Justin

Some things in life are easy to do without meaning to. It’s easy to get distracted and pour too much milk on your cereal. It’s easy to go into a store and spend more than you intended. It’s easy to say something and not realise it’ll be offensive. That kind of thing. Some shit though is just too big. Some actions are impossible to execute without active choices. How can you say you didn’t mean to climb Everest or to rob a bank?

So I can’t sit here and say that I didn’t mean to do what I did. It’s illogical. I must have. I’m just fucked if I can explain because… well… I didn’t mean to!

Millie

Jesus Christ… this evening has to be, hands down, the most peculiar thing I’ve ever done.

That’s saying something coming from a model. We get asked to pose with some really strange crap.

Justin

I wasn’t drunk. That would be a handy excuse, but I wasn’t. We had a bottle of wine and I did talk her into ignoring her dumb quota. But I was a little buzzed, that’s all, not enough to plead alcohol.

Millie

The more I think about it the more it seems like a really bizarre turn of events. It seems weird that the conversation ever got around to it to begin with.

Then again, I suppose if you boil them down to bare topics all conversations look random. They’re a stream of consciousness and connections get made that aren’t obvious out of context. Don’t think the phone call from the lawyers helped either. Was rather discombobulated after that (and it had already been a less than tranquil day).

Which is of course how it started. The whole thing with how hard I find it to relax. Oh God.

Justin

I’m lying here trying to go to sleep but I know my brain won’t stop trawling over tonight. If nothing else, at least I get to amuse myself knowing it started with Felicity. Not that she’s ever going to find out, but if she did it would really piss her off.

We’d been eating and chatting, more small talk stuff. Small talk’s always an interesting one. It’s inane but it can be so indicative. If you know what you’re looking for you can pick up a lot about somebody that way. Millie is infuriatingly opaque so I wasn’t getting much but that was okay. She’s still pretty funny in that kind of quiet and snarky way. She’s intelligent enough that you can talk about most things with her. She’s sweet without being boring - her humour is dry and sometimes downright naughty. We got some banter going back and forth and we just talked a lot of bullshit about a lot of random crap, you know the kind of thing.

Both of us took the time between elevator and meeting back up to shower and change, so were both casual. She insisted on no formalities so I just turned up in a t-shirt and jeans (couldn’t bring myself to sweatpants even though she insisted she wouldn’t mind, seemed too schlubby). She was wrapped up in a fuzzy blue sweater that threatened to drop off one shoulder (kind of sexy, actually) and some kind of loose white pants. For once she hadn’t pulled her hair back in that ballerina bun and I was glad. It’s harsh. She’s got such strong features she gets away with it, but I prefer her face when it’s softer - not that my opinion matters a damn.  Her hair was un-styled and still drying. So was mine, but on a guy that makes a lot less difference.

It was all pretty civilised. We sat at the table with the wine. I ate pasta and she ate seafood. She apparently likes to bring scented candles with her when she travels, so a couple of those were lit. It was an unusual smell – berries but cut with something sharper, like herbs or something.

It was pleasant y’know? Nothing special, but pleasant. I was glad she’d asked, because I was aggravated after dealing with the paparazzi. They had a great time telling me Felicity was spotted on somebody or other’s yacht. They wanted a reaction out of me. They got one, though it wasn’t about her. It was because I knew they were trying to piss me off. Which in turn gave them what they wanted because it pissed me off.

For that kind of mood this was the perfect remedy – some low key company to take my mind off things. Millie was saying the same, she finds it hard to relax in general and she was frustrated that her plans got wrecked today. From the sounds of it the woman’s even busier than I am.

Then she got the phone call. She didn’t tell me who it was or what it was about, but when she came back to the table her face was all pinched. It’s the first time I’ve seen her look unattractive. I couldn’t tell what the emotion was – whether she was angry or upset.

I guess the reason I told her about Felicity then was to kind of commiserate. Or maybe to offer her a change of topic since she clearly didn’t want to share.

It turns out Felicity ditched me to answer the summons of some guy named Sébastien Chevalier. From that obnoxiously pretentious name you could guess that he’s French and loaded. You’d be right. Millie recognised the name but didn’t elaborate on how well she knew him. I know she knows more than she’s saying though, due to the lack of surprise she exhibited. The whole thing was obviously a booty call. Either way, I was left here while she went to party it up on the Riviera.

My feelings about that are… complex. On the one hand, we’d reached saturation point in our little on/off cycle and I was ready for ‘off’ again. Felicity and I have never been exclusive; I’ve had my fun when we’re apart as much as she has. It’s not a big deal. On the other, this is the first time (at least I know of) she’s specifically ditched me for somebody else. My ego doesn’t like it. In particular my ego doesn’t like being informed by the paparazzi so they could rub my face in it and write some story about it. My thing with her has kept them fed for months.

Millie was interested. Not in a gossipy or bitchy way, but I think because she knows Felicity. (Speaking of – she hinted that they used to be pals, which stirred my curiosity again. I’d still like to know what happened there). This became a whole conversation about relationships and friends with benefits and stuff like that.

People don’t always realise how many hints they’re letting slip when they speak. Millie kept dropping them and I kept mentally filing them away (I have this little profile that I’m building). Namely, I think she’s got bad history. A lot of her comments seemed jaded and she was downright cynical at points. That’s probably not helped by her last relationship (what kind of idiot tries to tell a woman he’s not even living with that she can’t move in with her sister?), but in general she was distrustful of casual set ups. I think that’s also why the Felicity thing caught her attention. It’s not a scenario she understands.

So anyway... we’re having this talk, and I’m trying to explain me and Felicity in terms of this mutual satisfaction. I know that sounds dirty but I don’t only mean sexually. She then made this disparaging comment that she’s never known any men interested in any satisfaction but their own.

Of course I had to stand up for my gender. I said that wasn’t true. I said sometimes it was even good to not be mutual and focus completely on the other person, do something nice for them without expecting something back. The noise she made wasn’t just disparaging, it was this contemptuous laugh. It was like ‘who’re you trying to kid.’ She told me that even if it wasn’t immediate men always expect something back eventually, like I was the most naïve little thing she’d ever met.

Yeah. That was the flag to the bull. I took it as kind of a challenge.