Friday, February 23, 2018

Thomas' Love Trials

                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 at a young age.  She would introduce herself as “Lisa” because she felt it was easier for Americans to say.  While most college girls set out to fill an inner void with the company of multiple men, Alyssa would often be in the library studying diligently for whatever midterm or final that would be on the horizon.  She was pre-med at New York University with a major in economics causing an extremely rigorous course load.  Despite all her hard work, however, Alyssa did know how to have fun.  She loved dancing her problems away at clubs and hanging out with her friends when the stress of school got too much for her.  Upon graduation, she, like most graduates, contemplated what to do with her life.  The one thing Alyssa knew for sure was that she never wanted to have to rely on a man to support her.  She wanted to be a successful businesswoman before she settled down with a man.  There were men in her life, and if the opportunity presented itself, she would allow herself to be in the company of a significant other, but her emphasis was always on independently bettering herself.
                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, just as he was.  In fact, they grew up fairly close to each other, but he decided to just end it with “K” and forget about it.
                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 in 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.