Lavender Liaisons

Act I: Ash

It all started with a bang. Seriously, it did. Okay, I mean I had a feeling I liked girls from a very young age. I would make my barbies kiss, I wondered why no princesses saved other princesses or even kissed for that matter, and had major girl crushes. Girl crushes that included Selena Quintanilla, Posh Spice, Drew Barrymore, Aaliyah, and Chili from TLC. This is all besides the point.

When I was twenty, after a short string of experimentation and one night stands, I fell in love with a girl named Ash. She was tall, fit, and had that whole California skater beach vibe thing going on with her tattoos and long wavy blonde hair. She also had this wonderfully deep surfer voice. We met at a bar in La Brea over a girl. It was a chance meeting. It was during that time where bars and clubs were just starting to scan and swipe IDs but, not all of them did so yet. Otherwise, we would have never met. My roommate, and also my best friend at the time, knew some circus performers from her burlesque days that made fantastic fake IDs. Later on I found out these cards could even pass the scanners once my club started to scan. The night we met there I didn't even want to come out. I had just finished a twenty-five page political analysis paper where I had to run my own linear regression on SPSS. I just wanted to go home, walk my dog, grab some mozzarella sticks from Denny's and then pass out to watching Grey's Anatomy. My roommate dragged me out with Alia. Grumpy me headed straight for the bar.

Unfortunately, the girl she was talking to spilled her drink all over my shoes while I was coming back from the bar trying to bring my friends their drinks. The girl was doing the whole fake laughing at everything the girl she is trying to get says and did the whole playfully touch her arm thing. When she did so she was already quite drunk and did it a little to hard where she wobbled and thus cheap tequila soaked my Miu Miu's. The girl and I went back and forth in Spanish and Ash just stood there trying to look all James Dean like with this lean; staring me up and down. Ash loved reactions, big theatrical events. Me, a hothead, and her a manipulative drama enthusiast, I had showed her in that moment that I was the perfect prey for her.

I had walked away after a few jabs and went back over to two of my friends at the time. We were sipping our drinks and swaying to some sort of trash when Ash was making her way over. My friend Alia had pointed it out to me. My friends were giggling and side stepped away as she finally approached.

She apologized for the other girl and asked if I wanted to dance. It was 2016 so those wide brimmed lesbian hats were still a thing. It was like the beginning and middle of the decade's fedora is how I see it now. She was wearing one of those, a button down with no undershirt and it was a little ways unbuttoned, some boot cut jeans with a chain, and brown suede boots. That was super hot back then. Probably, still would be today.

Obviously, I said yes to the dancing. I wasn't focusing on being sexy with her. I was just focusing on having fun. I wasn't taking any of it seriously. I thought, "Why would someone like her be interested in me?" I had super low self-esteem when I was younger, shocker. We danced for maybe an hour. She gave me her phone and I entered my number and that was all we did that night.

Our first date was at a coffee shop in downtown L.A. that is now closed down. The date was overall normal. We got to know each other and flirted. Nothing too crazy. There are three moments that I still remember from that date ever so clearly though. Where sometimes even now I will be going about my day and I will have one of those movie flashbacks to one of these three moments.

The first, was when I touched her forearm. I didn't even think about it. It just happened. Once I did, though, I felt the butterflies all over. The way she looked at me from that touch was so intensely beautiful. Her eyes were playful and daring as she smirked at me.

The second, was when she grabbed my waist as we were walking out of the shop and back to the car. I liked the firmness of her hand on my hip. The confidence she exuded was so intoxicating. I felt elated by her gentle touch so I leaned my head in as we walked.

The third, was when she so chickened out to kiss me when we got to my door. She admitted to it on our third date. We said our goodbyes and she looked at me, smiled and leaned in, and at the last second kissed me on my cheek before swiftly turning on her heel and with a solid one hand up wave goodbye. Okay, cool guy. I placed my key in the door. I stopped for what I am guessing was a millisecond and I called out her name. I felt like we were missing something. She was maybe about thirty feet away. Now, no joke my friends; I did something so cringe-worthy that now as I write it and even think about it I die a little inside. I ran up to her, went on my tip toes, and placed my hands on her shoulders, very smoothly I may add, and gave her a peck. She smiled and before I could pull away we proceeded to full on make out in my dingy hallway for a good ten minutes. I'm talking she had one hand in my hair pulling it at the roots, the other on my butt while I was totally feeling up her upper arm muscles. It was always some sort of dramatics with us.

We didn't end up hooking up until our seventh date after I had gotten back from a trip up north. Our first time came when we were drinking tequila on my red couch and ended up making out to r&b from the late nineties. It all happened so fast. I definitely remember liking it and laughing a lot. I also remember how she wouldn't let me go down on her or give her an orgasm in any way possible. She didn't give any explanation as to why at the time but later on she told me she liked to be in control in the bed. She got off at getting me off. Later in the sexual part of our relationship she let me give her orgasms and be intimate with her in that way.

We ended up bonding over the dark parts of our childhoods, the ocean, tattoos, sports, and rough sex. My father was an alcoholic with a heart of gold and several DUIs to his name with a raging undiagnosed bipolar mother. Even with their issues my parents worked full time and spent most of my time with my older sister and grandma. My parents aren't bad people they just tried their best. They made mistakes and we are actually on good terms now. Her parents were both heavy drug addicts and her grandparents raised her. She looked up to her brother and found some sort of hope in him with all the social workers, chaos, and pushers and pill poppers surrounding her. When her brother started using heroin too she lost it. It didn't get better for her until she started college which was the same for me. She was over ten years older than me though; which I was shocked to find out at first because she did not look it. She was also shocked about my age because I did not look it. We clicked though in ways I still haven't clicked with anyone else. I miss her. Maybe, I just miss the idea of her. I'm not too sure. It's really just that simple. So, sometimes I do wonder if we met at a later stage of our lives if we would have worked better.

The downfall to our relationship encompassed quite a few things. There was infidelity on her part with a girl she was with before me. This girl was absolutely gorgeous, had a long history with Ash, and was super successful. Obviously, I was insecure and totally intimidated by her. I didn't find out until later that Ashlyn cheated on this girl with me first.

There were lots of nights where I stayed up crying to myself because I did not dare tell anyone what was going on because I took my pride way too seriously when I was younger. Then there was the fact that we both put our work first. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Lots of couples do this and are still together and perfectly happy. With us though, this ruptured our capability to function because there was no give and take. I was supportive of her career but she was not too supportive of mine even though she said she was. Words mean nothing in a relationship if there are no actions to support it.

We ended up breaking up over a call; a call. I was at work and had an important presentation. I told her to please not contact me that day because of the presentation and to contact me later on that night after seven.When she called I presumed it was an emergency and stepped out of the meeting as I was just about to present. Little did I know she had it on speaker phone and was with some of her own friends and friends that we shared. I was pissed and humiliated that she initiated a conference break-up call. She said she needed them to help her do it. Like I said, it was always dramatics with us. She got back together with the girl she repeatedly cheated on me with. We still had flings from time to time. Haven't had one in awhile. They are now engaged. Let us see how long that lasts.

The following poems give more insight to our relationship, how it worked, and eventually panned out. It was one of the most toxic relationships I had ever been in. Please, sit back and relax and enjoy my bad choices.