Friends and violence.

He was in town for just a few days, playing shows and trying to make enough money to buy a plane ticket, continue his tour, and never come back. She had just started feeling like she had caught the flu when he called and asked what she was doing.
"I'm going to watch a Cassavetes movie and go to sleep, I'm sick."
He came over because he loves Cassavetes and didn't have anywhere else to go. They watched Opening Night without touching, then one back rub led to another then to laying in her bed wondering what to do next.
"Hey, buddy," he said as he played with her hair. She decided she needed to get some cough syrup and convinced him to go with her to the 24 Hour Walgreens.
"Just to knock me out and make my throat feel better," she explained. He laughed, knowing she had a predilection for recreational substance abuse.
Later that night, after drinking the entire 4oz bottle of nighttime Robitussin, she contemplated dying on the bathroom floor in a swirl of her own brain. She recovered and returned to her bed. Half-naked and half-asleep, he asked if she was okay.
"I was ill."
"Violently ill?"
"Quite."
They fell back asleep in each others arms.
The next night, he came back to her room at 4am after playing a show and walking in the rain. They woke up and continued rolling around in her bed like they had for for the last two days, never really kissing, only stroking each others hair, looking into each others' eyes, occasionally pinching and biting the soft spots on each others' bodies.
"Hey buddy," she hoarsely whispered. "Why are you being so sweet?"
"That's just how I am..."
She believed him because there was nothing else he could do for her, he was broke and short of favors. There was no reason for it except that she was letting him sleep in her bed and he had found his ex-girlfriend kissing his best friend a few hours earlier in the place that he was planning to stay. The ex-girlfriend, the best friend, the sweet boy, the naive girl - they all knew each other and vaguely loved each other in a tragic small town way. They were all young and beautiful, or maybe not so young and maybe just beautiful in the sense that they didn't care. Either way, no one made excuses anymore for the things that happened late at night or early in the morning when they awoke in each others arms.
Suddenly serious, in a way he himself found comical, he said, "Can I ask you a personal question, I've never asked anyone this before..."
She considered saying no to annoy him, but was curious.
"Sure," she purred in a sore throat voice.
"How do you feel about sexual violence?"
She got out of bed and took off her underwear, carefully putting them on the floor. Sliding back next to him, she said, "I'd rather show than tell." Pulling the back of her slip revealed the horizontal scars and bruises usually hidden under cloth or nighttime darkness.
"I think that might have been one of the reasons someone once broke up with me, but I'm not sure." She wanted him to understand so much with the least amount of words possible. "I confused his self-destruction with something we could both enjoy, but I was wrong"
He looked at her with soft brown eyes, relaxed as her fingers combed through his dark hair.
She asked him the same question, "so, how do you feel about sexual violence?"
Their bodies intertwined perfectly, softness next to softness, arms tucked into comfortable places.
"I don't want to hold back, I want to feel free."
She agreed.
"Better to feel everything at once than nothing at all."

subject verb object

-let's go to my room.
-okay.
-don't sound too excited.
-sorry, it's not that, just too drugged out for a decent response.

we get up and go to her room.

-get naked.

kissing, fumbling, stripping myself, stripping someone else, kissing, fumbling my thoughts.

-i'm sorry. i can't do a one night stand with you. i really like you. if we have a one night stand, i won't want to see you, and that's not what i want.
-that's a shame, i invited you over to fuck you and not see you afterwards, but if you want we can be friends.
-yeah, i guess i'd rather spend time together than just have sex.
-yeah, we can be friends. you have to understand, since my fiance left me, i've been going on four a week, never to be seen again.
-there's no way we could have sex and hang out sometimes?
-no. i brought you over to fuck me and then leave.
-i've actually given this same mantra before because i think if you're using someone on a purely physical basis you should let them know it. it's weird being on the receiving end of the objectification speech.
-i'm not objectifying you. you're the subject. we're friends now.
-you're subjecting me to friendship?
-we're not having sex.