The elevator doors opened to reveal the marvel that was "Mr Nice Guy"'s penthouse apartment loft. As soon as I walked in, the first thing that caught my attention was a large, balcony-like glass window revealing the skylights and the city lights perfectly from inside his living room. It was breathtaking, like something one would expect to see on a reality T.V show.
As I stood in the middle of his loft, I found myself feeling completely overwhelmed and mesmerized by the size of his apartment and the way it was neatly organized, and color coordinated.
"So...do you live here?"
He nodded.
"Alone?"
He nodded again.
"Be honest...are you like... the president or something?"
As soon as the words came out of my mouth I came to regret them because I was aware of how gold-diggerish I sounded. But the sound of a chuckle escaping Mr Nice Guy's Mouth quickly reassured me that he might not have shared the same thought.
The small smile playing on his lips disappeared from his face as he took two steps towards me causing me to inhale sharply. "I'll go get the guest room ready for you. In the meantime just make yourself comfortable, alright?", he said.
I nodded in response.
As he turned to walk away, I let out a breath I had no idea I had been holding. In all the confusion and the excitement, I had forgotten to ask why he was getting a guest room ready. We both knew I wasn't going to be sleeping in there tonight. Well, at least not alone.
Maybe it was the fact that I was in his home, and that he now quite obviously had the upper hand, whilst I was kind of at a disadvantage, but for some reason he was starting to intimidate me. What game was he playing at?
Nonetheless, I managed to calm myself down, then I proceeded to invite myself to explore the rest of his loft. Everything was ridiculously neat and put together, and the main color scheme seemed to be a cross between black and ridiculously white. Despite everything else calling out for me to explore it, I found my legs leading me towards the balcony with the breathtaking view of the city.
As I was walking there, however, I bumped into a small coffee table causing something to fall off of it, and crash on the floor. As I reached down to pick it up, I felt my heart skip a beat as I noticed what it was. It was a picture of Mr Nice Guy standing next to a really pretty dark-skinned girl with silver hair, wearing a white wedding dress. He was wearing a perfectly fitted black tuxedo and they were both smiling and holding each other tenderly. There was no doubt in my mind that this was a wedding photo.
"Are you okay in there?", Mr Nice Guy shouted from the other room, knocking me out of my trance. I was suddenly aware that I had been standing in one place for far too long, so I forced myself to set the picture down and start moving towards the balcony.
"I'm fine!", I shouted back trying really hard not to let the confusion in my voice show. "Just checking out this killer view!"
I wasn't lying. Standing by that balcony felt absolutely amazing. It was enchanting, and somehow made me feel powerful and in control, which was a feeling I hadn't felt in a while. And I think that's when it all started:
As I was standing there, I started getting these thoughts and flashbacks to when Troy had implied that I was boring and stiff and sad (okay the sad part was true, so really, I had no right to be upset about that) but for some reason, I just felt this growing need to prove him wrong about the other stuff. Here I was standing in the living room of a seemingly powerful man, whose bed I had been planning to sleep in tonight before I found out he had a wife.
In that moment, I knew I had all the power. I could either sleep with him anyway and prove Troy wrong whilst also distracting myself from all the sadness that was starting to creep up on me again, or I could take the guest room, be a good little girl and be a loyal friend to some girl I didn't even know. It took a while, but I finally came to a decision:
A number of things were going through my mind as I stripped off all my clothes and was left standing only in my birthday suit:
Firstly, as I mentioned before, I wanted...no, no--I needed to prove Troy wrong. I somehow had this idea in my mind that if I could prove him wrong about this one thing, then that would make HIM the problem, that would make HIM the toxic one in the relationship and that in turn would make ME the victim, with no grey areas whatsoever.
Of course, I knew this wasn't true, but I kind of just had this need to at least make it feel like it was true, you know?
Secondly, if Mr Nice Guy was going out of his way to look for an easy hook-up, that must have meant he wasn't getting any loving from his wife, right? It sounded to me like his wife was a full time job on her own, and according to me, hard working men deserved rewards from time to time.
Thirdly, I needed a warm body to sleep next to, as well as something to distract myself from the physical and emotional numbness that was creeping up on me again.
Looking at my second and my third points, I figured we could somehow make a win/win situation out of the whole ordeal.
Mr Nice Guy walked back out moments later, with a large white t-shirt and a smile plastered across his face. But as soon as he saw me posing butt naked on his balcony ledge, his jaw dropped and then he immediately turned to look away.
"Uhm...I'm sorry, I didn't realize you had started getting undressed.", he said, and then proceeded to walk up to me, eyes still covered, and handed me the shirt he was holding. "Here, you can sleep in this."
At first I thought: Okay, he's definitely gay.
But then I thought back to the picture I had seen of him and his wife, and when I added two and two and together, it didn't make sense for him to be gay.
Shortly after I figured out that he wasn't gay, I was filled with a rush of shame and embarrassment.
When I had gone over the plan in my head, it had seemed perfect, flawless even. But the one thing I hadn't anticipated was rejection. I'm not going to lie, the rejection hurt. I felt a sharp pang in my chest, followed by intensified feelings of embarrassment and humiliation at the fact that this guy had just seen me naked, and didn't even flinch. It's one thing to be rejected whilst you're fully dressed, but to be rejected whilst you're butt naked? Phew! That was not my finest moment.
I quickly grabbed the oversized shirt he was extending to me, and then I hurriedly slipped it on. When I finished, I noted that he was still facing the other way.
He was really going out of his way not to see me naked.
"You can look now", I said with a hint of irritation. I think I might have at least tried to understand, if he had just told me directly that he wasn't attracted to me, but the crouching, and the looking away was downright cruel, and quite frankly a little over the top. I didn't exactly look like a Victoria's Secret Supermodel, but I was also pretty sure I wasn't that ugly.
He looked up and cleared his throat before flashing me with an awkward little smile. "Tell me when you're ready to go to bed, so I can show you to the guest room.", he said. As he spoke, I noticed that his voice had dropped an octave. Somehow I found that to be quite frustrating. I was pretty sure he was doing it on purpose. Before I could even think to reply, he turned to walk away again.
Gosh, I don't even understand why his actions were frustrating me so much. I had been rejected before. I was capable of handling rejection. I was determined not to-
"Am I unattractive?", I suddenly blurted out.
"What?" , he asked, turning back around, confusion written all over his face.
"Right now? You just walked in on me naked, and yet you didn't try to make a move. Am I unattractive?"
"Come on, now...you know you're not unattrac-"
"So how come you don't want me?"
He stared at me, eyes wide open for a minute, but then he quickly composed himself, cleared his throat and then extended his hand to loosen his tie. He took some time, seemingly to organize his thoughts before he finally addressed me. "You're not unattractive.", he said, lowering his voice. " On the contrary, you're one of the most beautiful women I have ever met. If I had met you on any other night, I probably would have made a move, but right now, you seem to be going through a lot. Any move I make tonight would not count as a move at all, but rather as me taking advantage of you."
I stood motionlessly in place trying to process everything he had just said. His response to me was the most mature response I had ever gotten from any man. But I still didn't understand his reasoning for picking me up if he
A) had a wife and
B) didn't want to hook up.
He stood there watching me for a while longer before he said. "He really did a number on you, huh?"
"What? Who?"
"Your ex.", he said, whilst walking across the room.
"Oh, Troy? Eww...no...it was never deep like that."
Of course I was lying to both him and myself, I just didn't know it at the moment. My relationship with Troy had started off as more of a game to me. I was tired of feeling so sad and empty and defeated all the damn time, so I had decided to challenge myself, try and spice things up a little bit. But Troy was so good, and somewhere along the line, he got inside my head, and started causing some real damage.
"Really? Then why where you crying earlier on?", he asked whilst walking towards a grand piano on the corner of the room. His tone had a hint of playfulness, so in a way, it helped to relieve the tension that was in the room.
"I don't know", I countered cheekily. "Why did you bring me here, when you know damn well that you have a wife?"