The Beauty And The Narcissist

There was beauty in everything he did. His very presence was art. This person I had known for a decade, this soul I had known since the creation of mine.

I'm honestly not sure how exactly we met. I think it may have been something drug-related, but cannot remember any mutual friends or how we would have been introduced. I was 16, overweight, a very in-your-face style lesbian, and had a general distaste for most people. I won't pretend that I knew him so my description is purely observational; he was 17, overweight, ignorant, a go-with-the-crowd chameleon in style, and what appeared to be two conflicting personality "modes". The first one I would say went along with his plain clothing, a wallflower type, you'd almost forget he was there unless he meant for you to notice him. This other "mode" came off as a please-fucking-notice-me vibe, but only in an intimate setting. When he wanted you to notice him. I'm not sure if I was the target of some kind of mind control, or if the aura was so strong that it demanded to be appreciated. What I know is that he was a magnet and my eyes were steel. He was beautiful to me. I had no idea what was happening, because at that point I had never experienced any kind of attraction to a man. I found myself hanging out with his friends all of a sudden, I'm not even sure how that happened. I cannot remember ever really being friends with any of them so I'm not exactly sure how we ended up stumbling into group hangouts. I am not even sure if this was a conscious effort. I just know that he was fucking beautiful.. from his fluffy egg-shaped head, to his overly demanding and entitled communication style.

I had been seemingly obsessed with this girl for quite some time. I was more obsessed with wanting her to want me and having someone to adventure with than I ever really cared about her. I could do whatever I wanted at her house because her mom was an alcoholic, I could convince her to get high on anything or do anything with me, I could be as reserved or as unapproachable as I wanted to be -- my heart was taken. I think I told her I liked him though, or maybe she just knew, but she often acted out in a way that would either cut my time short or run the risk of embarrassment. One night we asked him to walk a friend of ours home because my current misinterpretation of love decided to pretend she was sick and needed me to go home with her. That was the last time I was able to allow myself to look at him in complete and total adoration for over 2 years -Can you guess why?! DING DING DING! That's right! My friend and him started dating. Ugh!

I feel like we never really saw each other and my life became this marathon of getting high and making bad decisions. There were times when we would kind of meet up, if he had something for sale that I wanted or if I had something for sale that he wanted - I fucking HATE to admit it, but I actually threw myself at him many times. I will give myself a break by saying I was on drugs, but still. Could you imagine how embarrassing that is?! He had gone to jail and came out very, very fit and I'm assuming with his pick of whoever he wanted to sleep with. I threw myself at him again; dark eyes, vacant of soul or depth, no ambition, no direction, and maybe $5.00 in my pocket and I was damn near begging him to want to hook up with me. Fantastic.

Fast forward to January 2014, I had been on a year-long path of destruction after my girlfriend died and I was going into rehab all the way down in Florida. About 5 minutes before I get on my plane to go, this beautiful human messages me asking if I can meet him for his momentary drug of choice - of course I couldn't. When I got out of rehab 52 days later, he was one of the first people to message me and actually told me he was happy I was clean because I could barely talk before. Ugh! Queue the embarrassment! It was roughly 5am, my birthday, I was 900 miles from home and heading in the opposite direction, less than 2 hours out of rehab, and even though I felt shame to my core and down for other obvious reasons.. He actually made me feel good for a split second, it didn't feel malicious or even like he felt better than... I'm pretty sure he did, haha, but did not make me feel that way.

After that awkward interaction, I didn't reach out again for 3 years. We spoke briefly in 2017. I'm pretty sure we talked about hooking up for a little bit, but never did... and then I didn't hear back from him. His girlfriend at the time ended up reaching out to me and told me he was sending videos of her and him to random people on Snapchat, and she even asked me if we ever hooked up. This random women told me all of this and then says her comeback is going to be her deleting all of his social media accounts - I honestly laughed at her. I didn't even understand how she felt like that was a suitable comparison, because I would have been furious. She agreed, but begrudgingly admitted it was her only available move. Trash experience.

In 2019, after my brother passed away, I reached out to this ever so elusive magnet in human form and asked him to draw a tattoo for me. He agreed and I didn't hear from him again until February, roughly 6 months later. He claimed he was clearing out old messages and realized he never followed up.

This is where things really started to kick off. Yes, we're finally starting Part 2.

The Beauty

There have been so many beautiful things worth noting throughout this entire mess of a relationship. So.. I'm going to attempt to explain my reasons, as silly or as naive as some may be, for excusing what I'm sure you'd see as dealbreakers.

When we started talking I felt pure joy for the first time in over a year. I was just happy, sober. He was very engaged in the conversation and had so much to say about everything we talked about. I never noticed gaps in his responses, even though I hung on his every word and was always eager for his reply. I hadn't experienced enjoying a conversation that way in I couldn't even tell you how long. That alone would have kept me hooked through most things because I was starved for it.

My then-fiancé and I had been together for over 4 years and never once did we have sex. We barely spoke towards the end of our relationship and most times we did even before that, they mostly turned into arguments. I was almost scared to try to talk to her for that reason, and anyone outside the relationship really only kept my attention for a few minutes before they did... The Thing.. Whatever it was that made me lose all interest in 4 seconds flat. I'm not sure what that's about, but my entire being will reject interactions after a certain point if I just know they aren''t for me.

This poetic human reminded me of a feeling I forgot even existed at that point. I ended up leaving my should-be-wife, I knew I wasn't going to be able to be what she needed in a partner and she definitely was not what I needed. I'll get more into that in a different story, but I knew it was like beating a dead horse and separated myself. In doing so, I felt myself gravitating towards my new-old friend. This was not a romantic or sexual gravitation - it was what I can only describe as a strong magnetic pull, or a vortex sucking me in. He invited me over for what he called a 10-minute mind blowing session. I was not sure what he meant, but I just wanted to be around his energy so I went. We talked into the early hours of the morning and it was amazing. I felt the closest to alive I had felt in months.

I was so excited to explore this new connection, that I immediately reached back out requesting to see him again. We made plans for that coming weekend for me to experience this 10-minute mind-blowing. I had a better idea of what he meant by this time.. And let me tell you.. very few things have given me that feeling, but this was absolutely one of them. SPOILER ALERT!!! The blowing of the mind was actually my first time doing DMT. I don't remember a single thing that happened. I just remember feeling really sick and then weightless, like I didn't have a single care in the world.

We started hanging out more and more, and he never tried to make a move on me. I'm not sure if that was all part of some plan, or if he was actually letting me get comfortable, but it was exactly what I needed. I could have thought-provoking conversations with him, he was interesting and interested in things I enjoyed hearing about, his presence was captivating. By the time we finally kissed, it was like 2 weeks into us hanging out and I didn't feel forced or rushed or uncomfortable at all. I have always had a physical intimacy issue, but I was 10000% relaxed with him. I had limited experience with men sexually, and had absolutely no idea what the FUCK I was doing. Ughhhh!!! He seemed to really know his way around in that area, and here I am, unsure of how to really touch male genitals. The extent of my knowledge at that time was the few seconds I put my mouth on it before I had sex. Liiiiiisten, I never felt so out of my element. I didn't know how to initiate a single thing. I didn't know how to transition from one thing to another. I think he was looking for me to know or to figure it out and put the moves on him. It was very uncomfortable for me. I don't really ever know what he actually feels about something.

Where were we? Oh, right.. Shit was beautiful, haha. So, another pretty ass thing was how we seemed to really do for one another. I cleaned his apartment, or went food shopping for him, he would supply whatever drugs we were doing and entertainment of some kind. We both had interest in traveling and quickly booked a trip to Colorado together. He helped me really feel beautiful and comfortable in my skin. Remember way back in the start of Part 1 I made a list? Well, on that list was that I had gastric bypass surgery. This has left me with excess skin out the WAZOO. He never seemed to care. He was so attentive to me physically. He would make sure I got off before we even started having sex. He was amazing in bed. I was honestly nervous at first, I was like worried that it was going to be small or weird looking and he surprised me with this beautiful hammer. Haha, I was all in for this man from the beginning. It was like when I saw him my mind and heart both said yes in unison and we never looked back.

So, we planned concerts (Canceled because of Corona) and trips to Colorado(Not canceled because of Corona), we talked about going to Peru for an ayahuasca, he introduced me to his cousin and we spent the night at her house. It was actually really nice because I hadn't had a normal interaction with people since before the quarantine started and she was a really cool person. We went to Virginia, and on hikes, and looked at the stars. He showed me so many cool things in nature. I fell in love with the world all over again through his eyes. He would take pictures of the moon in different states for me, he was always asking me to send him pictures and was like obsessed with my body that I otherwise hated except when he was appreciating it. We experimented with DMT and I was able to genuinely learn so many things about myself.

He allowed me to explore myself sexually in a heterosexual relationship. I got really into voyeurism. It went from something I was interested in to a full blown kink. I got on top for the first time with him, and experienced an orgasm from someone else for the first time since my girlfriend passed away and he was really only the 3rd person that every even happened with. And with him it was common. He pretty much forced me out of my depression, and got me back into cleaning my apartment. He offered to help me with my resume, and interview questions. He got me these things made that showed how the planets were aligned when my brother and dad were born. He offered to go away with me for my brothers birthday, he went with me on the memorial trip for my dad.

He forced me to learn to look into myself and see how I was wrong. I gave up that ability many times in my life when it didn't suit me, but with him I was genuinely interested in being the best version of myself so I took it on and began apologizing for my approach as if I'm somehow responsible. My short-term memory was improving, he was interested in my goals, and wanted to help me get my car fixed up. He seemed genuinely interested in me. He was exactly who I needed when I needed it. He had even chased me when I tried to leave and expressed what seemed like sincere apology, he offered a change in behavior, and let me know how important I was to him. He is the only person I ever knew to say they wanted to make changes and almost immediately you could see strides in the right direction. Often times it was short-lived, but the effort was one of the most attractive things I had ever seen.

He has this way about him that just always draws me in. I love the way he kisses me, the way his hand sits on the back of my head, the way his hands feel to touch, touching his skin, the way his hair smells, the way his B.O. smells, the way he likes to smell.. I'm captivated by the way he dresses, the way he walks, the way he uses an entire lint roller in one day. I enjoy the simplest things with him because I just love being around him. I love watching him create his art, or listening to him tell me about stuff he's passionate about. I love how I grew as a person with him. I fell very much in love with this man, I think because he's the first person I ever felt like I could be my whole self with. I fell so much so in love that I didn't see things the way I should have. I turned off my intuition, I stopped paying attention to the signs or the red flags, I made excuses for him... I surrendered myself and any shred of independence I once had to be his. I fucked myself over financially trying to keep him happy with me.

This next part, while very true, is also something that I'm kind of still dealing with and at some points it can be a little bit disturbing.... so I will have to stop myself at some points and may have to make it into a few parts.