Illusions Complete Series (16 page)

I was confused, more confused than I had ever been.
How can he love me and a man as well? And why does he want to keep his erotic life with Nick and have one with me?

Later on, after we’d arrived home, I realized that I needed some time with all of this. It was too much to digest all at once. I mean, I had an inkling that it was coming. Hell, I had a very large heads up that this was coming, with Alexis’ cruel comment about both of us being in the closet. But, hearing the words was something different altogether.

Bisexual.

The man I love is bisexual.

Chapter Sixteen

Ryan met me at our home, arriving a few minutes after me. He didn’t know what to say to me and I didn’t know what to say to him. A large part of me resented him, felt that he sucked me into his life without giving me pertinent details, such as his love affair with a man. I mean, if it was an isolated incident, or it was on-going affair, but happened years and years ago, that would be one thing. But it was on-going recently. And it was apparently important to him to keep it as an option. That was just a little too much to handle.

I had to get away to think about this.
See what happens? You move in with this guy, now this. You have nowhere to go.

“Um, how do I put this?” I began. Ryan was looking at me expectantly. I continued “I think I need some time to process this. If you don’t mind, I would like to stay with my mother for a few days.”

Ryan nodded, but looked very hurt. “I figured that you were not really ok with this.”

“Well, I don’t know that yet. I might be ok with this. I might not be. I need some time to decompress and maybe do some research on this topic.”

“Listen, Iris, I meant what I said. You’re the most important thing to me. If you’re not ok with this, then I promise never to do anything with Nick sexually.”

I shook my head. “No, really, I don’t want that. You’ll just end up resenting me. I mean, if you and Nick have been lovers for ten years, then this is obviously something that’s important to you, too. I don’t want to change you. I want you to be happy and have what you want.”

“What I want is you.”

“I understand that. I really do. But, I’m a newcomer here. We’ve only known each other a few months. You can get over me very quickly, and you’ll probably be able to find a woman who is completely ok with your lifestyle. I might be that woman. I don’t know yet. But, what I do know is that you’ll be ok, either way.”
Will I be ok too? That was another story.
But I wasn’t going to tell him that. I turned my face away from him, not wanting to see the stricken look on his face at my words.

I sighed. I realized that I had gotten myself into quite a dilemma. I relied upon Ryan to save me, because I had no place to go when I was evicted because of Madison. Now, if I move out, I really will have no place to go. Why would I do this? What’s wrong with me? I left myself with no options. I should’ve known better.

I went upstairs and packed a light bag and put Madison in her carrier. She yowled and cried, because she, like all cats, hates the carrier. “Shhh, Maddy, don’t cry,” I said, stupidly. Madison wasn’t going to understand my words. She’s a cat. Nonetheless, I tried to calm her down as best as I could.

I turned around and Ryan was standing in the doorway, looking very upset. “You can leave her here, you know.”

I shook my head. “She’s my responsibility, but thank you. I think that I’ve relied on you too much.”

“I want you to rely on me, don’t you understand?” He looked angry now. “I mean, I know why you’re leaving right now. I pray to god that you come back. I know why you need some time. Any woman would. What I don’t know is why you’re constantly keeping me at arm’s length.”

I sighed. “Listen, Ryan, you told me that you thought you were falling in love with me on the first date. The first date! This isn’t Romeo and Juliet. People don’t fall in love like that.” Suddenly, I was angry. “So, yes, I think that you’re full of shit. I really don’t know how I could think any differently. You still don’t really know me. And I certainly don’t know you. Today proved that.”

Then Ryan let loose with lightning quick rage. He took a crystal egg that was sitting on the dresser and threw it down below. It smashed into a million tiny pieces. “Goddamn it, why do you doubt me? I try to get you to understand how I feel about you, and you just shit on me! Fine, leave, never come back for all I fucking care. Leave!  Just leave! I don’t want you here!”

I was scared now, but, for some odd reason, not as scared as I should’ve been.
Been here, done this. He’s turning out like all the rest after all.
I simply raised an eyebrow, picked up the yowling cat and my bag and walked out the door.

As I was getting into my ancient car, I looked up and there was something else that came crashing through the window up above. It was a vase. Maybe I was in shock, but I found it all somewhat humorous that he was destroying his own stuff, simply because I really didn’t have anything in the house to destroy. I mean, I had clothes there…Woops, here come the clothes through the window now. I sighed, picking them up off the pavement and throwing them in the back of the car. I waited, figuring that he would throw all my clothes out, which he did. I spent the better part of an hour picking up the clothes off the pavement and packing them up in the car.

Then, with the cat yowling at fever pitch, and all my worldly possessions in the back of the car, I drove off.

Chapter Seventeen

Ryan

I don’t know how it happened, but the woman that I love is gone
.
Of course she is. Who wouldn’t be? Who would really understand a man who is in love with his best friend? But she can never understand that I feel for her more strongly than I have ever felt about anybody.

Not really sure why.

It just feels right.

And now she’s gone.

I made my way to my bathroom. My head was in the toilet as I was vomiting out my guts. Something feels like it is torn out of me. Now there was literally nothing left, as I sit beside the bowl, my two dogs lying beside me.

Then I called Nick.

“Hey,” I said to him. “Iris, is…”

“Iris is what?” he asked.

“She’s…” I can’t bring myself to say the words. There is a part of me that is in denial that any of this is true. Alexis never made her way over here and made a cruel comment. Iris is still here, in the dark, but here with me. She’s still in love with me. Of course, in reality, I don’t really know if she is in love with me, or ever was. She never tells me how she feels about me. She’s inscrutable, elusive, and I never quite know where I stand. Well, at least that was true.

I know where I stand now, unfortunately, with her.

Nowhere.

“Out with it.” Nick has no patience for this.

“Nothing.” If I don’t say the words, then they aren’t true.

He sighed. “Do I have to ask Alexis about this?”

Hearing the word Alexis snapped me out of my pity party. “Don’t talk to that bitch again,” I said.

“Whoa. I thought you guys were getting along.”

“Were is the operative word here.”

“Okay. So you guys are on the outs again. I swear to God, over the past 20 years, you guys have hated each other for as many days as you’ve loved each other. It’s just about even.”

I didn’t say anything.

“So what’s the problem now?” he asked.

“That’s what I’m trying to find out. She came over the other night crazier than I’ve seen her in awhile. She had been doing lines of coke and was beyond pissed. She said that she ran into you.”

“Yeah, she did, at the liquor store.”

“What happened to set her off?”

Nick didn’t say anything.

“Well?” I asked.

“We slept together,” he said.

Oh for the love of God.

He went on. “She’s still in love with you, though. Of course. She thinks that you guys will get back together at any time.”

I didn’t say anything. I wasn’t that upset about them sleeping together. That kind of thing had been going on and off for years. There was a period of time when the three of us were all together, before it all became too much, and jealousy got the better of us. But I still look back on those three months in college, when Alexis, Nick and I all shared a house in the Hamptons one summer, as some of the best times of my life. Before it blew up one morning when Nick brought home Rielle. Three was company, but four would be a crowd, and Alexis wanted no part of it anymore. Which made me wonder if she was into Nick at that time more than she was into me. At any rate, after the summer was over, Alexis went back to Yale, Nick and I stayed at Harvard, and we didn’t get into the threeways anymore. I always suspected, though, that Nick and Alexis were hooking up behind my back. And Rielle’s, because she became a permanent part of Nick’s life from the moment he met her at a clam bake on the beach.

Now he and Alexis were back to hooking up again. But why would that set her off against me?

So, I asked “Ok, so you guys slept together. Why did that piss her off?”

“Because she asked me about you and Iris. She apparently was under the delusion that Iris is just one of your fly by nights. You know, like you used to have before you met her,” he said. “And I set her straight.”

“Don’t remind me of my pre-Iris love life.” Before I met Iris, I was a manwhore with one stunning Victoria’s Secret type after another. None of them made me happy. Not that there was anything wrong with them, but I was always looking for something more than a beautiful face and rocking body.

I wanted my best friend.

I found that with Iris.

I felt comfortable with her, safe with her, from the moment I met her. She just has that nature that puts me at ease, and I knew immediately that I wanted to tell her everything. But she was so unsure of herself, which only made me like her more.

It made me want to protect her.

She has no idea has pretty she is. I’ve always been a sucker for redheads, it’s the Irish in me, but it’s more than that. It’s the way that her eyes light up when she looks at the doves at the bird feeder in the backyard. She could watch those doves for hours, a hot cup of Earl Grey tea in her hand, sipping it mildly while she watches the birds, entranced. She bought a book about birds after we got that feeder so she could know the different birds that she would meet every day, and always got excited when she saw a different one.

It’s the way she won’t kill any bugs in the house. She gently puts the bugs on a piece of toilet paper, and sets them free outside.

It’s her hysterical laughter at the silliest things, and usually her laughter is in response to something I say.

It’s the silly songs she sings, off-key, to the dogs every day, making up her own lyrics to familiar tunes.

It’s the smattering of freckles that cross the bridge of her nose, spilling onto both of her perfectly round cheeks.

It’s the way that she looks at me, and how she can read me. I don’t even have to say anything to her. She just knows. Like she has telepathy.

Most of all, I love her because she wants nothing from me. She just wants me. That’s what I love the most about her. Everybody has always wanted something from me. Not her. She simply wants me.

Or wanted me. Past tense.

“You still there?” Nick asked.

“Yeah.” I still couldn’t bring myself to tell Nick that Iris was gone. The one woman in my life who got me¸ who really got me, was gone. And it was Nick’s fault. And Alexis’.

No. It was my fault.

“What did you tell Alexis about Iris?”I asked Nick.

“That you’re in love with her.”

“Well, that explains everything. But I can’t imagine why she would think differently – after all, Iris was living with me. Of course she’s my girl.”

“You wanna tell me what’s going on?” Nick asked.

“She knows,” I said. “Iris.”

“Oh.”

“And she, she, she’s….gone.” Saying the words made them real, and I felt like somebody had taken a sharp knife and flayed my flesh from my body, inch by inch.

“Oh. I’m sorry, buddy.”

I was silent. I couldn’t talk.

“Hey, let’s get a beer, huh?”

“Nah, I don’t feel like a beer.” I felt sick again.

I could hear him audibly breathing on the phone. “Well, you take care, buddy. Call me if you need me. Anytime.” He paused. “I love you, buddy.”

I said nothing for a long time.

“Me too,” I finally said.

Then we hung up.

Chapter Eighteen

Iris

I arrived at my mother’s house, Madison in tow. I really didn’t have any plans at that time for what I would do. I’d sold everything before moving in with Ryan – well, by “everything,” I mean an old-school (non -flat screen) television, a couch and love seat, a bed, a dresser, a nightstand and a coffee table. It didn’t fit in with Ryan’s elegant décor, so I put an ad out on Craig’s list and was fortunate enough to get some bites. Which is why I only had clothes over there.

I let the cat out of her carrier, and she scurried to hide underneath a bed. Poor Madison. I knew how cats hate to travel and how they hate carriers. They aren’t like dogs, who like carriers, because dogs lived in caves long ago. Cats don’t really have that evolutionary gene with regards to carriers, so they hate them. Madison was no exception.

My mother was sitting at the dining-room table, looking over some offers for prizes that she hoped to win from some fly-by-night outfit or another. She was forever trying to win a big jackpot from some shady organization. I felt badly for her, being so gullible. She reasoned that somebody has to win, but I was always explaining to her that, for the prizes that she was shooting for, nobody won them. They were frauds.

But she kept trying.

“What’re you doing here?” She was actually very happy to see me.

My boyfriend, the wonderful, perfect guy? Yeah, he’s bisexual.
“I wanted to come and visit for awhile.”

“Uh, oh. Did you and nutso have a fight?” “Nutso” was her term for all my boyfriends.