"Society is sucking on your dick, and since I gotta pussy I'm a bitch, and since you are a dude, yeah, you can tell the truth, but as soon as I do, I'm a bitch."
Bae Miller's song, Bitch, blared in the silent room, dragging me out of my sweet slumber. Monica shifted in my bed, pulling the covers with her. I would have pulled her back to me if it weren't for the incessant ringing of my phone. My hands hovered over her sleeping form, contemplating whether to ignore the call, but my lack of better judgment had me swinging my feet off the bed and making my way to my charging phone.
The caller's ID had me whipping my head like a nudged bubble head. I went through a few seconds of blind panic before clarity and sanity chased away the unwarranted wisps of anxiety. It was Kevin. The timer ran out and the phone fell silent. I wanted nothing more than to get back to bed, but another round of Bae Miller's crooning went off again. He would not stop calling me until I picked up. I ran my fingers through my hair in frustration. Monica was still sound asleep, undisturbed by my less-than-subtle movements. Wanting it to stay that way, I went to the living room fully aware of how suspicious it looked.
"Hello?" I rasped into the phone.
"I need you", the distance between us doing nothing to dull the vibration of his voice. Despite the vigorous lovemaking Monica and I had participated in, my body felt lust kindle as whispers of arousal traveled through my spine, warming my core.
"Wow, even booty calls deserve hello's". I retorted in an attempt to gather my wits about me. He remained unfazed by my rebuttal. He knew me well enough to know when I was evading, and he knew fully well what it meant.
"How do you want me to make it up to you?"
His golden voice once again filtered through my phone caressing my ears, wetting my core as my lips widened. He wasn't even close to me and yes here I was panting like a cat in heat. He always had a hold on me, and he knew that. As long as we were talking I would end up complying with his wished even if they were detrimental to me. The best thing to do would be to never speak to him again. My body still throbbed in remembrance of the past. However, my mind and my heart bore scars that would be foolish to ignore.
"Look, Kevin, we can't go down this road again. No, I can't go down this road again with you. It's not worth the energy nor the emotional baggage that comes with it. It was nice seeing you again. I'm glad your dick still does amazing things, but it's not enough to get us back together. I hope this is the last time you call me." I rushed through the words and hung up before he said anything. I was the one who called him again after a long time, and I realized how cruel it seemed to be the one to cut him off, but never again.
Monica choose that moment to trudge into the living room bleary-eyed, with her face puffy from sleep, dragging the duvet she had wrapped herself in. She dropped onto the chair beside me and rested her head on my shoulders.
"Why are you not in bed?" she asked, stifling a yawn. Her voice thickened from sleep.
My first instinct was to tell a lie. Feed her something believable and brush this whole incident away. However, the resolve to put an end to the past was still burning strong within me. She was alive, and for that I was grateful. Am sure she had a great reason for disappearing on me, and if given a chance, she could convince me of its validity. I would be swayed by her words, true or otherwise. If I didn't stop it now I would be trapped in an endless vicious cycle of toxicity that I was less than eager to embrace.
I pulled her close to me, not wanting to hurt her but knowing I must. I had a sea of questions that I would have previously killed to get answers to and yet I hesitated to bring any of them up. I was more terrified that she would answer them honestly. The truth was a convenient concept that freed the confessor while burdening the recipient. The scars she left behind were unseen, and yet the pain they wrought had my heart's twisting agony.
"Monica, we can't do this again. I don't know what happened, but we can't get into..." I never got the chance to finish my words as gunshots exploded nearby. In a third-world country, overrun by corrupt police officers more ruthless than criminals and armed criminals themselves, gunshots were not a new experience. I had, however, never heard one this up close before. I dropped to the ground and crawled as fast as I could to the door to ensure it was locked, but Monica beat me there. She then proceeded to haul me off the floor and practically carried me to the room before locking the door behind us.
"Yes? They are here. Track my location and bring reinforcement." Monica barked into a phone I wasn't even aware she had been holding.
It seemed her reason for disappearing had been unbelievable. More shots rang followed by glass shattering and doors being kicked out of their hinges. My sweet, innocent Monica had a personality transplant as she took charge of the situation. Her stance gained more authority, and her voice rang with confidence. The gunshots were a clear indication of danger, and yet the severity of the situation failed to dawn on me. While Monica Rose to the occasion, whatever it was, I shrank back into my shell, doubtful about whether to run and hide or jump through the window and hope for the best. My mind grappled with the encroaching danger while my body was already looking for a way to save itself.
Every single ounce of confidence I had drained rapidly from my body as I was confronted by my fast-approaching end. Monica was inspecting the bars that barred any escape attempt, not to mention I lived on the fifth floor. She moved from the window and disappeared from the room. She reappeared with my kitchen knives, carefully inspecting the gleaming metal as she shut the door behind her. If death were not an imminent threat, I would have appreciated how sexy and badass she looked. However, in that moment, I couldn't help but marvel at the stupidity of bringing a knife to a gun fight, literally.
She disappeared again and came back with a mop that she dismantled and broke, nodding approvingly at the sharp jagged edges she had improvised. She then turned her attention to me.
"Baby, I need you to do something for me," she said, crouching down to where she had me dropped on the floor. Gone was my gentle princess, whose mere presence was calming and soothing. In her place was a wild-eyed, confident warrior who mainly aroused and scared me. She gathered me in her arms and lifted me off the floor as if I weighed nothing, and gently placed me inside the closet that was in the corner of the room. Had she always been that strong? Monica was by no means weak, but she had always been submissive to me. I, more often than not, found myself playing the dominant role in the relationship and, as such, always felt responsible when Monica was involved. The Monica in front of me was self-assured and did not have a single submissive hair on her head. 'Did I ever know her?' I found myself wondering as I crouched further into the closet and away from this stranger that reeked of danger.
"Don't move or come out of the closet. It doesn't matter what you hear; don't come out until I tell you to. Okay?" She paused, waiting for me to acknowledge her instructions. Precious seconds ticked by as I remained immobile, forcing her to lift my face using her index finger so that we were looking into each other's eyes.
"I'm sorry I came back," she said, her voice cracking from an emotion I couldn't quite place. "I did not mean for this to happen, but I'll protect you no matter what, okay?" Again, I remained immobile, seemingly having forgotten how to use any of my limbs. Everything was a blank.
This time, she did not get the chance to seek confirmation as my house was filled with deafening noise from shots being fired. I heard nothing after that aside from the ringing in my ears. It could have a minute or an hour or several hours, but I remained crouched in my closet eyes shut and ringing my ears that had rendered me deaf. A single thought floated through my shell-shocked brain. What if she never comes back? Would I be stuck here forever? I know, not my brightest moment, but in my confused state all I had grasped was to wait for her and wait for her I would.