Page 9 of Smut

By the time I’m halfway through the bottle, I’m feeling more empowered and emboldened than ever. Not enough to answer a call coming through from my mother, the usual guilt trip over my life choices and a very detailed update on how poor forsaken Alan is doing, but enough to write an email to my new partner.

At the start of the school year, Marie made us all exchange phone numbers and emails with each other. I guess she wanted a community feel to the group, especially considering that we would all be sharing our writing. Naturally, I haven’t used the contact info for anything since I’ve really only made an effort with Rio, but the time has come to reach out and make peace.

Be the bigger person, I tell myself. Nip this in the bud.

Hey Blake,

It’s Amanda from Writing 200. Just wanted to touch base with you before the weekend regarding our writing assignment. I’m cognizant that we possess a lot of freedom with this byzantine project, but even so I think we need to discuss our intent and the subsequent strategy we need to follow. We only have so many weeks and I think the sooner that we establish a schedule, as well as all the normal logistics such as story, plot, and characters, the sooner we’ll have a chance at success, ensuring this partnership will be an easy one. Providing, of course, that we remain disciplined and meticulous throughout the endeavor.

I’m available anytime this weekend if you want to get together to discuss our implementation. I think if we distillate on the main points during our initial meeting, we can complete the assignment on our own without much interference from each other going forth.

Amanda.

I sit back and read it over. Okay, it’s a bit too wordy and I’m not sure if I’ve used the word “distillate” correctly, but I’ve just put it in there to throw him off, to let him know who he’s dealing with. I also hope that by taking charge like this and setting the initiative, I’m creating a very professional—and very valuable—paper trail. AKA, when this project goes to hell, at least I have the proof to give to Marie that shows I tried.

Something tells me from now on nothing is going to be as easy as it seems.

I press send.

I wait.

And wait.

Open up a bag of pistachios and eat a few of them.

Nothing yet from Blake.

But a new text from Rio comes in:

You’ll be fine, you know how to put him in his place. P.S. I’m in the process of getting my bra back right now. Turns out this dude hid it under his pillow for safe keeping. Not sure whether to fuck him again or just get the hell out. I’m hiding in the bathroom and I think the window is just big enough to squeeze through.

I can’t help but smile at the phone. I actually wouldn’t mind being in her situation for once. Juggling fuckboys and having endless sexual adventures (and misadventures) sure beats being Miss-Lonely-Hearts-Stick-in-the-Mud.

CHAPTER 2

Blake

I’ve learned a lot in my twenty-three years.

How to eat pussy like a champ.

How to lie through my teeth.

How to cook a brilliant spaghetti Bolognese.

And I’ve learned how to tell when people love me, like me, and when they genuinely hate me. You’d think this would be a pretty obvious and a basic skill to have, but you’d be surprised at how much of human fallacy comes from the inability to read each other. In other words, we’re always reading in people what we want to see. Some of us want everyone to love us, some of us think that everyone hates us (and thus this gives us a valid reason to hate them).

Me, I have no delusions about who I am and what I am to people. I know I can be pretty callous as of late when it comes to women, and I know I deserve their wrath (although the whole replacing my conditioner with Nair trick that the crazy twat from the pub did went a little too far, even for me).

I know I can be worthwhile to people too, though maybe not always the right people and in the right way. All you need to do to know how people really feel about you is to turn off your ears and read their body language. It goes beyond the expression on their face, even though the eyes will rarely lie, and it starts to become something almost metaphysical. It’s all vibe. It’s instinct.

In other words, if a girl says she loves you and she’s not looking you in the eye, it means she doesn’t. Or she has intimacy issues. Or she’s cheating on you. Either way, it means she’s not flying halfway across the world to live with you anymore, that long-distance relationships aren’t worth it, and you have a sad little problem on your hands.

So it’s pretty easy to tell that my classmate in Writing 200, and my current writing partner, Amanda Newland, hates my bloody guts.

And, for once, I have no fucking idea why.

Well, that’s not entirely true. I have some idea why. Because I don’t particularly like her either. It’s become something of a chicken or the egg situation. Her obvious dislike of me has led to my dislike of her, and my dislike of her has led to me, well, trying to get a rise out of her whenever I can.

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