ONE DAY, I WILL TURN THIS INTO SOMETHING. YOU KNOW. THAT DOESN'T SUCK.

She called it making love. He called it fucking.

She met him in a dingy bar and she new he was a player. She knew he was the type of man who sifted through girls like her, throwing one after another through his sieve until he found the little lump of a woman who would let him take her to his shabby apartment and fuck. He sat down next to her and bought her a beer. He watched her nurse it intently.

She didn’t remember what he said, but it had been beautiful and full of lies. She went home with him.

“Tell me you love me,” she breathed into his ear as he went down on her, hot and sweating and rough. His hands ran over her like footprints in mud. He said nothing.

She woke up naked and alone and hurting in his bed, sheets on the floor. He was in the shower. She found eggs in the refrigerator and made breakfast. He ate them and told her to leave. She did.

He was there in the bar again, weeks later, and he didn’t recognize her. He told her more beautiful lies, and she went home with him.

“I love you,” she whispered as he came.

It wasn’t until the morning when she was scrambling eggs that he recognized her.

He wrapped his arms around her and told her she was different from all the other girls.

“I love you,” he said, slipping his thumb into the hem of her jeans. And she let him pin her to the bed again, let him pull off her pants and let him plunge back into her. She left scratches down his back and he left bruises on her arms.

When they saw each other again in the bar, they exchanged phone numbers. She met some of his friends. He didn’t meet hers, but she told them he loved her.

There were other women. There had always been other women. She ignored them, ignored the lipstick that wasn’t hers, the hint of unknown perfume in his shirts. She cooked for him and cleaned and did his laundry. She told him about her day and asked him about his. He said little, but every night he told her that he loved her.

And they would fuck.

And she pretended she was happy.