Chapter 3 - Invidia - Envy

Invidia - Envy

It was so long ago, that we were lovers. Yes, we still frack, but that all-too-important four-letter word has seemed to vanish entirely from your vocabulary. I remember the night that L became F, O became U, and so on and so forth. The idiotic situation that sent letters and emotions into their disgusting, and irreversible metamorphosis.

The van had broken down. Yes, van. It was that night that I looked into your eyes and saw the smoke of a murdered flame, and I thought to myself that maybe our lives were not destined to be defined by three silly letters, M, C and R. Little did I know that I had been the extinguisher, not a van fueled by poverty and an ambitious band with no gigs, no money, and no hope.

We were sitting close together on a couch in the lobby of a Motel 6. My pockets were shallow, yours held so closely to your skin that had you possessed any money it would hardly have fit within your denim confinements. We watched people walk by, making up stories of their future when maybe we should have been concerned with our own. A mom and daughter passed, tears and squeaky wheels that spoke of broken suitcases and broken homes. Not long after came a high-class businessman, wedding band gleaming brighter even than the sequined garment of the bottle of peroxide with which he linked arms. You snickered even in your exhaustion--you were planning something.

An hour later you beckoned my sleeping limbs to move, and I followed you down a dirty cream-colored hallway. You threw me against the peeling paint and covered my mouth as a loud couple passed by, giggling and whispering about how sexy the hot tub would be. It was the wealthy man, and someone I could only pray to the god I hoped existed was his wife. I knew it wasn't, just like I knew you weren't mine for much longer. That's why the hope is gone. You're why the prayers don't come true.

The lock was too easy to pick, the bed too soft, the sheets so unclean, the air so plagued with the smell of sex. I watched you walk around the dark room, stark naked, searching through briefcases and lives that would never again touch yours. You made a sharp right into the closet, emerging only seconds later in a pair of shining, leather dress shoes. And for those fifteen minutes of make-believe fame your footsteps were his, and his footsteps were yours.

"I want this." You said, pointing towards the ground.

"You want what, babe?" I asked a question to which the answer was obvious, but my heart willed me to search for an answer that included me. That maybe, for once in your life, you were going to admit that you needed and wanted me.

But no, how wrong my breaking heart was to find that you wanted wealth. The ability to buy a sleazy motel room for one night, and to walk around in thousand-dollar slacks and ugly leather loafers. You wanted to pay the bell hop to carry one single bag, to wear a shiny gold ring on your hand. You wanted the silicone blond as a side dish to love. You wanted the casual fracks with the casual acquaintances.

And Frank, it makes me sad to think that even now, when you have it all, you still want more. You have me at your beck and call, yet I hear you moaning the name of a blue-eyed girl in the bunk below me. I had seen the wink when she asked for your autograph, had seen the spark in your stare. I wonder if she knows what I know. That in your head you are reviewing every face you saw within the crowded venue tonight, wondering if she truly was the best looking. Mikey's groupie was probably hotter, the bastard.

Every breath of sex I hear brings one more tear to eyes that should long ago have gone dry, because I wanted your violence tonight. I wanted you alone. Because I bought you a present, Frankie, your very own pair of shining, walnut brown dress shoes, and you can walk in them any time you like. We can pretend that they belong to somebody better than us, somebody who has even that which your excess can not encompass.

But no, I suppose it's good that you found her. Maybe you can walk in her shoes. You would like that, wouldn't you? Oh how you love to taint the paths of others--to run them off the road, to take the knotted reigns.

To think, babe, I lost your love to someone else's shoes and someone else's slut. I can never be your adultery frack. How much longer can I be your sin?

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