I should have locked the door, but did not think to. My neighbor came walking in after taking Utah to the airport right before our Sunday night staple, "Iron Chef America." I didn't look at him, I couldn't. He sat next to me and put his arm around me as if nothing were wrong. After he kissed my cheek I pushed him away.
"I need some time alone," I said to him void of emotion.
"Why?"
"Just go."
"Alright," he said sheepishly and stood up. He stood there for what felt like minutes before saying, "I have to go to the store after work for some things, would you like me to pick up anything special for dinner tomorrow."
I could feel myself welling up with anger. I took a deep breath and tried to remain calm.
"I don't need anything." I began to shake and had tears rolling down my cheeks before I could even think to try not to cry in front of him.
He knelt in front of me and rubbed my legs trying to get me to look at him, "What's wrong Kitty?"
Tears turned into soft sobbing and he was quick to jump in for a hug. I don't know why I was letting him console me. I sank my head into his shoulder and he held me tighter. Emotion kept pouring out of me as my sobs went to full on uncontrollable crying. I wound up curled into a ball on the couch with him wrapped around me like an exoskeleton.
I tried to take deep breaths and calm down as the tears continued to fall freely. He pulled apart from me slightly to try to see my face, but I was quick to look away.
"Please tell me what's wrong," he said gently as he pulled my hair through his fingers.
I finally looked at him and told him the truth, "I can't have you around me anymore, not like we've been. I just can't."
He looked surprised. Why would he look surprised?
My eyes were so swollen I was having a hard time keeping them open as he looked at me. He batted his eyes quickly as they began to get teary and looked away.
He rubbed my arm as he stared off. He looked back at me. "How is it going to work then," he inquired after a hard swallow.
"Work?"
"Spending time together, being friends."
I looked at him and said what was completely heartfelt and real at the time, "I am unable to be friends with you. Maybe some time in the future we can "hang" but for right now, that's not going to "work" for me."
Hoping for some kind of explanation of what he was thinking or feeling, I wiped his tear away and put my hand on his face. He said nothing. He got up, kissed me on the cheek and headed out the door. I started crying harder and harder as I buried myself into the couch trying to muffle my cries. I dragged myself to bed and tried to focus on how I could make all the weirdness of whatever the two of us had going on disappear. I fell asleep a couple hours later on my tear soaked pillow.
I did not feel my neighbor crawl in bed with me that night. I woke up about 4 am with his arm around my stomach while he was stretched out face down sleeping beside me.
"What the fuck!" I screamed in my head and removed his arm from me aggressively. He woke and turned to me startled.
"You're so in love with my bed you had to sneak in to sleep in it, get the fuck out!" I snapped not fully awake.
"Calm down," he said groggily, "I came in hoping to talk, but didn't want to wake you. We need to talk."
"I don't want to talk."
"Then please listen."
Everyone has someone they know of that was in one of those types of relationships. Abusive partner, but remained hopelessly in love. Never was treated as if they were good enough, but they kept trying to be. Knew they were wrong for staying, but could not walk away. Again, who doesn't know that person?
There was a woman in my neighbor's life named Anna, his "ex-fiancé". They met at 17 and were together for 10 years. He adored her. She was cruel....crazy and cruel. I won't even go into the stories he told, I will only bring up what is most important, what aspect of their relationship bled over and stopped he and I from developing one.
Anna did not "like" sex. She always made him use a condom and even wearing it, he could not cum inside her or even near her because she thought cum was "gross". She wouldn't let him go down on her or her reciprocate with him. In fact he claimed he had never cum from having oral sex as he only had a handful of experiences with two other girls prior to being with her.
When Anna left him, because he never would have left her, he found out she had been guzzling or being pumped full of every man's cum that crossed her path, including most of his friends, Utah being the one exception.
With Anna controlling every aspect of their relationship, even what level of enjoyment he could have of her sexually, my neighbor was devastated when he found out that Anna did like sex and cum, as well as having all these other wonderful nasty things done to her; she just did not want any of those things from him.
What person wouldn't be fucked up from that?
When I entered the picture a few months later after he was torn apart, openly adoring him, and throwing myself at him, it freaked him out. He went ten years with someone who gave him little affection and even less sexual attention; I was too much for him to feel he could take on. Although he was interested in me, he felt it was too much too fast. All his words, not mine.
Just as the alarm went off my neighbor was going into how he was not a sexual person, he never had been. Sex, to him, was of "little interest". This he tried to explain to be the core reason he did not try to have sex with me. I was "too sexual" for him. He thought I would be disappointed if he was not into it all the time because I always came off as wanting it.
I was tired and raw and although trying to be understanding about everything, I had to challenge him about "not being a sexual person" after hearing him describe his relationship with Anna. It was so clear to me what he said was bullshit even if he didn't know it.
"Look," I stated bluntly, "I do not buy it."
"Buy what?"
"That you are not into sex. You became uninterested in sex because she wanted you not to be interested in it. You've taken it on as being a part of you, that you are not a sexual person, when she conditioned you to be that way. If you want her to be able to have that kind of hold on you, for you not to want to have sexual desires for any other woman, it's on you."
Maybe I was too harsh, maybe he was too emotional. I saw his face begin to get red and he was becoming angry, very angry. I reached out to him and said the only thing that felt right to say even if it was not the right time, "I love you."
Yeah, I did not know that was what was coming out, but there it was.
"I'm sorry," I said apologetically as I held his hand. "I maybe just want to believe you are different, that's all. Tell me if I am wrong."
He ripped off the sheet and stormed into the bathroom slamming the door behind him. What I said obviously had not helped.
