There are many ways to celebrate Valentine's Day.
I hate all of them.
This contrived “holiday” only serves to remind me that I'm alone by choice. Even when I HAD a date, the pressure on me to perform on cue was immense. I'm not a trained seal. I don't bark when she says “speak”.
I'm more likely to say “Screw you”.
'Course, this is all moot since she doesn't know I think of her this way - another reason for me to hate this day of candy hearts and molded chocolates. Maybe if I wasn't absolutely certain she'd laugh at me for even daring to think of this, I might actually work towards dating her.
Or at least screwing her brains out.
I'd be good with either.
In a fit of rare lucidity, Dr. D had decided against doing anything for this holiday. Anything I could see, at least. I'm sure he and the henchmen were doing some asinine thing like making paper hearts.
Stupid bastards never get the left ventricle right.
Sighing, I leaf through an issue of “Villainess”. It takes seconds before I toss it aside. The article on “How to Decorate Your Lair of Evil with Crepe Paper and Cardboard to Create a Fantasy Wonderland” was too much. Sickening, almost.
It would be amazing if I could get through the day without maiming someone. Sad, but amazing. Last year, Henchman Rodolfo had his bouquet shoved so far up his ass he was snorting pollen.
Damned Italian wannabe Lothario. And not even real Italian either, Italian by way of the Bronx.
Romance wasn't flowers and chocolates, it was honesty and companionship. Being with the person you love is what is important, not that rock some underpaid African found on the ground. A good long bout of hot sex was more imperative than a box of fancy shaped Hershey's.
And giving someone dead things was downright morbid. How did anyone decide that rotting plants was the perfect way to show you care?
Morons.
It'd be just as good to shove a dead squirrel at someone, but you don't see shops devoted to arrangement and overpricing of squirrel carcasses. No one ever wrote a jingle about the prompt delivery of an eviscerated tree rat, delicately resting on a bed of baby's breath.
It makes just as much sense as shoving rotting plants at somebody.
Bah.
Useless holiday.
The public view is that of promoting raw capitalism, when really, its supposed to be about the feeling of love. Whether romantic or platonic, filial or passionate, love is why the day exists in the first place. Have people forgotten that the entire reason the day exists is because some fucker back in Roman times married people and got killed for it? Sure, it was cause the marriages were against the law - every able bodied man was needed for war, not frittering away the state's time in the marriage bed! So the fucker was killed. Crucified or hung or something crazy painful. They were Romans, after all.
Why is the anniversary of a man's death revered by chalky candy hearts and bad chocolate?
I must have been concentrating on this more deeply than I realized. I didn't even notice her until she had me pinned.
Blinking, I stare up at the woman that had unknowingly started me on my rant. “Hello, Pumpkin. Any particular reason for your visit? Dr. D's been a good boy this week.”
She stared down at me, her chest heaving with each breath. I fought, hard, against lowering my gaze and staring. No touching! Just…staring. I risked a glance and immediately wished I hadn't.
The scoop neck collar of her shirt gaped open beneath her, allowing me to peek at the dark bra that cupped her breasts. I forced myself to tear my eyes from the sight, my heart beating like a trip hammer in my chest. She had been watching me, had seen my break of control.
Fuck.
“Well, Princess? Why are you here?” Maybe if I distracted her…
“You keep staring at me. Watching me. Protecting me.” Oh, fuck. “Why?”
“If anyone's going to kill you, it's going to be me.”
“Charming. The truth.”
“What do you care?” I snarled at her, pushing and squirming under her. I couldn't get any damn purchase, she wouldn't let me loose!
“Because I can't stop thinking about you.” She watched me as I still.
“Cute. Go work out your obsession on your own, I'm not interested. At least you have good taste, though.”
“I'm not playing with you.”
How in the hell did she know that's what I was thinking! “That makes two of us, then, get off.”
“You know, if you actually started working with me here, that might actually be a possibility instead of just a wet dream!” She stilled above me. “Dammit. How the hell do you manage to do this to me!” She rose from me, reaching the other side of the room in a breath. At least I think she's across the room. All I know is that I'm staring at the bare ceiling and I'm kinda cold.
“Kim?”
Her echoing footsteps are the only answer I receive.
Well, shit.
I think I might just have need for those goddamned rotting plants after all.
- end -