cheerleader before him. His downfall was, she liked dark hair. But since that time we had always competed with varying girls and differing challenges. This particular girl I set no limitations on, nor did Sven, just get her to fall for you, and sleep with her.
          In retrospect, I do feel very bad about what we did to all of those women, taking things from some of them that they could never get back, and in other situations simply robbing them of pride or breaking hearts. It was horrible, alas it was fun while it lasted though, and I do hope that Daniel enjoyed it as much as I did. But this last girl, this Monica Nightingale, she was different, she changed the game, she changed me, and she changed Daniel. I did not like that at first, and now I like it even less. But I suppose it was what Daniel wanted in the end. I find that laughable, considering where I stand now, yes I find it laughable that this girl changed so much between the two of us, and ruined the one game we had in common, that we could truly be competitive with each other in. Even worse, she ruined so much more, but in the end whose fault was that? No Monica was innocent; it was I who put Daniel up to the game again with this girl that I had decided was near perfect. I was too blind to see that such a thing would change the both of us. I was too blind to take the necessary precautions, to throw away that print out and never look at that girl again. She was just so beautiful, she was so intriguing, how good she could be and yet still entice me so thoroughly; and once the game started I only became more intrigued. Because I would soon realize that in some eyes she was more than the perfect girls, and I would be hard pressed to defeat her at the game that she played, while I tried to beat Daniel at the game we played.