Page 2 of Unwritten Vows

Derrick

It’s always halfway through a set that my gym partner, Alek, brings up the most annoying topics.

“So, do you think the big bad asshole is going to force you into it with the Bolyar’s daughter?”

I’m not a fan of discussing this, and he knows it.

I think he’s doing it for the shock value alone.

I stare harshly into the mirror and try not to let my expression show the doubt and frustration that his words send through me.

I finish my set, put the weights down on the bench, and wipe off with a towel before answering.

“I don’t know,” I say with a noncommittal shrug. “She’s hot, though.”

“So was Mara. After she came back from her uncle, lost a few pounds, got the braces off? You always get the cream of the crop, man.” He looks almost sorrowful at this revelation, as if he doesn’t get hot girls all the time himself.

“Yeah, I guess,” I say with another shrug.

I don’t tell him that I liked the woman in question, my ex-girlfriend Mara, more before she went to the city.

Usually I’m a better shit-talker, but I’m just not on my game at the moment.

The idea of having to cozy up to another woman after a year of freedom doesn’t appeal to me in the slightest.

“What’s up with you man? Don’t you like her?”

I roll my eyes internally. He’s not going to let up until I give him something.

“Same old, same old, man. They’re all the fucking same.

Materialistic little princesses.” I sound like a dick, but this is what I’ve come to expect.

There are ways to act in this life that make it clear you’re not a spoiled little shit, and all the women who act that way are already fucking taken.

I know, because I’ve slept with many of them and seen them beaten down by the expectations of the mobsters they’re married to.

But this is mostly what we can expect from our level of society, and I’m doomed to end up with one of these young, beautiful, spoiled little rich girls. If there’s anything deeper in there, it only comes out when we’re both totally wasted. It is, of course, promptly forgotten the very next day.

Alek and I are the same as them, but he loves to pretend we’re different, so he laughs as he sits down at the shoulder press.

“Truer words were never spoken,” he says, pushing up easily.

“We have to take care of them, just like their daddies. But at least that means we can sneak out and do whatever the fuck we want, right?”

This is the reality that I always come back to.

It’s what keeps me going in this life. The fact that I’m a man and I can do what I want as far as relationships go.

Most men don’t want their women doing the same, but I don’t mind letting whoever I end up with do it too, as long as she’s discreet.

We can’t possibly be expected to truly love each other when we’ve been thrown together by our parents.

Relationships in this life just don’t usually go over very well.

You use people for what they’re good for.

Even my father and I have more of a biological response to each other than anything approaching familial love.

He wants me to fulfill his wishes because I am a reflection of him.

Being father and son doesn’t stop him from using me to carry out his wishes, and it doesn’t stop me from bartering with him to get what I want, either.

Of course, these are all thoughts that we keep to ourselves. In fact, I knew for the time that I was with Mara that she felt the same way, and I could still barely ever bring myself to broach the subject. There’s no reason to talk about it. Things are not going to change.

So I say what I know I’m supposed to say—what Alek expects me to say, and in fact, what I believe is the only way forward, anyway. “Yeah man. Playing husband during the day and getting what we really want at night.”