Mitch & Bethany

"Have you told Indie anything about this?"
"Immediately at hearing her name, Beth watched the tension of defense creep into Mitch's forest green aura.
"What does she have to do with this?" he asked with a new warning in his still soft tone.
The noise shot from me; I laughed at him cruelly, knowing it would do him good but feeling a little bad anyway. "Come on, Mitch! It has everything to do with her!"
"Why (the hell/fuck) would you say that?" his foul/dirty mouth demanded, once again sounding familiar/recognizable to Beth.
"We both know I'd never give you a chance to fulfill this oh-so-risque sudden fantasy of yours--fucking the lesbian girl-next-door that's madly in-love with your sister who's conveniently off travelling?! Ha! Talk about too freakin' easy, my man."
"I said, 'make love,'" he stated redunantly, angry now but as stubborn as ever.

"Mitch." I looked at him as sincerely as I could, and tried putting a little smile of forgiveness in my eyes, because I knew that's all he really wanted. His glare lost a bit of the fight they'd begun to hold. "Look kid, I know you love me, just like you know I love you. How could we not when we've known each other blissfully for ages!?" I paused to/and let the casual confession drift away. "But there's no way we could ever manage being lovers, and we both know that by now, too. If you're suddenly thinking about me like this...it's only because something not-so-good is going on between you and Indie." That is/in other words, the woman the poor guy was in-love with. "Something that you don't want to think about. And I'm not the bangin' easy out you almost think you want (me to be). Don't be getting scared enough to do yourself a disservice, okay dude?"

Silly Mitch sighed heavy. "Quit lecturing me Beth, okay? And then maybe I'll talk to you--even though I know you're wrong."
"Ha! Fair enough," Beth exclaimed cheerfully. "Well, you know how I love to be enlightened, my goodly mate!"

"Yeah right," Mitch too-darkly replied, happily without any hint of forsaken apology. Then we sat in crazy tense silence--his--until he untied the big red love-balloon and exhaled aloud his coming-to-terms. "Do you remember how Indie and I first met?" he asked me, suddenly so unintense in comparison to only moments ago. [Thinking about Indie rather than something that excites him--at least, still seems interesting to him. :(]

"Not really...actually, I don't know if either of you have ever told me! And I'm pretty positive that I would have asked you guys by now, didn't I?" Perplexed, my/her face (was).

"You did. Almost everyone did, since that's what you do when you meet a brand new person hanging with your age-old friends. And we never told a one of you guys--I don't even know how we pulled it off! But it was definitely (a) deliberate (move)."

"Oh yeah?! Well that's pretty mysterious Mr. Honesty! What would possess you to do such a thing? Overpowering and hollow black shame? Red-hot passionate blushing sessions? Unforgivable sudden loss of memory!?"

"Quit being strange. It was sort of an unspoken reticence... the scene was just lame enough for both of us to be embarrassed, without wanting to be called (out) on it." He hesitated, then, "You know what I mean? From the very start, it was like we formed our relationship into something neither of us could be proud of--and we each made that damning choice all by ourselves." [Eh! but maybe only he did...and then took a course in projection.]

We let this sit--and then I couldn't contain myself any longer/more: "And you're not being just a tad bit melodramatic, dear? 'Damning' isn't too strong of a word here?!"
"Whatever. The point is that we ended it before we started."

But now it's been two flippin' years! I thought, flabbergasted. In that much time, something must have happened that bested this argument... Sheesh! Talk about a tired case of fatalism--as if neither of them could fix a fuck-up!? But I wanted him to tell me about this date from the unfortunate limits of a hellish limbo. That is, BEFORE my big-opined and unrelinquishing mouth buttoned-up his--especially without giving our expected flaky-crusted kiwi tart a chance to shine its light through to the tail end of this tunnel.

(Enjoy the cold, my most gracious love!)