So there I was in Sedona, a goddamn refugee from my own life, trying to be “spiritual.” I was on a quest, remember? A quest for… something. Peace. A quiet mind. A goddamn unicorn, maybe. I was meditating, I was detoxing, I was saying “no” to the world.
I went to this place, a tourist trap, the kind of joint with a guy strumming “spiritual” bullshit on a guitar. I’m sitting there, trying to get into the “moment,” trying to find my goddamn center, and in she sits. A beautiful, blonde atom bomb. The whole goddamn room, it just… tilted. Everyone was looking at her. I acknowledged her, like you’d acknowledge a beautiful, expensive car you know you can’t afford, and I went back to my music. I was on a quest, you sonofabitch, stay focused.
We made a little small talk. And then my food came. A piece of salmon and a goddamn broccoli tree. A huge, uncut, completely pathetic stalk of green, sitting on a plate like an insult. She looked at it, I looked at it, and we both started to laugh. A real, honest laugh.
And just like that, the spiritual quest was over.
I really looked at her for the first time. And I said it. “You have the most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen. It’s absolutely gorgeous.”
And her head did this little twist, this beautiful, slow-motion turn, and her eyes… Christ. They were the eyes of a white tiger. Clear, dangerous, and completely intoxicating. I noticed, for the first time, what she was wearing. A miniskirt so short it was just a polite suggestion of a secret. Fishnet stockings. And these black, leather, stiletto boots that went all the way up to her goddamn knees, with little silver tips on the heels.
She got up to walk past me. Deliberately. Slowly. And the wiggle on that woman… holy cow. I’m telling you, a gay man would have stopped and reconsidered his whole goddamn life. The entire bar was staring. But that walk? That beautiful, ugly, and completely arrogant swing of the hips? That was for me.
The music ended. I walked her to her car. A Jaguar, of course. The whole goddamn beautiful, expensive, and completely predictable package. “Can I have your number?” I asked, my voice probably shaking. And she gave it to me.
The courtship, it was “organtic,” as they say. A real, old-fashioned date. I took her hiking. I took her out for a nice meal. And our first kiss, it was like a couple of stupid high school kids, all teeth and smiles, her pulling back and laughing, me just trying to land the goddamn plane.
She told me what she liked about me. It wasn’t my sparkling wit or my deep, spiritual insights. No. It was the fact that when the bill came, I just threw down my card. I never looked at the numbers. I never did the cheap, ugly little math. I just paid. The alpha male. She liked my size, my big, six-foot-four frame. She liked the quiet, unspoken “fuck you” of it all, the way other people just seemed to move out of my goddamn way when I walked into a room. Thank God for small, shallow miracles.
We spent hours together. Days. I wasn’t working. She wasn’t working. So what do two beautiful, broken animals with no jobs do all day? We just… fucked. A beautiful, glorious, and completely unsustainable marathon of it. Her ex-husband, the poor bastard she’d left behind, he’d killed himself. And you know, after a few weeks with her, in the middle of that beautiful, ugly, and completely honest firestorm of a woman, I hate to say it, but I could understand why. She was the kind of woman who made life worth living, and probably the kind of woman who made it impossible to live without.
She was a work of art. High heels, always. Yoga pants that looked like they’d been spray-painted on. She didn’t have money, but she had that ass, and that smile, and she knew how to use them. We’d go to the grocery store, and men, young, old, married, dead, it didn’t matter, they would just stare. And she was loyal, to her credit. But she couldn’t tame the power of it.
And me? I was terrified. Terrified of losing this. This beautiful, crazy, and completely intoxicating thing I’d stumbled into. And when I get scared of losing something, I have this… tendency. I “molest” it. I get… perverted. Filthy. I wanted to mark her, to brand her, to do things to her that no quiet, respectable man ever would, so that she could never, ever go back to that world. A quiet, ugly, and completely desperate little strategy to make sure she couldn’t go anywhere.
But it wasn’t a quiet, gentle love. It was a goddamn war. My “therapy,” the drinking, it was in full swing. And her… her jealousy was a beautiful, sharp, and completely insane thing. She’d push my buttons, and I’d find myself in a screaming match, yelling, something I never did in twenty years of marriage. I’d match her level, and it was just… raw. Feral. We’d fight, scream, say the most beautiful, ugly, and completely unforgivable things to each other. And then we’d make up, a quiet, desperate, and completely animalistic reconciliation, and we’d be closer than ever. I’d never had that. It was a goddamn drug.
One day, she broke up with me. I called her bluff. “You need to think about this,” I told her. “Because if you walk out that door, it’s over. For good.” She walked.
So I did what any healthy, well-adjusted, and completely heartbroken bastard would do. I flew to Colorado for a hunting trip, and I “forgot” to come back. Instead, I flew to Santa Barbara. I’d already had a backup plan, a little hairdresser from a resort, a cute, tough girl who knew how to hustle. A beautiful, efficient little machine who’d take the train from Flagstaff, work five days cutting rockstars’ hair, and make enough money to live for three weeks. A great little body, fake tits, and a strong, independent streak. I enjoyed her.
And then I came back to Sedona. And the Ukrainian, she came back too. And she found the hairdresser’s texts on my phone. She called it “cheating.” I called it “moving on.” She called it “a betrayal.” I called it “a Tuesday.” She went nuclear. She found my friends’ numbers and called them, screaming, “Stay away from James! He’s a liar!” One of them, a friend of fifteen years, called me, “What the hell is wrong with this Russian woman?”
It was just… toxic. A beautiful, ugly, and completely glorious back-and-forth.
I finally escaped to Scottsdale. She moved to Prescott. We tried to make it work, but it was just… broken. I found a new woman, a “good” one, a quiet, stable, and completely passionless woman I actually thought about marrying.
And then… a knock on my door. The Russian accent. “I am here.”
And I couldn’t say no. I just goddamn couldn’t. She’d come in, manhandle me for an hour, a beautiful, violent, and completely honest storm, and then she’d just… leave. Leaving me a cheater, a liar, a man who’d just torpedoed his own “good” relationship for another hit of the beautiful, ugly, and completely irresistible poison. I’d get in a fight with the “good” one, break up with her, and then go running back to the Ukrainian.
She was conflicted, too. She wanted to be the primary. She wanted to be the side piece. She didn’t know what the hell she wanted, other than to just… fight. And fuck.
I introduced her to my kids. They loved her, of course. Kids always love the beautiful, chaotic, and completely unpredictable animals. I introduced her to my friends. They fucking hated her. They saw the storm. They saw the wreckage.
We fought all the time. About everything. About nothing. It was just trauma, rubbing up against trauma, creating beautiful, ugly sparks.
And then I decided to move to Hawaii. To cut the string for good. And I missed the hell out of that woman. I really did.
Every blue moon, the phone would ring. A “no caller ID.” “How are you?” that beautiful, smoky, Ukrainian voice would whisper. And I’d just… drool. Remembering.
Four years. Four years apart. We finally met up again. Her body was still good. But her face… her face was old. The war, the worry, the quiet, desperate hunt for the next man, the next paycheck… it had all taken its toll. That beautiful, terrifying fire in her eyes, it was just… embers. She was worried about her clock ticking, that her beauty, her only real currency, was fading. And she was right.
It was… over. The magic was gone. I’d aged. She’d aged. The beautiful, insane, and completely unsustainable war was finally, truly, and completely over. We hugged, a quiet, polite, and completely passionless pat on the back, and she left. I never heard from her again. I’ve deleted her number from every phone.
But even now, talking about it, writing this down… it’s not just a story. It’s a goddamn wound. A beautiful, ugly, and completely honest scar.
I dreamed of her. I was terrified of losing her. It was a goddamn Stage 2 love, a beautiful, ugly, and completely honest sickness. It was a mess. It was toxic. It was a goddamn natural disaster.
But the passion, the highs, the lows, the beautiful, raw, and completely animal connection… I’ve never had that with anyone, before or since. We were incredible together. From the first, fumbling kiss to the last, desperate, beautiful fuck. It was the most alive I’ve ever felt.
It wasn’t my first marriage. It wasn’t my first… anything.
But maybe, just maybe, in its own beautiful, ugly, and completely fucked-up way, it was my first real love.
