For an LJSanta deadbeat.
By idolatrie.
"You have...six...new messages."
My therapist once said your answering machine reveals a lot about you through its 'unbiased recording of the interpersonal relationships spiralling out from the self.' I didn't really take her seriously then since she usually spent most of our sessions trying to convince me my weight problems -- or lack thereof -- were linked to an unconscious desire to kill my mother and sleep with my father. She was crazy, but amusing.
Though recently, I can admit my answering machine stands in as a pretty good metaphor for my life. Fragmented sound bytes and a tiny frantic light glinting at me malevolently from my counter demanding attention through a confettied stream of other people's garble. Ok, so that was a little too philosophical for this time at night. I'm just out for the day, and already the hounds are baying at my door.
"Mer Mer, cute guy in the fiction section today. Think I should ask him to come help me with my thesis? Boy at the cafeteria offered me extra cream with my coffee. I wrote fifteen pages, though I threw out seven of them. Do you think women faking orgasm is teaching men that mediocrity is acceptable? Oooh, the man in the building opposite is showering, gotta run."
Bonnie. Her messages always make me feel vaguely nostalgic -- I get thrown back to the high-school days of hyperactivity and immaturity. Bonnie's actually turned into our resident academic. She's one of those perpetual university students who does degree after degree and never leaves the campus; she's now doing her doctorate on the psychology of sexual desire. I maintain that it's all actually a cover to lure young unsuspecting scholars into her lair. I'm convinced she has a pile of horn-rimmed glasses somewhere which she curls up on to sleep.
Bonnie's the only one who uses a nickname for me. I don't exactly encourage people to use them, but she's been calling me her babytalk gibberish since early college days. I think it made us feel a little less far-flung when we first separated after high-school. At least that's my excuse for calling her Bon Bon, though I'd never admit to it in company.
"Miss Meredith, you-a must be in the office by ten tomorrow. You have meeting with-a that El Douche desperado. Make sure your skirt is long, that slimy bastardo. No late!"
My secretary, Luisa. An absolute doll -- I love her even though she runs my life. I live in fear that my clients, like Mr D. O'Shay with his unfortunate leer, will hear the things she says about them -- but in the meantime I can't quite bring myself to feel guilty.
She has this slight preoccupation with finding me a boyfriend. Or as she puts it, "Miss Meredith, we must-a find you a man soon, or your bits will shrivel up and you-a will die. Frustrated." I once told her that I actually had a secret sex partner who I only saw when I wanted an orgasm and who never left me unsatisfied. She pursed her lips, glared at me over her glasses and said, "Miss Meredith, it is not healthy to talk about your vibrator in-a that way." And hell, not much I could say to that -- some things just shouldn't be explained.
"Suzy wants to know if Aunty Meredith is coming to her recital. The twins are teething and I don't think I've slept in a week. Um...and, ah, Grace found out about Penny. Be a darling and talk to her, please? The couch is fucking uncomfortable...remind me to get a sofa bed."
Matt is a complete bastard, but I love him anyway. It surprises me quite a bit how close we are these days. He was one of those people I knew in high school but didn't expect to stay in touch with at all afterwards. And for a few years, it worked out that way. Then I bumped into him at some Ambassador's swanky soiree. I was covering it for a feature article I was writing on diplomat's families when I saw a rather familiar face at the champagne stand. It turned out that Matt was working in the Foreign Office; we promised to do lunch some time, which soon turned into a weekly ritual.
Our professions, we found, were dreadfully compatible. He got me interviews and security clearances that I couldn't dream of with just a press badge, and in return, I warned him of sensitive news before it broke and kept ministerial leaks anonymous.
He dated constantly, and never seriously. So when he was posted to England for a year, and came back married to Miss Chinatown of London, no one was more surprised than I. Grace gave up her modelling career to follow Matt home, and she's been having his kids ever since. They have a girl and two boys, with another on the way.
Grace and I actually get along really well, and if I didn't know better, I'd say Suzy, their eldest, could have been my own kid. My guest room is virtually hers -- I like being a sort-of aunt, but having kids full-time? No-fucking-way.
Unfortunately for Grace, Matt didn't think marriage should put a crimp on his dating habits. I don't think he's gone fortnight without being unfaithful in some way. And every time Grace finds out, guess who he calls to convince her to stop making him sleep on the couch? Yup, lucky old me. Although, all I have to do is remind her of the size of their house, the quality of her wardrobe -- even if half of it is designer maternity wear -- and she gives in a little quicker than propriety dictates. Then again, she's a great believer in the power of make-up sex.
Matt told me his therapist said his adultery was a 'manifestation of repressed anger towards his mother and an unconscious desire for his father's penis to drop off.' Considering the shrink said the same thing when Matt got their cat neutered, I advised him to change doctors. Love in this age of therapy is a little too Freudian for my tastes.
Personally, I think it may have more to do with the one event Matt never talks about -- Elena dumping him to chase Stefan all those years ago. But hey, I never bring it up and he doesn't mention a certain teacher running off with a werewolf either. Anyhow, speaking of those two lovebirds, that's one couple I'll never hear on my answering machine.
Stefan took up nature photography and now he and Elena live in what I think is little more than a glorified tree house in the middle of some forest. They have no phone lines, electricity and running water is the local stream. It was...unexpected to say the least when they embarked upon their lifestyle of choice. I actually always thought Elena would be a journalist, not me, but instead she spends her days making calendars featuring Stefan's photography. They find it terribly amusing that they measure time and take pains to remind us all of that in their yearly communiqué of Christmas cards -- though I find it more ironic that they celebrate Christmas at all.
The next message was a man who sounded painfully sincere whilst trying to offer me life insurance, followed by a recorded message from my library enquiring about my overdues.
One message left. I can guess who it is. I can even guess what the message is. His first words are always, 'hey babe,' spoken in that smirkingly amused tone of his. I love his voice -- so smooth and damn sexy. It hits you in the stomach, grabs you by the throat...and then when he starts murmuring dirty Italian in bed, mmm...
You know, if anyone asked if I had a relationship with Damon Salvatore, I could quite honestly answer in the negative. We don't have a 'relationship,' we just have really really good sex.
He's my dial-an-orgasm; foreplay is the anticipation that builds in the time it takes to get the two of us at the same location. All those frequent flyer points I rack up for work get used up -- frequently.
It started back in the Fell's Church days. He was hot, I was naïve and we were both horny -- I hate that word, it makes me sound like I have disfigured feet -- and decided we could help alleviate each others situation.
And whoa, what alleviation it was. The man has half a millennia of experience under his belt -- and does he know his way around a woman's body! Compared to my other experiences of nervous fumbling and premature ejaculators, it' safe to say he blew my mind. Must have done something for him too since he gave me his card and told me to look him up if I wanted a repeat.
Damon spoilt me a bit that night -- every partner I've had since then I compared to him. None matched up in bed. I'd broken up with my boyfriend two months prior to this particular promotion I got and the celibacy was beginning to affect my stress levels.
I figured I owed myself a damn good orgasm and went looking for my vibrator, which I thought was hidden in my filing cabinet somewhere. In my rummaging, I knocked over my address book and cards went flying everywhere.
I'm sure you can guess how the story goes. Yes, I picked up Damon's card amidst the swearing at my clumsiness, and figured it wouldn't hurt to give him a call and see if he was up for picking up where we left off. I was well aware that years had passed, but a good orgasm is timeless, and I was overdue.
So I called him. Introduced myself, reminded him of one particular shared memory and organised to meet up at my apartment in two days. I know, I should have chosen somewhere public to see him, for safety reasons. But really, I was asking someone I barely knew to fly out and visit me for the purpose of having sex. Safety considerations didn't really figure in the same way.
And if I was honest with myself, there was a part of me that was excited by the inherent danger of it, my inner Bonnie voice as I like to call it. It was quoting Freud at me, that "life loses interest when the highest stake in the game of living, life itself, may not be risked." So I guess the same urge that propelled me to climb down active volcanoes pushed me to contact Damon.
So, yeah, that's how we started. He arrived in the afternoon, I offered him a drink and five minutes after he walked in the door, we were in bed. One thing that I particularly enjoy about us is the lack of lies and promises and false protestations of love. When you get down to it, human base instincts are rather animalistic. Stripping away the 'human' element of psychological justification for wishing to satisfy those urges makes for a far...purer experience.
Everyone lies to two people -- their partner and the police. It is wonderful to have sex with someone you don't lie to. And one of the last things you want to do with someone you actually have gotten to know is to have sex, ergo Damon and I don't talk much.
The second time we met was by his request. He'd just gotten delivery of his new car, and flew me over to his place to...break it in. Let me tell you, there's nothing quite like doing it on the trunk of a Ferrari in the middle of the day on an isolated Italian villa.
Then there was the time I called him after a funeral. One of my colleagues had been shot whilst following a story about conflict diamonds in the Congo. It suddenly brought home to me exactly what kind of job I had. Everyone at the wake kept on asking me how I felt, if I was alright. Of course I wasn't fucking alright! But the last thing I wanted was more of those questions.
I called him, I don't know how I sounded but he was at my door within hours. Best of all, he didn't say a word the whole time. And you know what, he made me forget the world existed for a while. The next day, when I was alone again, I realised I was regularly having sex with a guy who could quite happily suck my blood till I resembled a deflated balloon, but as of yet I was still alive. There wasn't anything on this world that should scare me.
Sometimes I'm flying out to meet him, wherever he presently is. Other times, he comes to me -- my apartment, a hotel room on location. But always, we extend each other the courtesy of a phone call first. Even on the particular day we meet up each year when he wants rough sex, but clings to me almost painfully tightly afterwards. I remember Elena mentioning something about Stefan getting really withdrawn around that same date, so I figured it has something to do with their past. But I don't ask, and he doesn't tell. That's just the way it is.
Maybe we don't have the most conventional of...arrangements. But sometimes you don't want all the roses and pretty words. So I clicked the button to hear my last message.
"Hey babe, need you over here. Collect your ticket from the airport, I'll be waiting for you at nine."
And you know, that's the best damn thing I've heard all day.
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