~*Late September*~
Billy couldn’t be any more content with his life as he was this moment, stopping in a flower shop on 73rd street for a bouquet of wildflowers for his love Toran. The album release was in a few days, just around the corner, he loves the guys more and more, and Toran and his relationship was at an all-time high. Billy was thinking, hoping as an elder Chinese women handed him his change, that this would be the night him and Toran make love. It’s been so crazy these past few weeks with promotion and shows that the couple didn’t have more than a few hours together a week, let alone a quiet, peaceful night for pillow talk. Billy wanted it to be special, not rushed, and Toran agreed.
Billy couldn’t wait to see the shocked but happy look on Toran’s face when he surprised her, remembering the disappointment flooding her voice when he told her he couldn’t see her this weekend. Billy smiled gleefully to himself as he walked the few blocks to her apartment, the streets streaming with cars at such a late hour, people laughing it up in bars and restaurants. Billy called Krys to make sure that Toran wasn’t working tonight, and Krys told him she wasn’t, which made Billy’s plan full-proof, it being 1:30AM. He was planning on opening the door (Toran never locker her door), slipping naked into bed, laying the flowers on her stomach, softly blow in her ear until her eyes fluttered open. It was genius. It was a challenge juggling a career and a girlfriend, but Billy was taking it one day at a time.
Billy crept quietly through the desolate gray hallway, arriving at Apartment D4. Billy was so excited to be surprising Toran that he didn’t even hear the moans coming from her occupied bed…
“Toran?” Billy asked with wide eyes, the flowers slipping from his grasp, Toran’s head popping up from its position on another man’s sweat-soaken chest, her hair disheveled, her eyes glassy, liquor oozing from her breath as she gave him a dizzy smile. Billy bored down at the man occupying his spot, the man’s shaggy brown hair mussed with his and Toran’s activities, his square jaw smiling with pleasure as he closed his eyes and cradled the back of his stupidass head with his large hands.
“Oh, Hey Bill,” Toran greeted him with a slur as she stumbled out from underneath the covers, her body bare except for beads of sweat rolling down her back and shapely chest. “Did I know you were supposed to come over?”
Billy wanted to erupt, to kick, to scream, but he only bent down and handed her a navy sweatshirt, Billy biting his lip from any premature comments. “Can I talk to you please,” Billy demanded as she stomped off to the balcony to wait for her, giving the man one last glare that could stop the heart of a warrior, Toran suddenly coming to her senses as she pushed her fingertips hard against her forehead.
“You betta go, Matt,” Toran warned Matt as she slipped on the sweatshirt, Matt too drunk and stupid to do otherwise. Toran paced like it was her death march to the balcony. ‘If looks could kill,’ Toran though to herself as she saw Billy’s disappointed, angry face.
“Billy, I…” she began, trying to reach for his arm, but only sharp air slashed her hand as Billy jerked away.
“This was supposed to be the night, Toran,” Billy began, his breath fuming in and out of his mouth as he turned out to the street, “I was planning to come over here, fucking surprise you, give you flowers, be all gentlemanly. I wanted to…God, I can’t even spit out what I wanted to do…You disgust me.”
“Now wait a minute!” Toran defended herself, reaching over and grabbing Billy’s shoulder, “I’ve been sex-free for a month. You have no idea how many times I wanted to give in and jump someone’s bones. It’s like an addiction. I’ve tried so hard! I guess Matt and I had too much to drink to…”
“Matt?!” Billy asked incredulously, shaking his head before he even heard her response, “Your boss, Matt? That Matt?”
“Yeah,” Toran replied, wobbling a little, grabbing onto the guardrail for support, the collar of her sweatshirt drifting over her shoulder. Just looking at her in this tousled state made him sick.
“You know, Toran,” Billy began, scratching the side of his head viciously, “I though I could handle this relationship, I thought I could deal with it, you dancing for dirty cash for strange, gawky-eyed men. But you promised me, Tor! You promised you’d stop sleeping around!”
“It isn’t that easy, Billy!” Toran differed, trying to look into his eyes, Billy turning away every time. “It’s not like I can do a 180 overnight. And, I swear, Matt has been the first since we had that talk at your place. I swear!”
“You were lying before,” Billy growled, belittling her with his eyes, “About your feelings. How do I know you’re not lying now? You’re fucking drunk, for Christ Sake.”
“God Damn you, Billy!” Toran wailed, pushing at him with all her might, sending him stumbling to the patio door, her breathing hard and heavy, a few neighbors poking their heads from their windows, sleepy-eyed, to see what was waking them up, “I don’t badger you about what you’re doing! How do I know you’re not sleeping with some fake-ass tittied groupie or seeing someone on the side?! I trust you, why can’t you trust me?”
“Maybe that’s why?!” Billy bellowed back at her, pointing at the intoxicated Matt redressing himself, having trouble with that leg goes in which pantleg.
“People make mistakes, Billy,” Toran reminded him, raking virulently at the sorrow flowing from her eyes, “You yelling at me won’t make me change any faster. I just…I just need you to be…patient.”
“What you have isn’t a mistake,” Billy replied, leaning in, studying her eyes like it was reassurance, Toran’s light eyes dilating in fear, “It all makes sense.” Billy laughed to himself as he strolled over to one of Toran’s lawn chairs and plopped down, drumming his fingers together like he was trying to hatch a plan.
“What does?” Toran asked with furrowed eyebrows, thinking what a dick he was at laughing at her for some unknown condition she had.
“You’re scared,” Billy informed her, his laughing subsiding as he gazed into the bright night life, “of commitment. It makes perfect sense. Your dad bagged on you, your mom cut herself to death, Nana was too brittle to take care of you, none of your foster parents gave you the time of day or respected you.”
“Are you my fucking shrink?!” Toran demanded, anger spewing from her eyes, wanting to make his mouth hurt so bad from his harsh comments, but her arm too heavy to lift into the air, “How dare you say such shit about me.”
“You hold on to this life where you make no commitments, like your job, me. You’re thinking, ‘Hey, if I hop from bed to bed, I can’t get hurt and I can get paid lots of money.’ You care only of money and yourself because hey, those things will always be there. It makes perfect sense.”
Toran sunk to the floor at this point, whipping her red eyes with her sleeves, Billy feeling bullets of guilt piercing his heart at his cold way of putting what he was thinking into words, “Why are you acting like this?”
“Because…I love you,” Billy responded softly, falling to the floor and crawling over to her, scooping her hands into his. “I’m sorry for being so cruel. But I love you so much that I can’t stand the idea of anyone else seeing you or touching you or kissing you. I’m asking you, begging you, to stop. Stop all this. Stop the stripping. Stop the escorting. Come with me. I’ll help you out. You can see the world or go to college. Whatever you want. I’ll help you. Please. I don’t want to see you get hurt. This can hurt a girl like you.”
Toran glared up at him and jerked her hands away, not believing his audacity, “A girl like me?” Toran asked brusquely, the reminder of her consumption of alcohol shooting back up into the situation, “A girl like me. What, am I just some floozy to you?!”
“No, but…” Billy began before Toran cut him off.
“Am I just some stupid bimbo who doesn’t know wrong from right? I though I was more to you than that. You fucking fake, I guess I was wrong about you, too. And, you know what? No, I will not stop stripping, I will not stop escorting, And if you don’t like that, you can get the hell…the hell out of my life because I don’t love you and…I don’t need you. I don’t need anybody!”
Billy store helplessly at Toran as she turned her back on him, pulled her legs to her chest, and buried her chin in her knees, Billy not knowing what to say to all that, Billy’s heart ravaged in two. Could he live without her? He guessed time would tell.
“Billy?” Toran asked as she saw him get up and pace towards the door, “Billy. Where…Why…” Billy didn’t hear it. He walked into her apartment and then out again with the blink of an eye, closing the front door gently behind him, closing himself away from Toran, away from her sleezy world.
Toran sat dumfounded on the balcony, silent tears streaming down her face, not realizing the best thing she had in her life just walked out the door. Maybe, someday, she wouldn’t be around to see his face again and regret what she said…