Alyssa had
always been a goal orientated girl that had her priorities straight. She had been born in the Dominican Republic but moved to America New York University
Shortly after college, she had decided that medical
school was not for her. She embarked in
a new direction feeling a load lifted off her shoulders as she was pursuing
things that may better fit her nature.
She accepted a position at a computer software company which required
meeting with clients to show them how to use her company’s system. She took to the business world like a fish to
water and climbed fast through the ranks with frequent promotions and praise
from her superiors. Still though, there
was something missing with her life. She
tried other activities such as Yoga to fill this void, but it wasn’t enough,
she needed more. That’s when she decided
that she would run a marathon for charity.
She enjoyed exercise but exercising for the sake of exercising wasn’t
enough motivation to get her to the gym.
Now, she was training and exercising for a purpose. Through running, she met many people, which
she thought as a positive given that networking is one of the greatest skills
to have in the real world. It is while
running that she met Thomas.
Thomas was a year older than Alyssa and also had
climbed through the ranks of Morgan Stanley quickly. At 26, he was already a Vice President and
had people working under him. One night,
he went out with people he met through running where he began talking to this
girl, who introduced herself as “Alyssa.”
He liked this girl immensely, because although she seemed interested,
she made him work for it. She was also
extremely smart and seemed to laugh with him.
When they took to dancing, Thomas knew he was being tested. Luckily, he was good at dancing and knew he’d
excel at this test as he did with many others.
By the end of the night, he had really taken a liking to the girl and
she seemed to like him. This is why when
his friends were leaving the bar, he opted to stay with Alyssa.
Alyssa had gone out to a bar with people she met from
running. She found that she had taken a
liking to this guy named Thomas. Like
many girls, this only made her play harder to get. She was old-fashioned and believed the men
should take the initiative. It was very
odd for her to be so impressed with a guy, but Thomas seemed to hold her
attention. He was funny, successful,
smart, older than her, shared her love of music and a good dancer. All aspects she considered musts in any man
before she became remotely interested.
While they were talking, Thomas complained of his eye hurting. Alyssa had seen this trick before. She believed that he wanted her to lean in to
look at his eye, giving him the opportunity to kiss her. She wasn’t going to fall for that one. If Thomas wanted to kiss her, he’d have to
come to her. Alyssa always looked for
signs. With Thomas, he lived in Bay
Ridge, one of her closest male friends also lived in Bay Ridge, an area of Brooklyn , New York near
the Verrazano Bridge
to Staten Island . To most people, this may
seem coincidental, but Alyssa didn’t believe in coincidences, everything
happened for a reason. Prior to her
friend moving there, she had never heard of Bay Ridge, now she had met a guy
she liked from there. She knew he meant
business when his friends left and he opted to stay with her. She had a couple more drinks with him and
they made out profusely, giving Alyssa one more positive to add to the list; he
was a good kisser. When they finally
left the bar much later than Alyssa had intended, they went their separate
ways. Despite how much he had impressed
her, Alyssa would never bring a guy home on the first night.
Over the next couple of weeks, Thomas BlackBerry
messaged (BBM) Alyssa frequently. Their
night together left him wanting to see her again. When he was in the city, where Alyssa lived,
he decided to send out a feeler to see what she was up to. She scolded him being near her apartment but
not hanging out with her. Thomas saw
this as a perfect opportunity to throw it right back at her and sent a message
saying simply, “I’m here.”
Alyssa got the hint, it was too soon to let him up in
her apartment. She was very cautious
about these things so agreed to meet him in the lobby. She had work the next
day, and it was already 11:00PM. She
figured she’d go out for a drink and then be back in about an hour. Their
second night together proved that the first night wasn’t a fluke. Even when Thomas tried his second trick of
complaining of his shoulder hurting, Alyssa took the bait and massaged his
shoulders. She arrived back at her
apartment at 3:00AM again alone, as Thomas would need to pass a few more tests
before he got to see her apartment.
A couple days later, Alyssa had lunch with her close
friend, Larry. She was very vocal about Thomas
and could see Larry analyze every statement she uttered. He had always been very critical of the men
she and his other female friends chose.
She always looked past this as just one more thing Larry and her
disagreed about. In fact, there were
very few things they did agree on. After
putting forth what she thought to be a good case for Thomas being a good guy,
she finally asked Larry’s opinion, even though it really didn’t matter much to
her. Larry simply told her that it all
sounded good but she was obviously biased and wanted to meet him for
himself. Alyssa didn’t want this just
yet. The relationship was too young and
didn’t want Larry’s vehement attacks.
She decided to see if she could assuage Larry’s doubts by telling him of
the future tests she had in store for Thomas.
Larry was very excited any time he was hanging out
with his friends. He had never been
someone to make the effort in friendships by calling them, which is why he lost
many friends. For a dork like him, he
really couldn’t afford this. This is why
he put himself on a schedule with two of his closest friends, Alyssa and Vonnie,
to contact them on the 15th of every month to hang out. He did this because Vonnie and Alyssa,
although great at calling each other to hang out, didn’t call Larry
either. When they were together, they
picked up right where they left off, their connection wouldn’t dissipate simply
because there had been a large gap in between the last time they say one
another. He was very happy that Alyssa
had found a guy that she was involved with.
Although Larry was against Alyssa’s opinions in their mutual friend’s significant
others, she seemed to do pretty well when she picked on her own independent of
anyone else. Still though, he wanted to
meet the guy for himself. After all, he
knew that women believed that they could see through men’s bullshit but time
after time he realized that women are just as clueless about men as men are
about women. This is why Larry took her
analysis of events with a grain of salt and focused on the facts trying to form
his own conclusions. Based on what he
heard, he liked the guy. Larry conveyed
this to Alyssa. She responded with how
her sister’s fiancée had BBM’d him and that he was going to go into the very
intimidating environment of meeting her sisters. Although Larry was at first relieved that she
did get a guy’s opinion on the matter, it was quickly quenched when he realized
that this is her sister’s fiancée. In
that situation, he would be afraid to speak out against his fiancee’s sister’s guy
she’s interested in because then you have to deal with the fiancée bitching you
out. Larry had very few romances in his
life, but he had enough personal experience and viewing other relationships to
know that men often times conceded to what their significant other’s wanted
just to avoid an argument. They
constantly had to pick their battles well and warning her fiancee’s sister
about a bad guy in the infancy of a relationship was not a fight that should be
taken up. He decided to stop assuming
shit, and ask Alyssa the question he had been asking himself, “Why don’t you
want me to meet him?”
As soon as he asked the question he stared at Alyssa’s
eyes. He was a poker player and a
psychology major and knew a little bit about eye movements to see if someone
was telling the truth or lying. He never
really tried this outside of a poker table but figured the rules were the
same. First he went for the obvious tell
tale sign that she was lying, when she passed that he went to the more subtle
ways to determine it. He did all this
while focusing on the words and how they corresponded to her eye
movements. Alyssa denied it and then
emphasized the fact that a meeting with her sister’s was very intimidating for
a guy and she would see if he backed out or accepted the challenge. She ended the speech with, “:And if he
doesn’t come, then fuck him.”
Larry snapped out of his analysis and had to address
this point. It was very rare that
someone said something more extreme than his own views. He tried to stay away from middle grounds as
he never believed in grey areas, to him there was black and white and the
commonly referred to “grey area” was just distractions from the truth. So now, it was odd that he was the one
alluding to contexts and situations. He
told Alyssa that it was possible that he legitimately couldn’t come out and not
to make this a be all end all test. He
also remarked that if he were Thomas, he wouldn’t be intimidated in the
slightest meeting her sisters. She seemed surprised by that statement but they
focused most on the post-question response and joking about Alyssa’s harshness
in her be all and end all test. What Alyssa
didn’t know, is that when she had gotten up from the table, Larry had taken her
phone and gotten Thomas’s number.
Thomas agreed to meet Alyssa and her sister’s at a
bar. Rather than feel pressure, he saw
this as him making head way. Alyssa was
playing hard to get but he was getting more and more from her. Meeting the family is a sure tell that the
girl is more interested in you than a mere booty call. He looked at her as more than that too so he
relished this next step. When he got
there, her sisters had all kinds of questions for him. Luckily, the topic of the questions was one
he knew well; himself. All three of her
sister’s danced with him and he obliged.
He had already passed this test so a retest was fine. One of her sister’s fiancée was also present,
and he didn’t look Irish as he portrayed himself to be on the phone. He figured
that he just made up an Irish last name to mess with him, given that Thomas was
Irish. Despite this harmless move, he
found the guy to be very nice and accommodating. The night ended and once again, Alyssa
insisted that he not go up to her apartment and go home to Bay Ridge, which was
a $40 cab ride. He felt his performance
went well and would be calling her in the near future for another rendezvous,
working toward his ultimate goal of going to bed with her. If he succeeded, he wouldn’t look at it as
another name on his list, or a statistic, but because he genuinely liked this
woman and wanted to take their relationship to the next level. He appreciated and respected her playing hard
to get, it only made him want her more. He
was willing to go through the trials. He
felt himself getting closer and closer to his goal. He went to sleep listening
to music as he had every night thinking only of Alyssa.
Thomas was surprised when the following day he had
received a text message from an unknown number.
It said, “Hey, it’s Alyssa, I’m using my friend’s phone so you have
it. He lives in Bay Ridge too and wanted
to meet you without any girl’s; a sort of guy’s night out.”
He thought this was very weird. He really had no desire to hang out with a
guy he didn’t know. Couldn’t she at
least make the introduction first and then he could see if he wanted to hang
out with this guy? He contemplated what
would happen if he said no. Would that
be a step back in his game? Surely, not,
I mean he could say no. He responded
back, not realizing that it wasn’t being sent to Alyssa’s phone, “Umm that’s
kind of weird, why don’t you come to Bay Ridge and hang out with us? I’ll pay for a car service back.”
Larry received the text back from Thomas. He had pretended to be Alyssa as he wrote the
text, realizing it as a ridiculous request.
The correct answer was to refuse.
If he accepted this, then he was truly whipped by Alyssa. Then again, Larry wouldn’t mind that too
much. It gave her all the control, he
had no loyalty to Thomas and it would be entertaining to see Alyssa control
him. He had had this experience with
other female friends and their boyfriends and it never ceased to entertain
him. It probably held a special place in
his heart because he himself was prone to being whipped so realizing he wasn’t
the only one made him happy. When he got the refusal back, he appreciated that Thomas
came back assertively but not too dominating. He didn’t say he wouldn’t meet a
male friend of hers, he just said he didn’t want to without Alyssa. This showed he wasn’t intimidated by a male
who is specifically looking out for her.
That was a good sign. For some
reason, Larry always looked at his female friends as younger sisters. They were all younger, but the largest gap
was five months, hardly any difference but to his objective mind, younger was
younger. He always justified this by
saying that he never had a younger sister, only a younger brother and he always
wanted one. Although it didn’t make
complete sense to him, it was the best explanation he could come up with. Thomas was intriguing him but for now, he had
to find a way to end this conversation without Thomas bringing it up to Alyssa. He laughed out loud at his predicament. He was never someone who made plans, he just
did and if he got in trouble tried to get out of it. He probably should have contemplated this
problem before sending the text but what was done was done. Even if he failed, Alyssa would yell at him
and he would apologize and probably be forgiven. Thomas would probably be very weirded out by
him and it would give him even more ammunition to assuming Larry was gay. Larry knew the stereotypes, when a guy has as
many female friends as Larry, and very few guy friends, they were most likely
gay. He didn’t care what his female
friend’s boyfriends thought about him.
If they believed him to be gay, then they weren’t threatened by him, and
wouldn’t mind him being around or hanging out with his friend alone. For some reason, guys always trusted their
girlfriend’s with Larry, even if he wasn’t even friend’s with the guy. At first, it annoyed him, but then he just
got used to it. He really didn’t see Thomas
to be any different. He decided to
respond knowing that his text wasn’t fool proof that Thomas wouldn’t mention it
to Alyssa. He said, “Hey man, you
responded to my phone, but yea, I agree that’s weird, I told Alyssa that, so
whenever we can get the city girl to Brooklyn ,
we’ll all chill.”
Thomas read the text kicking himself for not
realizing he sent it to Larry. It was
really Alyssa’s fault because she didn’t use her phone to send the text. He thought it weird that he called her a city
girl. Although Alyssa lived in the city,
she was from upstate New York
After a while, Alyssa and Thomas had been going
steady. She decided that she was in the
mood to cook and was finally ready to allow Thomas into her apartment. She invited Larry along mostly because he was
a very good eater, and she’d be cooking a lot.
The lesser reason was he wanted another guy in the apartment when Thomas
first came and finally decided to get Larry’s opinion of him. It wouldn’t carry as much weight as any one
else’s whose opinion she asked for, but figured it couldn’t hurt. She invited a few more friends and went out
shopping for food to prepare.
Thomas was ecstatic that he was getting to the next
step of seeing her apartment. If he
didn’t close the deal tonight, he at least was much closer. His feelings for her had not diminished in
the slightest. He was very impressed
with her and had all but forgotten about this male friend. She had told him he was coming, which
triggered the memory and thought nothing of it.
He had been completely honest, and planned on being himself. The only thing he didn’t wrap his head around
was if Larry truly was a plutonic friend.
Although women claimed they had many plutonic friends, men rarely
did. To men, what a woman called a
plutonic friend, they called a woman they hadn’t fucked yet. Either way, if Alyssa considered Larry to be
a plutonic friend, he wasn’t much of a threat regardless of Larry’s feelings
for her. He decided he’d be ready for anything;
either he treated this guy as an adversary if he showed any super-friendly
feelings with Alyssa or as he would treat her brother if she had one. He’d let Larry decide which way he’d go. When he got there, he saw absolutely no
threat in this guy despite his shaved head.
Larry was very opinioned and argumentative but not threatening. He did have some questions but Thomas had no
problem answering them. He had been
honest throughout his time with Alyssa, which made it kind of easy to be asked
the same questions. When it was the
truth, you never had to remember the story and keep your facts straight. He found out that day that Alyssa was a great
cook, but he was just as impressed with how much this Larry could eat. Just by looking at him, you wouldn’t think
that he had such a large appetite. The
thing that was odd about Larry was that he spent most of the time arguing and
making fun of Alyssa and her friend Vonnie. Larry actually seemed to be on his side of
most of their debates and it was men vs. women.
If this guy was supposed to intimidate him, he didn’t seem to be doing a
good job.
Larry
took to meeting Thomas the way he took to meeting any guy his female friends
were interested in. He would insert his
opinion in the conversation either agreeing with the party he felt was right or
disagreeing with everyone. The point,
however, was he’d constantly be focusing on the guy. It was easy to answer questions correctly
when straight up asked. You knew you
were playing a game and your defenses were up.
If, however, you took the guy’s side against the women, then the
defenses are lowered and if he’s putting on a front, it goes away. There was never any conversation Larry has
ever had that he didn’t look at as a game.
He was, however, a master at convincing the person he was playing with
that he wasn’t playing a game. So far, Thomas
had been passing, he saw no inconsistencies with what Alyssa portrayed and the
other male at dinner that day. The night
ended and Alyssa insisted that Larry and Thomas share a cab home. Larry hated cabs, as he saw them as a waste
of money so he opted to take the subway and invited Thomas along with him. It was late at night and the N train would be
running local. From Times
Square where they would be getting the train, there was a good
hour and a half where it would just be Larry and Thomas. Although they would both need to transfer to
the R train eventually, at that hour, they were the same. Normally the N train ran express and made it
to 59th Street Brooklyn in six stops; with the local, it
was too many to even bother counting. Thomas
said he’d take a cab and saw Larry as cheap.
It wasn’t worth $20 to Larry to take the cab, but he did want to talk to
Thomas one on one. He admitted that the
local would be a pain in the ass and agreed to take the cab. The conversation in the car was uneventful;
they had been with each other for a while so there really wasn’t much to talk
about. As always, Larry contemplated to
say the cliché big brother line of, “If you hurt her, I’ll kill you.”
Despite
how many times he thought to say this to a guy, he never brought himself to do
it. He always worried that his friend
would be pissed off at him just as how girls were always pissed at their older
brothers when they said it. He reasoned
that the girls did eventually forgive the older brothers, but was that just
because of the blood tie? He had never
seen it in a situation that he had with his female friends. Although he had many plutonic friends, he
knew that almost all men didn’t. This
made it impossible for him to see someone else take the risk. In the end, it always came to the same
conclusion, saying it was too big a gamble because he’d be betting his
friendship with Alyssa, which violated the only unbreakable rule of gambling;
never bet what you can’t afford to lose.
He was dropped off first and said good bye. He would give his blessing to Alyssa but once
again, kicked himself for not saying it.
Just once he wanted to try it, but he began to believe he never would.
Alyssa
was very happy that Larry gave his blessing and that she was able to have some
leftovers. She didn’t eat much but Thomas
had and Larry lived up to his reputation once again. As always, Larry was very outspoken about how
good her cooking was. She took the
compliment with a grain of salt thinking that that was what everyone said when
someone cooked for them. She ignored the
fact that Larry was brutally honest with everything else, so why would he make
an exception here? The reality was, she
was a woman and women don’t take compliments to heart, only insults. She also was paradoxically happy that Larry
approved of Thomas. The paradox was that
since he approved, she was much happier about Thomas but had he not approved,
she would have ignored his opinion and wrote it off as Larry pretending to be a
big brother and feeling he needed to disapprove of any guy that his female
friend’s chose. She backed it up by
pointing out Larry was against every single guy Vonnie had a relationship
with. She was running out of reasons not
to let Thomas sleep with her. She
decided to go to Bay Ridge and see him in his natural habitat. She wasn’t looking forward to the long subway
ride there and car service just seemed too expensive, even though Thomas
offered to pay. She decided that she’d
go to Larry’s and get changed there so that her nice clothes wouldn’t get dirty
on the subway. Really it was just an
intermediary step between her and Thomas; she could get composed and get a
guy’s opinion on what to wear. Plus, she
would have someone to walk her to the house because she didn’t want to walk alone. For some reason, she was nervous. She had been seeing Thomas for quite some
time now and didn’t know why there were butterflies. She hadn’t yet decided
whether she’d sleep with him at his place or hers. Larry’s apartment acted as a worst case scenario. It was easier to decide whether or not to
sleep with him when it wasn’t just between sleeping with him or taking a
lengthy and expensive car service back to her apartment. Now it was sleep with him or go on a 20
minute walk – three minute car service to Larry’s place. This was much less pressure. She went over to his place and loved how he
had speakers in every room of the house.
Thomas had bought wine and really made an effort for her to feel
comfortable. They hooked up as they
always had but Alyssa decided to tease him just a little while longer. He called Larry to pick her up, and he
borrowed his roommate’s car and picked her up much to Thomas’s dismay. She knew there would be another encounter at
her place, where she would let him.
Despite Thomas doing everything right to make her feel comfortable in
his place, it was impossible to make it as secure as with her sister and her
best friend in the same apartment at home.
He seemed to take it well.
Larry
was worried when Alyssa called him to pick her up. She had told him that it was a possibility
but he didn’t think it would actually happen.
He thought Alyssa would sleep with Thomas and after everything that she
put him through, Thomas deserved it. He
would always be on Alyssa’s side if she chose not to. He took a sick pleasure in men getting
teased, so long as it wasn’t him. He
picked her up and when she got in, she didn’t appear to have been in a
struggle. Her hair was a little unkempt
but that was normal after hooking up. He
immediately asked, before even moving the car, “Are you okay? What happened? What did he do?”
Alyssa
laughed, “Nothing, I just want the first time to be at my place.”
Larry
smiled, “You’re so evil.” He said as he drove toward his place.
Alyssa
slept over and called Thomas the next day for breakfast. She didn’t invite Larry, and Larry didn’t
mind. He knew that Alyssa would spend
the day with him, get him to go to the city with her and sleep with him that
night at her place. He actually was in favor of not making him wait too
long. What she did the night before
wasn’t nice, and sometimes if you teased a guy long enough, he just became
disinterested and wrote you off. He didn’t
say this to Alyssa, he had an unwritten rule that he would never convince one
of his female friends to have sex with someone.
If he thought they should, he’d wait until they straight up asked the
question. For as long as he lived, a
girl had never asked him that question and doubted this would be the first
time.
Thomas
agreed to meet Alyssa for breakfast. She
was nicer than normal this day. He
didn’t know this, but Alyssa felt a little bad about teasing him the night
before. Especially because she told him
he was going to a guy’s house. Had it
been anyone else, Thomas would have felt she was playing him but something
about Larry just made him non-threatening.
He couldn’t imagine Alyssa hooking up with Larry so was only against the
fact that she had left his place. He
agreed to accompany her to the city realizing that it was getting kind of
expensive with all these car services back to his place. After spending the day together, Alyssa
invited him up. He felt that this was
it; before, the starting location was her apartment, now he had been given the
common subtle invitation for sex of after a night together, you are invited up
to the girl’s apartment. He went up and Alyssa
made no mistakes about her intention.
She brought him to her room, wrapped her arms around his neck pulling
him down and kissed him on the lips. Thomas
smiled but his smile would only get wider as Alyssa shoved him on the bed and
mounted him. He was going to finally
close the deal.
The
next day, Alyssa got up before Thomas and cooked breakfast for him. She was slightly worried that it may be
awkward now. She was very relieved that Thomas
was good in bed, just one more positive to check off her list. Now he hoped he wouldn’t become uninterested
now that he closed the deal. Thomas woke
up shortly after and acted normally. It
was a very good night for him. He said
to her, “Look, I know this is kind of weird to be saying now, but I’m
traditional, I don’t like uncertainty, so will you go out with me?”
Alyssa
was taken a back by the question. Hadn’t
they already been doing that? She said,
“Ummm what have we been doing thus far?”
“Some
would call it seeing each other, I’d call it dating. I don’t want any grey areas here, you say
yes, we’re going out, you hook up with someone else, you’re cheating on me and
if I hook up with another girl, then I’m cheating and this relationship is
over.”
“Well
obviously the answer is yes” she said smiling at his no-nonsense attitude. All her fears were gone and she now had a
boyfriend. They trained together for
various marathons across the country and officially became a couple. Thomas had successfully passed all the trials
and won Alyssa’s exclusive affection.
