No One Ever Really Quits.

"…Tell me something, Will, Do you get off on people calling you ‘Doctor Price’ or do you let them to call you by your first name?"

"First off, I’m not a Doctor yet."

"Oh come on! you know…"

"Second, No one's called me Price in years..." I couldn't help but to start getting defensive. Man, she knew how to hold a grudge. Maybe I shouldn't have called her...

...Alright, maybe I did seem different, but I'm not pretentious...it's damn near impossible to brag in front of her without getting your balls busted. I just had to concede because I knew that it was pointless to argue. "I guess I'll be answering to Doctor Preisler, or…at least I might be if I get through this year."

"Aww...too much homework? Is it hard to find time between whores to memorize which pills do what?"

Shut up. I hate myself enough without you bringing up calling you a whore. "I don't have time for anything but work." especially, since I got engaged.

"Poor Doctor Price, so much work to save the world."

Shut up. "I'm not saving anything. I'm just trying to finish school." I laughed uncomfortably to keep the peace.

"Right." She rolled her eyes, reached into her purse, searched around and removed a cheap cigarette tin. I could almost smell the raisin-ey fragrance of unlit Camel Lights as she pulled one out. She flipped open a zippo with the Misfits skull on it and stared defiantly at the connection between the flame and the paper with her head cocked to the side like a curious child. Her eyebrows crunched inward like she was pissed off at something...but I knew that she was probably just wondering why she agreed to meet me, or concentrating on lighting the cigarette.

Gwen still had the same soft, yet well defined curvature in her lips. The same dim yellow fire burst from around her vacuous, predatory pupils inside the border of a coffee-stained caustic stare. She looked thicker than she used to...more healthy...but even if she had quit, there are those certain physical attributes that a cokehead never loses. Those eyes were surrounded by barroom warpaint, set back in their shallow, eternally sinking sockets, balanced carefully over the eroding bridge of her nose. Her cheeks were indented by the force of her lungs, sucking the life out of the glowing cigarette. The blue-grey smoke framed her face and washed into the stiffly-straightened, brown and blonde segmented hair that hung only slightly lower than her diamond-cut jaw line.

From there, it was only a natural progression to follow the path down her neck to the disproportionately large breasts that she had no intentions of keeping secret.

I know that she saw my stare falling down her body, and I could see in the coldness of her crossed legs that she was having none of it. This was her revenge--Her way of fucking me up mentally by prompting the mental fucking. I heard the zippo snap shut.

God knows she was beautiful, and God probably loves her, but when I returned to the battleground between our stares, I knew now more than ever that I didn't. I could see my own Hell in her eyes. I had to look away, so I found the source of the smoke. She saw me eying the plume drifting through her fingers.

"You want one?"

"A cigarette? God no…I quit like right after…" and I stopped because there was no reason to mention the break-up now.

"We broke up?"

Fuck. "Yeah…"

"Uh huh." She said with an emphasis on the last syllable so that I could hear the sarcasm in the response. I couldn't tell if it was sarcasm about the break-up or about my quitting smoking.

"I just figured it was time. Eleven years of smoking showed me how little control I had over myself."

"Oh I can think of other ways that you could have realized that…"

I really didn’t want to answer that. "I’m sorry, Gwen." Is all I could say…when I really wanted to tell her she deserved it. It didn’t matter if I was a guy or not…

* * *

--I remembered how good it felt to hit her. My fingernails burned under the cuticle. The back of my hand was not nearly as red as the side of her face; which, in some small way, was victory enough for me. She was a fierce negotiator when it came to getting me to lose my inhibitions. Sometimes bitches just need to be slapped, preferably by another girl, but when it is necessary...

-- I remembered the accusations of cheating, which I had never done. She couldn't let it go. It was so out of character for her to raise her voice, but for some reason, the fact that I had to study with a female drove her crazy. She had been going ape-shit about this girl for a month or so, so when I came home in different clothes than I had on that morning because there had been an accident in the blood lab, she started screaming her ass off as soon as I walked in the door. I had had enough and I just needed to get away from her, but she followed me into the bathroom, yelling behind me. In the mirror, I saw the life jump into my eyes, while my body, attached by my hands to the sink, seemed to be shaking it away from the wall. I saw her face in the mirror, teary-eyed and full of rage. And then I snapped.

I don't even remember what happened during that half a second of silence between her calling me a "fucking liar" and the side of my hand flying backwards, But I will always remember the way I felt after the realization that I had completely lost myself. I packed my clothes that night and hadn't talked to her since. Not until I got her number and called her last night. The echoing of my voice shouting word "Whore" still finds its way into my nightmares sometimes.

She didn't need to know that I had since dated and gotten engaged to that same female that had been my lab partner as a sophomore med student. It would only prove to her that I had cheated. That's neither here nor there. She certainly didn't need to know that I was engaged, anyway.

* * *

I must have been staring at the cigarette for a while when I spaced out because when I refocused, she was looking at me like I was pathetic.

"You know no one ever really quits, right?"

"Huh?"

"It's inevitable. One of these days you'll just hit a breaking point and remember how good it felt to smoke. How comfortable it was. How much better you felt back then."

"Back when?"

"Come on...you know that even after a couple years...you still want one don't you?"

Yes. God, YES. "No."

But she could see right through anybody--especially me. If you ever wanted to know your own biggest insecurity, all you had to do was push her to the edge. It wasn't until then that I realized how vulnerable I am in front of her. How vulnerable I will always be. She made me feel guilty. Inadequate. Being with her was depressing, but she was once everything I ever thought I wanted. I still wasn't sure what made me call her.

I took a swig of the Abita Turbodog, the only excuse for a good beer this place served. Shit, maybe I had changed...

She had a certain subtle genius in that plain-spoken axiomatic way of summarizing people. I focused on the word "really". I knew she was right. Plenty of times I've thought about rolling up the nicotine patch and smoking it. I still got cravings for the gum. Right now, the only thing I want more than a cigarette was...

"So, one last fuck, right? That's what this is about?"

I nearly spewed the brown roasted liquid I had almost swallowed, but decided to choke on it instead. When I regained the ability to speak I asked, "What?"

Hearing her say "fuck" was stunning in a way that both knocked the wind out of me and excited me in a deep part of my inner anatomy. I was ashamed and aroused. Embarrassed because she thought my intentions were so shallow, yet accepting because not until then did I understand that sex was a motivator in all of this. Hearing her say "fuck" reminded me of the filthiest of our dirty talk, phrasings that would also make me feel this way, on one hand feeling the carnal freedom of complete release of the murkiest parts of my mind manifested into words, mumbling from below with one of her tits half-hanging out of my mouth, and on the other hand the immediate embarrassment that followed a string of words that I hadn't yet tested on her, wondering if calling her a "cunt" or a "whore" was going too far (it had been), or if I was getting too violent, or if I should apologize after she got off. It would throw me into an insulated tube of my own regret and insecurity. No matter how good it felt, even when inside her, I could never really be inside her. There was always that uncomfortable silence between the two of us when I knew that I had taken it a step too far. I dreaded addressing whatever it was that I said (it was always me that said something embarrassing), and even though she was the last one to speak, I had that same dread coming over me, the same distance that had been there before served to remind me of sex and the silence between us now at the bar actually seemed to bring us closer together than when either of us was speaking in an awkward "how's-life-been?" conversation.

The look on her face said it all. Her eyes weren't angry, nor were they accusatory, it's like she had already come to this conclusion before I called her. Like she had been expecting me to crawl back. "You called me up out of nowhere--which must have been hard enough considering that I don't have the same number or address--but it was because you wanted to have sex. Right?"

Yes, I'm realizing that that's exactly what it was. Sex was never better than with you. "What!? No...It's just been so long and...well...I...I just..." Motherfucker--there was that smirk."...I couldn't..." She'd never believe it but I tried anyway. "I just needed to apologize."

"Oh my God. You just can't fucking stop lying to yourself, can you?"

"Lying?"

"You've gotta be one of the most stubborn people I know. Why can't you just admit that you want what you want. Sex, a cigarette, closure..."

She reached for her cigarettes and pulled one out for me. She laid it on the counter next to her lighter, in between our drinks. She stood up the lighter and the skull that decorated the front of it stared knowingly into me. My throat started to tighten.

I hated when she was right. I had to get away from her again.

"I...I gotta piss."

"Take your time."

The bar was a shithole dive that attracted few people. We were the only ones in here tonight, besides the bartender. This wasn't what I was used to anymore, but at least in this place I wouldn't run into any friends of mine or anyone that could accuse me of having less than honorable intentions while talking to Gwen. I hadn't been this confused, angry or fearful in a long time. I crossed through the pool tables to the bathroom at the back of the single room saloon. The stink of shit and ammonia lingered heavy in the air and within the first step into the bathroom, my white Converse sneakers slipped in a pile of orangish-pink vomit that pointed like an arrow to the first ceramic urinal.

I have this weird thing about peeing around other people. Not that I'm afraid of anyone seeing my junk, I just can't pee into urinals unless there are dividers between them. I usually have to wait untill a stall opens up if there is anybody in the bathroom, but luckily enough, there wasn't anyone in here. The smell of unflushed waste made me want to vomit, but still I just stood there for a while thinking about everything she said. What the hell did she mean by "no one really quits?" She never said something like that without it having a deeper meaning. I did miss the sex. I imagined sitting on the piss-splattered toilet seat with her head in my lap...oh god...What would...Gw...what's her name?...Lana...say about me being here? She knows about Gwen...She knew how dedicated I used to be to her...and if she had half the brains of Gwen, she'd know that I'm still with her, if only in my thoughts. I got sick when I tried to picture the blow job being given by anybody but Gwen...not that my fiancee would even think about giving head...but...I never had sex with anybody but Gwen in my thoughts, even when in the middle of grinding my soon-to-be-wife.

Fuck myspace...If I had never have stumbled across Gwen's profile I wouldn't be here right now...

Coming here was a mistake. I should never have set this up. I didn't bother flushing or washing my hands, they'd probably be dirtier from the tapwater. I walked out of the shitter, around the empty pool tables to the front of the bar and...

He was probably 6’4, but skinny like a crackhead, and God was he ugly. This guy’s head looked like a TIE Interceptor, except that where Darth Vader would have sat, his jawline stretched down another foot or so. The guy’s ears were like wings that held his tiny but drippy head afloat. His teeth popped out of his mouth like an upside-down mountain range.

I couldn’t help but size him up as soon as I saw him. He was so close to Gwen that I immediately thought of him as a threat. I guess, looking back on it, I really should have remembered that she and I hadn’t seen each other in two years and that she had no attachments to me, but I hadn't even considered the possibility that she'd have been with anyone else. I knew she wasn’t mine--but as soon as I realized that there was competition, I wanted her to be. I couldn’t help but think about marking my territory--This guy’s a fucking tool. There’s no way he knows her better than me.

I’m 5’ 8, 175. And even though this guy’s taller than me he’s probably…shit, he sees me looking at him. Fuck him. Cheap shot? I’ve got a key in my pock…gaddam he looks pissed. Alright, he’s got me on arm length, I’ve gotta get in tight. He’s not looking at me anymore, maybe he’ll just…

Wait. What the fuck am I doing? This guy’s not…did he just…?

He made a fist around the hair at the base of her neck, and looked back at me like he was begging for me to do something about it. He lifted her about half an inch off the barstool, just enough for her to yelp.

And I didn’t even realize I was saying it when my mouth opened: "GET YOUR FUCKIN' HANDS OFF ‘ER!"

He looked back at Gwen and said, "Who the fuck is he? You cunt! You gonna cheat on me now? What the hell made you think I wa’nt gonna find out?"

"Baby no, He’s…an old friend, that’s all. I swear, we were just catching up. I, I…I just saw him sitting here and, and well, I was just smoking at the bar alone, and we…"

"Shut the fuck up! You’re about to really piss me off. Lie to me again, I fuckin’ DARE you!"

At this point, I’d had about enough of her getting broken in public. I knew exactly how it worked; she wasn’t the kind of person to let somebody embarrass her without getting even. But I still couldn't take it happening in front of me. So I thought about what I should do. I hadn’t hit anybody since we broke up, and it had been even longer since I had been in a fight (strangely enough, I was defending her then, too) but it was all I could do not to rip his throat out right then. Fighting’s like one of those things you never forget how to do, it’s like taking a pulse, or… Gwen had a way of dealing with pissants like this guy, and I knew that whatever she did to piss him off worked--that vein popping out of his neck was proof enough of that. So I remembered how she could get to me and called out, "Hey, cocksucker!" just to get his attention off of her and on to me.

I thought of what she would have done. Knowing her, if she was fucking this guy, she was also emasculating him. I remembered the calm but vicious attacks on my ego, my manhood, how she would unleash Hell into me with her softly spoken words. You wouldn’t even know it was coming and then…BAM! You were begging for mercy.

I saw three cigarettes in the ashtray in front of where we were sitting. Two were her Camel Lights, the one she snuffed out, and the one she offered to me and then must have lit up for herself--now burnt to the butt, like it had been sitting there since I went to piss. The other was a Kool Filter King with a ¾ inch cherry hidden behind a full length of ash. They don’t even smoke the same kind of cigarettes; doesn’t he know she hates menthol? This couldn’t work even if they wanted it to. If you didn’t have the right kind of cigarette after sex, she’d run your ass down to the convenience store to pick some up. Camel Lights were like tokens for sleep. I eventually switched over from Turkish Golds soon after…why the fuck am I thinking about this?

Anyway I thought of ways to castrate him without actually cutting his balls off. How could I piss him off enough to let her go? About half a second later, I had it. My mind kept going back to the cigarettes in the ashtray. Without breaking eye contact, I stretched my neck side to side, picked up his cigarette, took a drag, and readjusted my frame. I’m short, but my shoulders and arms are still pretty intimidating, I imagine. I grabbed my beer with my right hand and took the cigarette from my mouth with my left. I deeply inhaled the harsh menthol, burning my throat. I turned to look at the bartender, showing the piece of shit nothing but the profile of the right side of my body. The bartender looked at me and I could tell that he was not into girls being pushed around in front of him. He was a thick guy in flannel and blue jeans that hid his face behind a black beard. I nodded at him and he nodded back, not that either of us knew what the other was thinking, just that we were on the same page about this douchebag grabbing Gwen.

"Let her go." came out of the corner of my mouth followed by a cloud of smoke aimed at his eyes. Then I shifted my head to meet his face through the smoke, his jaw was dropped in disbelief, and his eyes were inflated past critical mass. I could sense him plotting out how exactly to tear that new asshole that I had just put the downpayment on.

"Look around you. You gonna hit her in front of a bunch of guys at a bar? By all means, go ahead, but I’d run out the door soon after." I had to rely on the assumption that he hadn't looked around and noticed that no one was here.

He swiveled his head slowly to the right to see the bartender holding a baseball bat, looked at me again with a slow, steadily increasing fear in his face, and turned his head over his left shoulder. Gwen looked embarrassed, but pissed at me! She mouthed the word "Don’t" and pleaded with her stare. His grip tightened on her and she winced.

I lifted my left arm, middle finger under the butt, thumb over the top of it. Gwen’s eyes were begging. I felt my wrist shaking while lining my hand up with my elbow. That same primal snap last felt when I nearly ripped a sink out of a wall long ago rose through my gut, around my skull into my throat and out of my mouth:

"Hey."

When his head swung around front, the butt flew from my raised middle finger, shedding sparks end-over-end into his lower right eyelid.

He lost his footing and slipped backward and the freed hand rose from the back of Gwen’s neck to his face to beat out the embers now glowing under his eye, in his hair and in his five day’s growth of a beard. He stumbled, hollering like a baby, "I’m blind! I’m fucking BLIND!" and fell facing away from me onto his knees like a praying monk. One of his hands started digging around in his pocket.

I was already running with my right hand gripping the bottle like a lead pipe. It flew upward through his face and shattered in my fist. His body leaned backward at the waist, then bounced forward. He supported himself by his hands like a dog, if dogs had knees. My heel came down on his spine right between his hips. With him now face down on the floor, I kicked him in the ribs and flipped him belly-up…

And between each connection of the toes of my Chuck Taylor’s and his face, I let out a disyllabic phrase.

"You Don’t", pop, "Ever", pop, "Fucking", pop, "Touch Her." Crunch. When I felt the splintering of his zygomatic process, I imagined that I heard him concede. But he was out and there was no way for him to say anything--especially considering the copious amount of blood oozing out of his mouth and nose and the fact that I had probably split his mandible. And as the medical terminology flew through my head, I remembered that I was a doctor in training. I realized that I had completely lost control again.

I looked at all the glass of the bottleneck now embedded in my palm. Most of it was hidden by the red runniness that filtered out from around it. My stomach felt like dough being kneaded.

Gwen had an indescribable look on her face, as did the bartender.

I heard myself say, "Don’t worry, I’m a doctor" as I leaned over the broken body in front of me. I flipped it over so that it wouldn’t choke on the blood or the pieces of tongue floating around his mouth. I put my ear to his back to hear him breathe and get a heartbeat (which he had) and smelt the stink of an ice head coming off his body. Instinctively, I reached into his pocket and grabbed out his stash of meth and coke. He had a roll of twenties in the other pocket...and a 9mm pistol below it.

When I saw the gun...I knew that the only reason that I wasn't dead was because it had been a productive night for peddling. If that wad of cash hadn't been there, I'd've been shot.

Drug dealer, money, gun...this was all in self-defense...or at least it would be on the police report.

I put the roll on the counter for the bartender to pay for the damage and clean-up and to pay him off. I told him to call the cops and that this guy had enough shit on him to be locked for distribution, not to mention that he was carrying a concealed handgun in a bar.

"Dating a dealer, Gwen?" I asked condescendingly.

"I wasn’t dating him, He just...I haven't done coke in like half a year." By the shakiness in her voice, I could tell that she didn't want me to see how bad it had gotten. I did believe that she quit, but I couldn't let this go...

"Uh huh." I loved being able to turn that shit around on her.

"Don’t look at me like that, Will. You smoked!"

How was that even relevant? "I took a drag. And I only did it to save you."

"I didn’t need you to save me...but that's beside the point...you smoked."

She was so full of shit, grasping at straws just so she wasn't the only one who looked bad, but I knew that she appreciated it. This was just her way of thanking me. I couldn't help it, I had to say it. "You're Welcome."

"I haven't even thanked you yet." She said, which shut down any hope I had of holding dominion over this conversation. She was back in control, just the way she liked it. "Oh shit, look at your hand."

"I'm alright."

"I've gotta get out of here before the cops show up. You want to come to my place so I can fix you up?"

"Gwen, I'm a doctor. I can take care of my own hand."

"I wasn't talking about your hand..."she said, like she knew that I was having an internal fight about whether or not I should be here. And as if to answer any doubts, she said. "Look, you set out tonight with one thing on your mind. It would be a pity if you backed down just as soon as you grew your balls back."

The bartender looked at us and said, "Y'all might as well get outta here, I already call the cops and tole 'em some dickhead tried a rob my bar. So I had ev'ry right to kick the shit out of 'em." He grabbed a roll of duct tape, pulled out an arm's length strip, and stepped from behind the bar, eyes fixated on the bloody pile of shit between us.

I had finally stopped shaking enough to realize how much trouble I could get into. I realized what the bartender was doing for me. It was one of those lucky break/close calls that I used to reward myself with a cigarette. I looked at Gwen and remembered what she had said about me quitting. I had the stale taste of tobacco on my breath when I grabbed her wrist with my good hand and pulled her closer to me. I wanted to put my tongue in her mouth right then. She looked at me.

Before I knew what I what I was doing I put my hands on her shoulders. I said, "I've missed you so fucking much."

She buried her head into my shoulder. We turned to walk out the door and had to step over the body, still unconcious on the ground, being strung up with duct-taped hand cuffs and leg restraints.

"Make sure you don't tape his mouth shut, he might asphyx...he could choke." The doctor in me took over for a moment, then disappeared when I looked at the girl that I could throw it all away for.

"Hey Gwen..."

"Yeah?"

"Give me a fuckin' cigarette."