If love were a drug, then the counter drug is complacency

A man, gorgeous and playful, appeared from nowhere, when the door opened she was astonished, a man whom she did not remember existing, hugged her, kissed her, took her by his arms, led her to his bedroom, there he fucked her but not before declaring how much he loved her, crazy about her, craved her, wanted her to be completely his. “Do you love me?” He asked as if he expected her to say “Of course I love you.” But she didn’t. She was, she was certainly in love with him, until her heart was crushed. Now she couldn’t think in that terms, the term of “loving” someone. She grew cautious and skeptical. She couldn’t believe anything out of his mouth. 

“I saw my best friend Jack. He was there.”

“What did you say?”

“About us? I told him that I’m seeing you, it’s been sometime. You are married. You fuck other men. I’m crazy about you. Even since when we first restarted.”

“Why did we end the first time? It was not long. You just drifted”

“Maybe it’s for this. Maybe we needed to finish what we started fifteen years ago. Now we are together.”

Man fantasized about being with her. Day in and day out. 

“What are you alluding to? Do you want me to leave my family for you? To live here? You don’t even have washer and dryer. That’s not convenient.”

“Doing laundry is inconvenient. You just send everything in. Or, have them be picked up.” Man countered.

“I’ll never marry again.” Woman added. 

“I love you. You are my drug.” Man declared love. He always told the woman he loved her. 

She was his main woman. And he cheated on her, many times over. 

Woman did not care. It was not important. Love came in different shapes and forms. Possessiveness and jealousy were unsightly. Any sense of that emotions was a weakness. 

“I dreamed about us running. In a field, running. Then showering. We stayed in a dorm style room with shared shower. We ran together.”

Woman liked running and doing activities. Man was more into cycling. Man wanted to know the other men she fucked. He called them her other boyfriends. She said, “I don’t have any boyfriend.”

She had one once. This man was her one and only. Until he broke her and now she just stayed on the surface, to the best of her abilities. She was weak once upon a time. She loved him with abandon. She would have left her family to be with him. She would have done anything for him. That was the true love.

“I love you. I love fucking you. I care about you.” Man was inches away from woman’s face. When they were together, they stayed in bed, clothes scattered everywhere, and they fell asleep in each other’s embrace. 

“My therapist says we are the modern twisted dark version of the Romeo and Juliet. We need to get our shit together.” She said.

Like a twister they were once again intertwined. Her head on his chest.  Earlier that evening, he was fucking her - his head and her head were on the opposite ends. They looked like a mahua, the Chinese Fried Donut twist. Sprinkle some powdered sugar they'd taste just as delicious.

She did not fuck other man the same way. She couldn’t. Man was right. She loved him, she still did. She couldn’t admit it to herself or to this man. She couldn’t because she couldn’t afford to. Thus, her expression of love was the different kind of act she put on when she fucked others. When she was alone and missed him, she wrote to others instead. She knew he would not have liked to get her emails. Half of the time, he never returned her emails.

Man wanted to explore to starting seeing her more. Woman did not believe a word out of his mouth. He did not always see her. He did not always want to see her. When he said the same thing the last time, instead of seeing her every other week, it became every other month. She couldn’t do that again, to have false expectations.

“I want you more. More then first time we dated, more then the first time we got together again, as time went on, I crave you more. I want more of you.” Man kept on telling her as if to convince her.

Woman listened but did not believe him.

She wanted to say - “Action speaks louder than words. I don’t want to hear what you have to say. Make it happen.” But she did not.

In the morning when the sun was bright, and ocean breeze came through the cracked window, and tourists speaking Mandarin screaming in delight upon finding that windy road down Lombard, woman woke up to this man’s embrace. It was always that way, the most gorgeous morning, with tourists taking photos from the up and down and dead center of the windiest street down Lombard. This was a quintessential San Francisco moment. This place, marble paved stairs, the steep hills, the ocean view, the quiet man, the whispers, the hand-holding-hand, in case this was just a dream and none of this was real. A woman was getting ready to leave. Her car parked on Leavenworth and Lombard. The usual spot, a left over parking spot only her car would fit in. Steep incline, where the streets were crowded at this time of the day, full of tourists.

It was always this way, meet, separation, meet, separation. 

If love were a drug, then perhaps the counter drug was complacency. You became nonreactive to the words that came out of your lover’s mouth. You chalked it up to words of passion. You couldn’t believe that he loved you. Because when all hopes were lost, love was nothing but a word. A sharp knife when murmured, cutting through the heart. Heart could be mended, but wounds should never be reopened.

Let love be the last fantasy, and may we all live in that fantasy, for as long as we could, and need, but always remember, it was just a fantasy,  the reality was always bleak and somber.