Good Bye Monica

Pete and I were having a great time. Our road trip took us through Vegas. I went into a strip club, an experience I'd not yet had. I was amazed as a stripper shook her ass in my face while her head, seeminly not attached to her body, carried on a conversation with a man on the other side of the table. while they discussed school, and what degrees would yield the most employability a woman in lingerie wrapped her arms around me from behind.

"Hi baby. You want a private dance?"

"Uh, what do you mean."

She was purring in my ear as she answered. "I mean, I'll take you to a private room and dance just for you. You can't touch me, but I can touch you." and with this her hand slid over my chest and over my belly toward my crotch.

"I'm sorry, but I'm pretty broke."

Her hand stopped. "Okay hun. Maybe next time."

I drank my two drink minimum in seconds flat, somehow not getting so much as a buzz. I met back up with Pete who had skipped the club and we headed toward St. John's in Santa Fe where Jon was going to school. Jon and Pete had been best friends. I had a hard time liking Jon myself. He lived off of his grandmother and I resented that he could afford to go to Europe with my girlfriend, and then come home and jump into a really great school. He had been a bass player in a band that was now getting huge and it was too easy for him to walk away from that. I figured I resented him mostly over Monica so I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Pete, Jon and I were sitting on the sidewalk outside of a cafe in Santa Fe when my eyes seemed to be playing a joke on me. "Is that Monica and Jean?"

And holy crap it was. In the strangest of coincidences they had decided to visit Jon on the same day as us. So, the grand reunion took place. We all made our way to Jon's dorm room and Monica asked if she could speak to me alone. We walked to Jean's station wagon. When she actually climbed inside the station wagon and invited me to join her I knew it was to be a serious talk.

"I don't know how to tell you this." She started.

"I'm sure I can guess. Just go ahead and say it."

"I'm gay."

"No you're not." This wasn't quite the reaction she'd expected. "You're so in the moment all the time. You love Jean right now, so you're gay. But when you fall in love with the next person, male or female, that will be all consuming. I don't know why you fall out of love whenever I leave, but you loved me just as much as you now love Jean and as much as you loved Jon. You shouldn't deny it. Fuck. Don't worry, I don't want any more from you. This is it. I'll accept that we're just friends and I hope you and Jean find happiness." We hugged and I made my way back to the room. Jean and Monica slept in the car.

The next day Jon showed us all around campus. Jean handed me a book called understanding homosexuality and suggested I read it. I wanted to hit her in the head with it. She was getting bitchier by the minute and I'm cocky enough to believe that it's because Monica was connecting with me again, instantly. We were having a great time.

Jon and I were even getting along. We were just being competitive blatantly, and having fun of it, making a mockery of it. We went to a Mexican restaurant and we both kept upping how hot we'd order our food to beat the other. We were red and sweating by the time we were done with dinnner. Pete and I said goodbye and handed out hugs. We drove back into the desert.

"How you doin'?" Pete asked.

"Surprisingly well. Like a big weights been lifted off of me. You know, I'm stupid enough to believe I could win her back, at least once more, but I don't want that. If she can't stay in love with me without me constantly there to remind her that she's in love with me than I'll just as soon let her go."

And it was true. I felt fine. It didn't hurt. It would seem I was done hurting over this one. I would have liked more reassurance the we could continue to be friends. She'd given me some story about two hobo brothers she met who always seemed to find each other just when they needed each other. It was at least a creative blow off.

We told ghost stories as we drove through the seemingly endless night making our way to Nashville Tennessee and Eve.

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