So Much For My Day Of Rest

It’s 8 AM on a Sunday morning. I’ve been in bed for almost five hours. Anyone who knows anything about me knows that I’m either asleep or just getting ready for bed. I am in no way, shape or form up and at ‘em or ready to engage in polite conversation. More than likely I have drank too much and smoked too much the night before. And often at 8 AM on a Sunday, I am not in bed alone. Luckily this morning I am because it’s grand central station on the cell phone.

8:12 AM
Phone rings. I knock over a bottle of water trying to answer it. Shit! It falls right into my shoe. I look to see who it is and want to kill somebody. It’s King Andrew. I don’t answer. Why is he calling me at this time? Has he gone fuckin’ mad? He doesn’t leave a message, which pisses me off even more. I roll over and try to fall back asleep.

9:03 AM
Phone rings from a private number. Is this King Andrew wising up? Gloves calling from the road? Jas calling from Yemen? Hmmm….I really hate private numbers. I answer. It’s frickin’ Barbershop. I had thought he had finally given up but I was so, so wrong. He wants to chat. I actually grunt in disgust. “What’s wrong with you?” he is stupid enough to ask. It’s 9 o’clock in the morning! A Sunday morning. Day of rest. He says he’s sorry to wake me up but he needs to talk to me. I ask if it can’t wait for a couple of hours. He gets pretty pissy about it, which I think is uncalled for. I tell him I’m not talking to him right now and if he wants he can call me this afternoon. I hang up.

9:11 AM
I call Sca, the only other person I know who might be up at this hour to bitch about Barbershop being such a dumbass. As we’re chatting I get a beep from a private number. I do not take it. Sca tells me to try and get some sleep.

9:24 AM
No sooner do I close my eyes but the phone starts ringing. Private number calling…again! I answer and it’s Barbershop. “I thought I told you to call me this afternoon?” He says he knows I did but he didn’t think I’d answer later. “If I can even get you on the phone you always tell me to call you later and then you never answer when I call back. It’s almost like you’re avoiding me.” Hmmm, ya think? And it only took you a few months to figure out? Wow, slap on the student of the month bumper sticker. Do they get any brighter? He starts with how much he likes me and really wanted to get to know me and thought we had something special. There is no polite way to express what I’m thinking and subtlety obviously doesn’t work with him. “Honey, I fucked you once. We hung out a couple times. That’s it.” He counters. “Right, but your sex was bomb.” Uh, yeah, tell me something I don’t know. He says, “What happened to us?” Again, there is no US. He starts to get mad. “Well, then how come you told someone at the bar I was your boyfriend?” I actually bust out laughing at him. “Trust me, I didn’t tell anyone you were my boyfriend.” Like a second grader he gives me, “Well, my friend said he heard it from someone and told me.” I told him his friend lied. I don’t call him my boyfriend. I call him my stalker. This maybe tips the scales for him. “You kissed me in the bar one time!” First of all, I don’t remember EVER kissing you in the bar. “Well, you did!” I explain to him that I know I wouldn’t kiss him in the bar for a variety of reasons like the fact that I don’t like him and would never want anyone in the bar to think he was my boyfriend. Then I decide to seal the deal and assure he will not contact me again. “Plus, I wouldn’t want my real boyfriend to find out.” Silence. “You have a boyfriend?” This is a harmless white lie at this point to save me from getting a restraining order. “Yes and he hangs out there all the time and would kick your ass if he knew about you.” He tells me I lied to him about having a boyfriend. “I never lied, honey. You never asked. You assumed I didn’t.” He’s irate now. “You know what, the sex wasn’t all that anyway!” I laugh. “You know, I wish you luck…” He cuts me off. “I don’t need your luck.” He hangs up. Ding Dong, Barbershop is gone! Finally! And now I can sleep.

10 PM
Call it psychic powers, woman’s intuition, gut instinct or whatever, but something tells me that Gloves is not out on the road. I call his house and he answers. I ask him what’s up and he says he just got back. Weather was bad and couldn’t finish his run. I try tempting him to come over. He’s not biting. Something seems off. “Is she there?” He assures me that she’s not there but then drops a fucking bomb on me. “But it’s probably best if you don’t call the house.” I feel like I just got sucker-punched. “Why not? Does she answer your phone?” He pauses. “Sometimes. And sometimes she’s here when I’m not here.” Okay, back the train up. You said she was just your “friend” and that you did not have a girlfriend and we’ve hung out at your house before. What if she would’ve showed up then? He says that she’s not his girlfriend but that they’ve been on again/off again for years. You little ass liar! I’m livid and tell him that I don’t take being #2 very well. He tries to tell me that I’m not number two. Things are just complicated with her. I tell him I don’t need these types of complications. He thinks I’m being unfair. I think he’s being an asshole but he’s not done yet. He asks if we’re on the same page. Do I remember what the deal was when we first started this? I do. He says “because I’m afraid you’re falling in love with me and I don’t wanna hurt you.” Ha! Love? Please. I’m in like with you on a good day. Most of the times I’m just in lust. He’s treating me like I’m a tenderhearted three year old and I’m literally biting the inside of my cheek so as not to yell at him so bad I bring him to tears. He loves hanging out with me and says I’m “like the coolest chick I ever met but I just can’t get in a relationship with you right now.” Okay, I’m not asking for that. What I am asking for is that if you’re going to be boning her, you show me the same respect. I ask him if she knows about me. Of course, she doesn’t. I said she should know. He disagreed. She’d freak out if he told her. Well, if you can’t be honest with her you guys must have a really great thing going. He says she has no right to know. Just like I shouldn’t know about her. Well, guess what? I do know about her and we can’t change that. So now what? He wants to know if we can keep having fun and keep things cool between us. I tell him I’ll get back to him on that one. He wants to know why I’m so upset. I tell him he’s confusing and he broke the rules. “If you don’t want me to get emotionally attached to you, don’t fuck me like you love me.” He’s taken aback. “But I care about you. Would you rather I disrespected you and fucked you like some asshole you just met?” No, but at least that way I know what I’m dealing with and there are no surprises. I also tell him that fuck buddies don’t call every night to “check in” before they go to bed. They don’t call your parents house to wish you a Merry Christmas. They don’t cuddle with you on the couch and hold your hand in front of their buddies. They don’t look at you the way he looks at me.

11 PM
I tell him I have to get off the phone and go to bed. He says “I’ll check in with you from the road. Be good.” I tell him he hasn’t heard a single word I just said. I hang up. I’m really in a pickle on this one. But you know what? Dick is a dime a dozen and I can find other people to satisfy me just fine if he won’t play by my rules. He has two strikes. One more and he’s done.