I woke up to Sasha gently tickling me. For a moment I forgot why she was there but then the images of the night before came back to me. Little flashes if Sasha and I kissing desperately… falling, tripping, stumbling into bed. How different it had been to being with Alice, how awkward and clumsy and messy and silly and lush and gorgeous and hot and…
“Bill,” she said. “Wake up!”
“Mm,” I mumbled and reached out for her, running my hands over her warm body.
She giggled. “I have to go to uni. I can’t skip another day.”
“Stay!” I demanded, pulling her against me.
“I can’t!” she said. “I’ll be back this afternoon, ok?”
And she kissed me, as she crawled out of the bed and pulled on her clothes.
Almost as if on cue, as I heard the front door close, my phone rang. Alice. Of course it was Alice. I let it ring. There were suddenly too many thoughts in my head to conduct a conversation. I didn’t cheat on Alice, did I? I wasn’t hers. She wasn’t mine. She didn’t want to tie me down, she just wanted to tie me up. But even my anger over the fact that she didn’t come to my show couldn’t stop the gnawing feeling of guilt growing in my stomach. My phone beeped to indicate that I had a voicemail. I picked the phone up and turned it over in my hands a few times before curiosity got the best of me.
“Bill,” said Alice’s smooth, posh voice. “Don’t be angry, baby. I lost track of time. Ring me back, alright? I have a surprise for you.”
And so she rang and I ignored her. Four calls in an hour. By the fifth one she was crying and I could lie and say that I wasn’t enjoying being in control, but I was… just for five minutes and then I called her back. When she picked up the phone, all she said before she hung up was, “Come over.”
All the way to her flat I thought of things I was going to say to her. I don’t love you. I don’t need you. I don’t want you anymore. You let me down. But she answered the door in her underwear; her eyes red from crying and flung her arms around my neck.
“Bill,” she said, burying her face in my chest. “I’m sorry! I should have been there. But you’re a bad, bad boy for ignoring me.”
Before I could speak, she said, “I’ve been taking you for granted.”
I sighed and pressed my fingertips into my temples. I wanted to run away but she was so beautiful, so vulnerable and when she tilted her head towards me, I kissed her. I kissed her and I let her lead me into her bedroom. I let her take my clothes off.
Afterwards she curled up against me in bed.
“I bought you a present,” she said. “To show you how sorry I am. It’s in the spare room. Go and have a look and tell me what you think.”
Leaning against the wardrobe was a guitar. Not just a guitar… a PRS Private Stock Custom 24. The ultimate guitar. The guitar I’d been having wet dreams about since I was ten.
“Do you like it?” she called. “I don’t know anything about guitars but the guy in the shop said it was a good one.”
I walked back into the room. “I can’t accept that guitar,” I said. “I know how much it costs. It’s too much.”
She laughed. “Not for you, it’s not. Not if you forgive me. I want you to have it. I want to watch you play it at your next gig. Now come back to bed. Let’s stay in bed all day. We can go out for dinner. You can even stay over if you want.”
“I’ll be back before dinner,” I said. “There’s something I need to do first.”
When Sasha got home, I was waiting for her on the couch. She bounced through the front door and sat down next to me, putting her arms around me.
“I missed you all day,” she said.
When I said nothing, she stiffened.
“What’s wrong?”
“Look, Sasha,” I said. “You’re an awesome girl, but last night… it was a mistake.”
“A mistake?” she asked, her voice suddenly very small.
“I love Alice.”
“You love, Alice,” she said. “You love her? She treats you like a doll.”
“That’s not true,” I said. “She’s crazy about me. She bought me a guitar.”
“She bought you a guitar,” Sasha repeated as if the words were in a foreign language. “She bought you a guitar, she bought you a suit, she even bought your hair. Now she’s bought your love. She can’t even be bothered to come and see you play.”
“She apologised for that,” I said. “You don’t understand. She’s a very busy woman.”
“You naïve, twat,” said Sasha, her voice breaking. “The irony here is that she doesn’t give a fuck about you and I love you. I always have.”
“Sasha, I…”
“I think I’ll go now,” she said and calmly she stood up from the couch and let herself out the front door without looking back.
I met Alice for dinner and although we talked and ate and laughed, what Sasha said would not stop spinning around in my head. She doesn’t give a fuck about you. She doesn’t give a fuck about you. She doesn’t give a fuck about you.
I should have been excited about finally staying over at Alice’s but now everything felt off. I had never really cared that Alice wasn’t 100% mine but suddenly, I wanted more. I wanted her to say it. I wanted to know how she felt.
“Alice,” I said when we got into bed. “Do you love me?”
“Love?” she asked. “Course, I do, sweetheart. You’re adorable.”
“I want you to leave your husband,” I said.
Ur So Gay
