He don't know
I'm gonna be the one who's gonna let him go
And even if he wants to stay, I'll let him go
Cos all he wants from me is a private show.

I don't know why I thought it would be different. Maybe it was because he made me out to be special, because he made me out to be The One. In truth, I think I just wanted it too badly to consider the prospect of him hurting me.

Adam has only ever made me happy. Sure, he's made other people miserable, but for some reason I thought I would be the difference in his life. He's never hurt me; why would he start now?

He's staring at me, but it's going right through me. Past my own eyes - gateway to the soul - past my bone, muscle, heart, and right to the lifeless white wall behind me. He's always stared right through me, actually, but its different now. His eyes used to pierce me, make me shiver and anticipate. They would fill me with a hundred different pulsations and hopes. They used to wake me in places I never knew were asleep. Now there's no life behind those eyes; he stares through me and leaves me empty.

We sit in an airport terminal. He's slouched in an armchair, legs spread wide with boredom and apathy. I hate his body language now. When we were together, he used to be thrilled to simply take a breath of air. He would smile at me, sit beside me, turn his knees to me so that our bodies faced. He used to be affectionate. I don't think the word is even in his vocabulary anymore, because all of the sudden he can't stand to be close to me.

As I sit across from him, staring at the wall clock behind his head, I take back that last thought and decide that that's the root of the problem. He can stand to be close to me. At night, that's all he wants is to be close to me. As we end a long day behind closed doors, he wants to touch me, kiss me, grip on me, love me. He's insatiable.

For a while, I clung to his need for our sex; it was all I had left of what we used to be. I let him love me whenever, wherever, because it was all I could get. I needed him. I still need him. I hate it.

But I need him to hold me.

We went from best friends to best lovers to this. He doesn't want to be in love with me anymore, but he still wants me to be at his beck and call. And here, I cater to his every whim because I am still in love with him and I would do anything - anything - to feel an ounce of the love that he used to have for me.

I thought we would last forever. I thought with knowing each other so well, with being so ridiculously smitten and attached to each other, that we would never stop loving each other. He used to tell me every day how he never wanted to wake up with anyone else. He used to whisper to me that someday we'd run away together and get hitched, and live in a little house with a little white fence and a little dog running around the backyard. And I used to believe him.

I regret believing him, of course. I feel stupid. He probably whispered those very same things into the ears of his many infatuations that came before me, right before he broke their hearts. I watched him for years, I watched him fuck with dozens of boys and dozens of girls and I shook my head, trying to figure out how such a beautiful person could be so cruel. I watched him spill words like a fountain from his bittersweet lips, drawing his target in with a quick yank to his fishing pole. They loved him like I loved him, they gave him everything they had, and then they had tears on their cheeks because suddenly the most beautiful man they'd ever known just wanted their sex.

But I thought that wouldn't happen to me. I was closer. I knew him, and he loved me. He's loved me all his life, and he would never hurt me like he did them. I was immune.

No one is immune, I've learned.

"You wanna stay in tonight?"

Quiet words drift to my ears and like molasses I turn my head to face him. I blink; why is everything like slow motion with him? It's like I slow the entire world down so that I might be able to catch a certain tone of voice, or a single misplaced word that might indicate that he still cares about me. I never find it, though, and everything returns to normal again.

"I guess," I tell him. My eyes linger on his and I wait for him to see me. I wait for his gaze to light up like someone just turned the light bulb on in his head, finally remembering that, oh yes! This is Jason! The man that I love!

He lays his head back and closes his eyes. We slip back into silence. When did waiting for a rental car become such agony?

He's never going to love me again. I'm not even in his life anymore. I'm not even a name in his book. Just another notch in the belt. Love is gone, friendship is gone, and all that's left is me getting fucked.

I've been fucked. I've been fucked up, fucked down, fucked sideways, and fucked in the ass. I've been fucked a hundred different times, a hundred different ways, in a hundred different places, but mostly I've been fucked over. I've let him manipulate me. I'm weak, and I'm not happy about it. I'm sick of letting him screw me -in both the mental and physical senses.

My life was not created for me to live as simply an orifice. I am so much more than his piece of ass, so much more than his great midnight lay, his great morning lay, his great hazy afternoon lay. He used to love me - it's proof that I can be loved. And I want to be loved. I deserve to be loved.

Now, if only I could convince myself that he doesn't.

Our life together darts through my vision and I see how happy we were, how happy everyone was and how amazing everything looked when we took in the world together. I remember a vitality that I've never known before in my life, feeling so alive and vibrant and ready to take on anything because I had him at my side. I remember how the rhythm and the rotation of the world used to pound in his veins, turning his blood and kisses to a fountain of youth. We were eternity for a while.

So how is it that all of the sudden he just doesn't want to be a part of it anymore? Why did he give up what we had in favor of the bunny-fuck that he could get from anyone? I thought what we had was special, different, alive. I thought I was something more than anyone else he'd ever known. I thought I was more than a blowjob and a striptease.

How is it that this is all that's left?