Poly: A Day in the Life (Completed)

You're an Ass

I'm beginning to regret my decision to let Martin help us more and more by the minute.

Just being in his space is stifling. He's arrogant, and pig headed, and his personality is stupid.

"Tiana Stewart," he said with a smile when I just came in, knowing full well that I don't like him.

"Martin," I say as pleasantly as possible, through clenched teeth. "How nice it is to see you." I almost sound sarcastic.

He pulls back, all smiles, as if pretending that I don't have an annoyed tilt to my voice.

"So what brings you here today?"

"So we cyaa come see we frien'? A wah dis?" Gemma asks. Alex stayed with Peter to play Call of Duty so that we wouldn't look too suspicious.

"I need somewhere to keep Peter's party." I'm not about to bullshit him, pretend that I give a fuck about him. From the corner of my eye I can see Gemma giving me some dirty looks, but I really don't care.

"Well, yuh know seh unuh can always come here. Unuh a family."

Family my ass.

"Uh, sure. It's tomorrow—"

"I know—"

"—so I can go over di tings I want?"

I had everything meticulously planned out, before my plan fell through. Gemma and Alex simply agreed to everything that I requested, knowing that this kind of thing is my forte.

"Okay, hun," he says, gesturing for me to sit on his expensive looking suede couch. "What can I do for you?"

"It won't be a lot of us, but I want the food to be catered. I want to put up decorations today, since tomorrow is his actual birthday. I want it to be a surprise, because he likes things like that, but it would be hard to do something like that, because he's so observant."

I realise, by the end of my list, that my voice sounds stressed. It honestly feels as if the weight of the world is on my shoulders, although I know that it's not. My mind is just super melodramatic.

"Hun, you need to calm down," he tells me. "Everything will be taken care of."

I never imagined the day that Martin fucking Reeves would be the one to help calm me down, but never say never, right?

"What are the exact decorations that you want?"

"Red and black balloons. He loves red and black. And a pole."

"A pole?" he asks curiously.

"Yeah, a pole."

"She insisted that I dance for Petes," Gemma says, rolling her eyes. It might seem dumb to them, but I know that he likes shit like that, despite being one of the most reserved people that I know.

"Okay," Martin says, "well, where will we get the pole from?"

"I have one in the pick up truck, that I ordered. We just have to assemble and test it." It's something that we had to sneak in and out of the storage room, something at the three of us - Gemma, Alex and I - have been hiding for ages.

Martin looks at me in surprise, but I ignore it. Gemma knew, obviously, and she rolls her eyes at me yet again, a bad habit that she has. Instead of paying any attention to her childishness, I make them assist me in assembling the pole in the living room.

"Okay... so now we need fi tess it."

"How we a go do dat?" Gemma scrunches up her nose as she looks at it, and then looks at Martin. It's my turn to roll my eyes, because Gemma can be so oblivious to the blatantly obvious sometimes.

"Well, obviously, someone woulda need fi spin pon ih two time, and since me neva yet dance pon one pole--"

"Ohhhhhh," she says, finally understanding what I'm trying to say. I kiss my teeth, but I can't help but grin. She isn't always this slow, but when she is, it's mildly amusing.

"Ah. Mi a go try it."

Now that I look at her, I figure that I should have probably insisted that she wear short shorts, but I didn't think of it at the time. Ah well.

After twirling for approximately 25 seconds, she descends and stands in front of me.

"That's it?" I thought that it would be more... extravagant. She is, generally, an extra person, so I was expecting a bit more.

"Mi know seh yuh wid yuh pervert self woulda waa see more," she says jokingly, pushing a piece of chewing gum into her mouth after retrieving a pack from her pocket, "but yeah, it sturdy."

I sigh and push my fingers to my temples, rubbing. One of my favourite pass times is overthinking things, torturing myself with possibilities that more than likely won't happen. Like what if the pole falls apart tomorrow? Or what if Gemma's period starts, and she has uncontrollable cramps, or starts bleeding all over the place? Her period is really irregular. What if Peter doesn't want to go out tomorrow? What if one of us gets sick, or if we can't get the decorations up in time, or--

"Hey," Gemma calls, bringing me back to the here and now, "stop ovatink tings. Everything a go be fine."

I really want to believe that, but in life, anything is possible. I take a deep breath, and Martin comes over and puts a hand on my back. A comforting gesture. That is, until his hand travels too low. And squeezes.

I step away.

"Weh di bomboclaat yuh seh yuh a do?"

He raises his hands in the air beside him, as if to say he means no harm. Funny, because he is causing harm, harm to my blood pressure.

"I know that you have an open relationship--"

"We don't. We have a relationship among four people. Exclusively. In other words, you are not welcome."

I don't understand what's so hard about that for people to fucking get. It's Gemma, Peter, Alex and I, and we're exclusive. No one else is welcome. If it were to be considered, we'd discuss it among each other, but I'd definitely never allow Martin fucking Reece into my relationship. Ever. Even if he were fucking Gemma, and the other two -- and I know that they're not into that -- I'd never let him get that close to me. Just the thought of it makes my skin crawl.

"You're an ass," I tell him. I'm tempted to walk right out, drive home, and pop a bottle of pink moscato, but I decide to be a mature human being and stay. For my boyfriend's sake.

"I'm sorry," he tells me, but he doesn't look sorry. If anything, he looks pissed. I don't remember the last time that I've wanted to get violent with another human being the way I do right now.

"Listen," I say, tapping my foot on the ground impatiently, "why we doe juss put up di fuckin decorations dem and call it a day?"

He nods in agreement, and I can tell that he wants to say something more, but decides against it. I hope that he continues to keep his mouth shut, because it would be very hard to not fuck him up if he doesn't.