8. Sleeping With The Enemy pt. I

One Day

Oh my God, I can't believe it
Out of all the people in the world
What is the likelihood of jumping
Out of my life and into your arms?

Maybe, baby, I'm just losing my mind
'Cause this is trouble, but it feels right
Teetering on the edge of Heaven and Hell
Is a battle that I cannot fight

Adele - Oh My God

Watch out people, fuckboys are on the loose. 

Must be something in the water, 'cause it’s abnormal how many of them are out there. And how bloody good they got. We may think it’s easy to spot them, especially since each decade has its own type of a fuckboy. But as in the past decades they had some special traits and style, nowadays, they’re just this normal, typical, usual guy. Like the boy next door. They hide their true intentions behind a beautiful smile and cover them with pretty words. They kiss you like they mean it. Stare into your eyes, making you feel like you're in a romcom. They make you believe, for one night, that it's actually possible. Wrong, you've just been played.

Biologically speaking, we are programmed to find a match. To find this one person. It's in our genes, in our DNA, we can't change it. No matter what some of us say, we all want to find him or her. So when you go on a date, and it goes amazingly well, looks just like in a movie, where people meet randomly somewhere by an accident and click immediately, when after a great dinner or a party he ends up in your bed, stays for the night and the next morning doesn't leave immediately, but actually stays longer. When he doesn’t leave you alone even for a second, follows you wherever you go around your flat and tries to make it look like he's not an actual fuckboy, you have no other choice but to believe him. You think you got it, and then he ghosts you. Oh baby, baby, how was I supposed to know?

Looking for heaven, I found the devil. He doesn't wear Prada, but he is still well-dressed. He's handsome, confident, highly intelligent, successful and financially stable. Most of all, if you’re unfamiliar with his kind, he looks completely harmless. He came to me in two nicely tall forms wrapped in semi-expensive clothes. And his first handsome face was of Ivan, a Belarusian guy who fled his hometown Minsk to Warsaw, trying to avoid this horrible war happening in Ukraine that could so easily consume all the neighbouring countries as well. His profile on Tinder said he's new to town and is looking for a tourist guide. Maybe if I paid more attention to this small detail, I would have avoided the problems that came with him. 

When at first I was swiping through his pictures on Tinder, I got this weird feeling that I can’t properly explain, like familiarity. Like I already know him. When we matched, he texted me first (as usually it happens, my type of a guy is someone who will take what he wants, not wait for me to initiate the conversation), later we didn't chat often, but once we did, we couldn't stop, and then he asked me to install Telegram, an app like WhatsApp where you can add new contacts without their phone numbers. He didn't want to share his number, red flag #1. 

He told me he stays in a house belonging to his parents' friends, 35 km from Warsaw, with his brother, who apparently was basically indolent. I got really interested in him, even though he was younger. He was much taller than me, had great pictures, but also looked like a rich banana kid of rich parents, red flag #2. We planned our first date, and apparently he was excited about it, since he got stuck in the middle of nowhere surrounded by forests and lake with no one “normal” to talk to. Sagittarius, just as Mr M., so I knew he likes to have fun and party just as Mr M. did when I met him, red flag #3.  And just so it happened, my best friend's birthday party was coming, and she invited me there with a potential plus one, so I wanted to use this opportunity and told him about it.

The plan was clear - we go out for drinks and if we enjoy each other's company, we will go together to this party. Guess what - he went there with me. He got tipsy on three Negroni drinks, which apparently he adores, and me, as always, on vodka with orange juice. We had a nice conversation at the bar, vibrator between my legs packed nicely as a gift for the birthday girl, handsome bartender catching attention of Ivan, darkness of the bar, loud music. Simply great. Well, only that as we chatted he admitted he’s actually one year younger than his Tinder profile said, and when we were talking about it and our age difference (3 years, but to me, it could be 10 as well), I told him I never dated younger guys, that’s not my cup of tea. He said it's okay, anyway "I look younger, only my eyes reveal I saw some shit in my life, that I went through some stuff". No one ever before told me something so weird and fascinating at the same time.

We got to the party and I saw my friends and people I haven’t seen for years. They saw me with him, kept asking who is it. Some of them actually told me we behave like we are in a relationship, like we know each other for months or years even. But no, we just met maybe two hours earlier. At the party, he didn’t leave me alone for one second. Followed me everywhere, had fun with me and my friends. They liked him, told me later I looked radiant, that apparently it was obvious he likes me too. Then we decided to escape the party and go to a bar nearby, just to dance a little. There on the small dance floor, he told me he’s so hard he just can’t control it. 

His words gave me a flashback from the night I met Mr M., because he made it obvious too, back then. We started kissing then and couldn’t stop, even though it wasn’t a gay bar and let’s say Polish society isn’t that open, but it made it only more exciting. Then we got back to the party for a moment to finish our drinks and left it again, this time to my favourite gay club. He started crying there while we were dancing, and I thought: Jesus wept, here we go again. Another flashback from when I met Mr M. What can I say - that one night and the following day I felt something close to happiness, for the first time in years, probably. After the nightmare of my breakup and the last years of uncomfortable relationship with Mr M. Meeting Ivan went almost exactly the same as meeting Mr M., so certain thoughts entered my mind and didn't want to leave.

He told me then the reason he’s crying is that he’s never seen so many free people who are not afraid of being themselves. It was his first ever visit to a gay club, you see. Minsk, Belarus in general - I think it’s okay to assume this place isn’t very gay-friendly. So we enjoyed ourselves there, of course we were drunk, kissed on the dance floor, took some silly-cute selfies where he was hiding his face. Belarusian Prince Charming and his Polish Beggar for love. After the club we went to my place and to be honest, I can’t really remember how did we get there or when did we fall asleep, the only thing I can remember was his arm around me, as he was spooning me when we got to bed. So we didn’t do anything more that night, maybe we were too wasted, maybe I didn’t want to spoil it and turn into ONS (one-night stand). 

But when we woke up, nothing has changed between us. The alcohol didn't have any good effect on us anymore (except for the horrible hangover), but he was still all over me. Initiated another series of kissing and touching. I could feel Ivan's hard dick pressing on my body, but being kept hostage by his underwear. All this time his madly green eyes were staring at me full of passion, his lips were looking for mine, his hands were grabbing mine, and then he was just smiling while comparing them, seeing the size difference. He was actually smiling all this time, like he couldn’t believe this was happening. I couldn’t believe it, either. 

Finally, we had some fun, but not fully, I didn't want to go all the way, since it was our first date and for as long as I can remember I had this one rule, to do it only with special guys. He was so turned on, that when he got on top of me, told me he feels like he will just rape me. Another flashback from the beginning of my relationship with Mr M., as I heard those words quite often then. Basically, we clicked chemically, it felt good, as it should be, it wasn’t uncomfortable. Ivan was really loud, and unfortunately, my flatmate was in his room, so I had to put some Lana Del Rey playlist on my phone and place it next to my door, so he wouldn't hear us. 

He stayed at my place till 5pm that day. One long, amazing date. It felt like I got it, after just a few months of being single, I found a great replacement for Mr M., like I won in a lottery. Sadly, as it turned out, in the next few days they contacted me to say there’s been a mistake and I need to return all the money. How did it happen? He didn’t ghost me immediately, didn’t say he doesn’t want to have anything to do with me, no. At first actually it felt like it’s still going great. When he left my place, maybe half an hour later, I wanted to text him. Didn’t know what to say, though, so I stopped typing and went out of Telegram. 

In that moment I got a notification, a message from him saying: Did you want to say something? :). Shoot. I’m not sure, but I think you can’t even see there if someone’s typing unless you’re in the conversation with that person, so butterflies in my stomach went crazy that moment. Then they just died. In the following days, I asked if he wants to meet again, but he said he can't at the moment. I told him I like him and want to get to know him better, he said that's nice and I'm just so adorable. Basically his texts got very limited, at some point they were only responses to my messages. Finally, he went back to Minsk. Apparently there was something he needed to finish, some company stuff. Felt like someone hit me in my head with a hammer.

What just happened? Ugly thoughts came to the scene. Maybe he's in a relationship? He said he's bi, it wasn't a problem to me, but he also said he didn't come out of the closet and his father is really homophobic, red flag #4. No one knew about him. The wallpaper on his phone was a picture of some beautiful girl, red flag #5. He used to have a girlfriend, but it ended after 3 years because apparently she was cheating on him. Maybe that was the problem. Maybe he had problems with himself, maybe he didn't accept who he is, and that would be a red flag #6. I don't know, I couldn't know what happened. 

It felt like the Universe was playing with me, screaming to my ears: Ha, gotcha!, and I could do nothing about it, just move on once again and go back to the usual, uninteresting guys on Tinder. A week later Matthew (the African guy from the beginning) came to my place for a moment, he wanted to apologise to me for something, but in reality just wanted to have some fun, just didn't know how to initiate it once he got to my place, so after annoyingly boring small talk I asked him: Are you finally going to kiss me? So he did and got what he came for.

Another week later, I have been honoured to meet the second face of the Devil, Valentin. Once again, when I saw his pictures and the profile on Tinder, I had this weird feeling like I already know him. So this time I broke my rule and texted him first, risking a lot, because nothing good ever happened when I did it before. He replied, apparently he just got to Warsaw from Russia, so we've met the next day, on Saturday. I had a huge hangover after partying with friends and had to work that day, but still wanted to meet with him in the evening, out of curiosity. Can't say we texted much, definitely he wasn't a Chatty Cathy type of guy. And on every photo he looked like a different person, but attractive to me, basically he had something in him that got my attention. He got a bonus point when we were setting the details, and in the end he said: Great, that's a date. A small thing, but I've always had a weakness for firm and decisive guys. 

We met at one of the most popular bars in Warsaw - I was late, he was already there waiting for me. I saw him, when I turned around, standing there, loosely leaning against the pillar. Looking like the personification of danger. Unfortunately, the place was full, he told me later, that unsuccessfully he tried to book a table for us (another bonus point for taking the initiative), so we found ourselves standing in the middle of the room. He was taller, he was handsome, he had the devil in his eyes and I couldn't resist it. Two years older than me, but seemed so boyish I hardly noticed it. 

At some point, when I was talking some bullshit, he leaned on towards me and fixed the collar of my shirt, underneath my coat. Simple move. Nothing special. But bitch, I was speechless and immediately knew I was dealing with a hell of a player. It seemed like he knew exactly what he was doing. What could go wrong? The bar was full, so I offered we could go to another one, the gay bar nearby, quite an ugly place I'm not so fond of, but figured we could talk there freely, it could also give him an opportunity to do more than just fix the collar of my shirt. 

On the way to the bar, he told me something that made me like him even more. When we were talking about Russia and the situation of gays there, he said he used to train boxing, so he knew how to take care of himself. Silly, but made me feel safe around him at the time. Big, strong guy able to defend himself. What a catch. Later on, as we finally sat down at the gay bar, I could feel his hands touching me gently. I think I was in such awe of him, that I can't even remember what he was touching, but never mind. Surprisingly, after we had fun at the bar, I've decided to fuck up this date a little and invited him to my place. So we grabbed some McDonald's and went to the metro. 

There he pulled another one on me, while waiting for the train, he came dangerously close, leaned forward and whispered: Am I intimidating you? Once again, it knocked me out. I knew already there, what's going to happen at my place. I was in the presence of a great player, a master, someone you don't meet that often. But I preferred to ignore this fact and still thought I'm on a date that can lead to something more in the future. At my place we started watching some horror, but it lasted for as long as we were eating, because once we were done, I leaned on his arm to rest, and that's when he kissed me. Obviously, we were done with the movie as well. We kissed, we played, he picked me up and walked with me around my room. It was just great. Once again, I can't remember properly what happened, but maybe I didn't want to fuck it up fully and decided we should go to sleep.

So the history repeated itself, because just as Ivan was all over me in the morning, so was Valentin. And I was all over him. He was rough, but in a proper way, not like this psycho Michael from November. When The Russian was randomly grabbing me with such strength, I was getting spasms. I was loud, couldn't control myself. It all felt so natural. He looked me deep in my eyes with this smile that was saying he knows what he's doing. I let him, I was completely under his control. Soon he found my weak spots and didn't resist using them as he pleased. Also turned out he was really, really well-endowed. 

Maybe that's where he got all his confidence from? Anyway, I didn't want to go all the way with him too. Not because I got scared of his monster, because here I'm pretty sure he would know how to make nice. No, once again, I didn't want to spoil it and let him get everything right from the beginning. Again he was picking me up, whenever I left the bed, he followed me, pushed me to the wall or grabbed my hands and held them behind my back. Didn't leave me for one moment. I was amazingly helpless. 

Finally, he said he needs to go back to his hotel, it was around 10am, so I was quite disappointed. He said he needs to take his pills. Obviously I've asked what kind of pills, and that's when he came to me, put his arms around me, looked deep in my eyes and said with an uncomfortable smile: I'm HIV positive undetectable. 

To be continued