Back in my Scottsdale days, I had a system. A beautiful, efficient, and completely soulless piece of machinery for managing the quiet desperation of my own loneliness. I’d stack them five high. Any more than that, and the names started to blur. Five women, all at different stages of the same sad, predictable game. A one-night stand here, a three-date-and-a-fuck there. You learn the rhythm of it. You let them think they’re in control, let them play their little game of hard-to-get, all the while knowing that if you just keep feeding quarters into the machine, the prize will eventually drop.
And here’s the beautiful, ugly, and completely honest hypocrisy of it all: the ones who gave it up on the first night, the ones who were just as honest and as hungry as I was, I’d lose all respect for them. A quiet, pathetic, and completely bullshit little piece of programming in my own head. I wanted the quickie, and then I wanted to despise the woman for giving it to me. A perfect, self-sustaining engine of my own misery.
And then there was Cindy.
She wasn’t the usual type. Her profile picture was a small, blurry, and completely unpromising little thumbnail. When I met her, at some clean, well-lit, and completely passionless bar in Scottsdale, she was even less promising. A little short, a little weathered, a mother of two. A beautiful, sad, and completely honest reject from the high-end meat market.
But I took her home anyway.
And what I found, in the quiet, dark, and completely honest laboratory of my own bedroom, was a rare and beautiful thing: submission. She wasn’t a fighter. She wasn’t a performer. She was just… there. A quiet, gentle, and completely accommodating presence. I could say things to her, ugly, beautiful, and completely honest things that would have sent most women running for the goddamn door, and she’d just… take it.
The whole thing became a quiet, simple, and completely honest transaction. It wasn’t a relationship; it was a goddamn service call. “Come over to the house. Come here at 4.” And she would.
I remember one night, I was getting ready to fly out to see my dad. I’d just finished up with another woman, and I was feeling that particular brand of empty, arrogant, and completely beautiful power that a man feels after a meaningless fuck. I texted Cindy. It wasn’t a request; it was a command.
”Show up in the morning, before this time. The door will be open. Wake me up. Take care of me. And then leave.”
And she did.
She came in, in the quiet, gray dawn, a silent, beautiful, and completely obedient little animal. She did what she was told. And after an hour and a half of quiet, beautiful, and completely free-form depravity, she just got up, got dressed, and left, without a word. A perfect, beautiful, and completely honest transaction.
Then I moved. I got a new place, a shitty, unfurnished apartment off Hayden Road, and I started up the whole goddamn circus again with a new crop of beautiful, broken toys. And Cindy… she just kind of faded away. A quiet, useful, and completely forgotten ghost.
And then the universe, that old, drunk, and completely sadistic bastard of a comedian, decided to tell a joke.
I was in Sedona, at the tail end of my sabbatical, and I was broke. The ex-wife, that beautiful, relentless, and completely efficient vampire, had finally gotten her claws into my bank account, and she had drained the whole goddamn thing to pay for my year of quiet, spiritual bullshit. I was stranded. A king with no kingdom, no cash, and no goddamn plan.
And then I got a text. A picture of palm trees, with a simple, beautiful, and completely insane caption: “You belong here.”
I didn’t recognize the number. “Who is this?” I texted back.
And then a picture of her came through. Cindy. The quiet, submissive, and completely forgotten woman from two years ago.
”Look,” she texted, “I don’t remember what you look like. I’m just telling you, I meditated, and this is what it told me to do. So I’m doing it.”
And I just had to laugh. A real, ugly, gut-shot laugh. The universe hadn’t just sent me a sign; it had sent me a goddamn rescue chopper, piloted by a woman who didn’t even remember my fucking face.
She bought my plane ticket. I flew to Hawaii. I found a job, just like that. She let me sleep on her couch. Her professor boyfriend had just left, of course. A quiet, convenient, and completely beautiful little detail.
For a while, it was platonic. We’d walk on the beach, we’d make out under the sunset. But it was on her terms now. The power had shifted. The loving, when it finally happened, was awkward. Her body had changed. The quiet, submissive animal I remembered was gone, and in her place was just… a woman. And I was having a hard time getting into it.
I think the most passionate, beautiful, and completely honest moment we had was on her couch one night, a quiet, desperate, and completely silent fuck while her kids were asleep in the next room. And of course, one of them, the boy, he walked in on us. The next day, he cornered me in the kitchen. “My mom’s a whore,” he said, his voice a quiet, ugly, and completely honest whisper. “She sleeps with anybody. Be careful, man.”
A beautiful, perfect, and completely devastating piece of advice from a kid who’d seen too much.
She’d found a new religion in the meantime. Psychology. She was a deep thinker now, she said. She wasn’t spiritual; she was an “intellect.” And we were just two different kinds of broken. I was a chauvinist pig, a beautiful, honest, and completely unapologetic animal. And she… she was something else. Something quieter, sadder, and a hell of a lot more complicated. It ended, of course. It always does. She found a new psychologist to date, a real one this time, and the quiet, strange, and completely beautiful little sideshow was over.
But you have to wonder, don’t you? The strings. The quiet, invisible, and completely insane threads that connect one piece of your life to another. You never know. You treat a woman like a quiet, disposable, and completely beautiful piece of ass, and two years later, she’s the one buying you a plane ticket out of your own private hell.
It’s not karma. It’s not destiny. It’s just… a good, ugly, and completely honest joke.
And sometimes, if you’re lucky, you’re the one who gets the last laugh.
