The Numbers Game (11 page)

           
Uh oh,
I wasn’t supposed to think that.
Serena winced as if struck by Mike Tyson. 
She had promised herself she wouldn’t go there. No picturing Markie naked, no
imagining himself tied up with another woman. The thought of it made her feel
as if stuck on a whirling Pirate Ship ride, with extra time spent hanging
upside down. Any second now and her heavy head would detach itself completely
and release its sick. 

            Serena had
to break out of this mood. She simply had to. She wasn’t usually the ruminating
type. Nor did she get off on jealously; far better to accept the inevitable
than to cry over it.  For God’s sake, this was only the first week! If anything
it was going to get worse, a lot worse, before it ever got better. Her problem
was not so much that she missed Markie (though she did, it hurt like hell how
much she did) but that there wasn’t anyone yet to replace him. As a sex partner
that is, not as a life partner. She was stuck in that limbo land between loves,
with no one new yet to adore, caress or at the very least jump into bed with.
Instead her mind kept flicking back to the last experiences she had had – with
Markie of course, going for it on the living room couch. By Lord that was good…

            Serena
decided she simply had to find someone soon or who knew what could happen? Two
possible scenarios popped into mind: one where she was so depressed she
accidentally overdosed on a few too many ecstasy pills. The other involved an
animal horniness taking over Serena’s body and forcing her out onto the streets
where she gave it to anyone for free. 

            “You know
what, if I don’t find someone soon, the latter might just happen,” Serena said
to herself. She was never a self serve girl; she needed someone else to do the
job for her. As she thought this, a picture of Jasper fell into her mind.
Jasper, boy number eleven, and sweet artiste slash heavy rock aficionado: he
was always good with helping serve it.

            Out of all
of her one-night stands, he was the only one Serena could call a friend. And
right now a friend in need was a friend indeed.

Dear Jasper was the
friend Serena should never have slept with.

            They met
in college, when both enrolled in an extra-credit Art History course. At the
time Serena was rather bemused by her wobbly Bachelor of Arts degree. Two years
into it, she still hadn’t decided her major; psychology, philosophy, she’d
tried it all and nothing called her name.  So needless to say, it was Fate when
she found herself sitting next to this blond God in the lecture theatre.

            Unlike
most twenty one year olds Jasper knew what he wanted out of life. It was to be
an artist: a famous artist, who’d spend long fabulous days painting naked
landscapes from his studio in Bermuda. Whenever he spoke of this dream – the
mountainside, the sun and the sea, his eyes would light up as if flash beams.
Sure he was just a baby at the time - about to finish his Visual Arts degree,
but all who crossed his path knew Jasper was destined for great things.

            Serena had
wanted to be a part of it. He made her, along with every other girl, want to go
off and become a sculptor or painter too, even if in possession of zero
artistic talent. Tall with dirt blonde chin length hair he was a splitting
image of the guy in Bon Jovi’s “Always” film clip –funnily enough not the
artist but the one who cheats on his love. If she had only three words to
describe Jasper, Serena would’ve picked: idealistic, sensitive and unreal.  

            But he –
gulp-wasn’t interested. He was the first boy who actually excited Serena beyond
belief and he wanted to be just friends. Jasper never said this in so many
words but the fact he candidly spoke of other women he’d painted naked served
to drive the point home. For about half a year, Serena convinced herself that a
friendship was good enough, though honestly it often made her feel sick to her
stomach. They say popping out a baby is painful, but a person doesn’t know real
pain until they’ve loved someone they couldn’t have. 

            Having
casual coffees together, speaking casually on the phone, studying nonchalantly
side by side in the library: all of this was a tremendous feat for Serena. For
better or worse, Jasper treated her like one of the boys. He shared with her
art critiques she didn’t give a crap about, theories on life which went over
her head and also proffered advice on her lackluster (or was it invisible?)
career path. He told Serena if theatre and film were what she was interested
in, she should go for it because:

a)
     
Life is short and
death is long

b)
     
You only get once
chance at it; there are no dress rehearsals and

c)
     
All your dreams,
however crazy, are worth fighting for.

            Unfortunately
it was these very axioms that kept Serena clinging on. Whenever Tabitha made a
joke that Jasper was asexual, she was inclined to believe her because believing
meant hope. As far as Serena was concerned, it was only a matter of time before
she got him. She had no other competition; he wasn’t a Casanova, despite his
breathtaking good looks. He didn’t take advantage of all the lovelorn that were
falling at his feet. Above all Jasper was a decent guy and as such, Serena’s
soul mate.

            Except
Jasper didn’t feel the same way.

            She had
her seduction planned for a Sunday night. By Sunday most people were relaxed
and feeling rather blithe; they’d had enough time over the weekend to go wild,
sleep lots and unwind. She needed Jasper to be unwound. It wasn’t every day
that she arrived on his doorstep in a slippery lavender sheath, with the full
intention of getting him into bed. Serena could still remember the words they
shared, not surprisingly given there were so few.

            “I wasn’t
expecting you,” he had said, his mouth dropping down like a blob of pink
paint.   But Jasper let her in anyway.

            At the
time he was living in a studio apartment in an art deco building. At least
that’s what Jasper called it; to Serena it was just an old, very musty smelling
structure that was probably better off pulled down. In the typical artiste
fashion, the studio lacked what others would call essential items: like a
couch, video player, dining table, even a double bed. Chances were all these
items wouldn’t have fit in the sixty square feet anyway, what with all the
easels and pots and brushes splashed about. At the time, her idol was sleeping
on a single spring bed, which folded out from a wall cupboard and he preferred
to invest in ‘tools’ rather than buy bread.

            Serena had
followed him in that evening without saying a word. In her basket, she carried
a fresh loaf of pumpernickel, a slab of Swiss cheese and jellybeans, with all
the black ones already disposed of. From what she saw, artists apparently
didn’t have very big appetites so she catered to this need. Simplicity, Serena
wanted this night to be all about simplicity, a simple union of boy and girl
and their shared desires. Jasper obviously knew something was up because he asked
her right away.

            “Are you
okay?”

            Serena had
nodded. “I brought us some food for after we’ve worked up an appetite.”

            The words
still made her cringe, six years on. What in the world was she thinking? She had
spent days trying to come up with the most alluring, irresistible pick-up line
and that was the best she could conjure up?

            Thinking
back, Jasper looked rather scared by Serena’s upfront approach. But once again
he was a gentleman. He’d more than prefer to sleep with a girl than to tell her
straight to her face:
I’m not interested.
As soon as they made it inside
the studio, Serena bit the bullet and kissed his lips without further ado. They
were hot and trembling; as if he’d never done it before. Ha, upon reflection
that was just another delusional load of crap.

            It only
took a minute before Jasper gave in and decided to play the game. It never took
much for a guy to get into it. When his manhood jumped to attention, Serena
remembered thinking: this is it, this must be love. She didn’t know back then
that a careless brush from a nurse’s wrist during a routine check-up could also
bring about an erection.

            “Are you
sure this is what you want?” Jasper had stopped mid-embrace, somewhere between
clothes on and clothes off to ask Serena this.

            “Yes,” she
nodded. And for the next twenty minutes she felt she was the luckiest girl in
the world. When one’s bodies were that close, when they were intertwined, how
easy it was to mistake making love for having love.

            When they
were done, Jasper had pulled out a pack of Camels and they smoked one by one
until the tiny room as thick with a horrid haze. From memory, Serena was
already dreaming of Bermuda and Hessian-dressed babies before the first puff.
She foolishly had thought that this was it – that she now had him. Serena was
good at rationalizing why this was so: he wouldn’t have slept with her
otherwise - he wouldn’t have kissed her so.

            Goes to
show that women never, ever really know what a man is thinking. He can touch
you and forget about it before the imprint is even washed away. We won’t go
into the unpleasant details but obviously Jasper and Serena were not meant to
be, at least according to Jasper that is. He called her the next day to inform
her of this mistake and that it was better they didn’t see each other anymore.
He didn’t feel ‘comfortable’; they had ‘stepped over some invisible line’.

            After the
‘break-up’ the poets taunted Serena with frigging stupid wisdom like: “
You
can’t lose that which you never had
” or “
Better to have loved and lost
than never loved at all
”. If she had a machine gun, Serena would have
killed them all. Maybe even Jasper for causing her such despair but she
couldn’t do that because three weeks after their affair he took off to only
Lord knows where.

            Now all
Serena had to do was find him.

“You are treading on
dangerous territory”, said Tabitha, shaking his head, “very dangerous.”

            Serena
should’ve known to expect this. Tabitha had never fallen for the whole Jasper
is a God thing. In her eyes, he was just a thin boy who could do with a reality
check.

            “Don’t you
remember how stupid he made you feel back then?”

            As always
Tabitha was keen to remember the bad and none of the good. “What good” she
would surely say, which was why Serena had already prepared a list of
responses. Firstly, if it weren’t for Jasper, her life would have stayed as
boring as a brick. She would have continued with her futile degree, becoming a
jack-of-all-trades, master of none. So what if her parents and friends weren’t
that enthusiastic about her dropping out of college? At least for the first
time Serena was doing what she wanted. Beauty and film, by becoming a make-up
artist, she combined her two biggest loves.

            Point two:
Jasper taught her how to love. Sure he may not have returned it but he did open
a door to something Serena had never known existed: a bundle of emotions,
warmth and devotion. Pre-Jasper, she was incapable of maintaining a
relationship. No boy out there could hold her attention and curiosity long
enough. You see, Serena was the Bored Quick Princess, though Tabitha later
relabeled it “Turned Off for No Apparent Reason” Queen. Little things (like a
mole on the cheek or extra long fingernails) could quickly explode from minor
quirk to major abhorrence for Serena.  She was the sort who said, “Oh no, I
can’t go near him. He’s wearing Speedos.”

            Jasper was
the first boy who could do no wrong. If he dribbled soup down his chin, she
would have passed him a serviette. If he missed and hit the toilet seat, Serena
would have wiped it down for him. And so on and so on and so on…

            “Oh feck,”
cried Tabitha, slapping a palm to her head. “Now I get it. You still care for
him.”

            “No I
don’t,” insisted Serena. She got up, crossed the room and turned up the radio a
notch or ten. “This is a great song,” she said, humming to Elton John’s hit song
“Sacrifice”. Serena ordinarily hated Elton John.     

“Oh so now
you’re avoiding the subject. That’s what you always do when you know I’m
right.”

            “Right
about what?” Serena asked. She knew it sounded clueless but at that moment she
honestly didn’t have any idea what Tabitha was on about.

            “Sleeping
with someone you once loved is a mistake. Plus how the hell are you ever going
to find him/”

            It was
times like this Serena suspected Tabitha was more her worst enemy than best
friend. Weren’t friends supposed to love you no matter what; through thickness
and thin, through sickness and in health, till death do us part, Amen? Oh no,
that was a husband’s job. Maybe best friends didn’t have all the same crap
written into their contract but they did fall into the realm of sisterhood. And
you were sometimes allowed to be mean to your siblings.