100TWC - Day 11: 33%

I was a zero. For the longest time I expected to stay that way forever. Oh, no, don't get me wrong. I wasn't comfortable like that. It's just... well... that's how it was. I wasn't part of anything. Or anyone. I had a routine, same as anyone I suppose. Sometimes I used to feel as if I was sitting outside of my life watching it going on around me but not really being a part of it, you know? When Ben came along I thought for the briefest instant that I had suddenly shot up to being a 50%. Then it dawned on me: I was really only 33%. There was another. A third. And it wouldn't be just the two of us any time soon. And, you know, I'm OK with that, really. I mean, 33% is better than 0%. Isn't it. Much better. Looking back, I didn't really like being a zero. I never let on, hardly even to myself, but it was lonely. The flat was cold when I got home (even in summer) and there never seemed much point cooking a proper meal just for me. Now I can really push the boat out. Three courses, wine, candles, the posh crockery. Everything. I mean, OK, there have been times when I've done all that and it's still been only me. Ben's had a last minute crisis or something, and hasn't been able to make it. But that's OK. I've learned to make things that will keep. Or that I can take for lunch the next day.

I was part of something, once. More than part. Half. I was half of something. I was 50% of a wonderful partnership that I thought would last forever. Wine and roses. Ha. Makes me heave now, just thinking about it. I found out, you see. Found out that my percentage isn't as big as I'd thought. Like a partner in some seedy deal where the pot is salami-sliced thinner than you'd been expecting. Wouldn't you feel cheated? Huh! Cheated. Now there's a word. A fitting word. I'm sure you can guess why, but I'm going to tell you anyway. I'm going to tell everybody. Why should he get away with it? Taking my lovely, expensive, safe, eternal 50% and replacing it with a tawdry, second-rate, tarnished 33%. I might as well have been left with nothing, because that's what I feel like. Nothing. And you know what makes me sick? Somewhere, out there, in some dirty little skank's cheap, stinking apartment, there's another 33%. And I don't want to know. I don't want to know what it looks like or where it lives or even that it EXISTS, but I can't UN-know it. That bastard did this to me. We can't go back. We can't ever go back to that warm place where there were two of us and we were equal. Now all I can think of is one of those ghastly pie-charts that he's always drawing for work, like some kind of God-awful Ban-the-Bomb sign or something, only it's my happiness that's been banished. Now I'll only ever be a third. The rest of it's been cut off and given to HER.

Dude! How's it hangin'? Me? Fine! On top of the world. Why wouldn't I be, with Jill at home and Chantelle on the side? Got my hands full there alright. I guess some folk would say I was part of a three-way - just one third of the piece - but you know what? I don't think like that. I like to look at the bigger picture, if you know what I mean. When I'm with Jill, I give it 100%. When I'm with Chantelle, she gets 100% of me too. So you see I'm a lucky guy. I don't have 33% - I have TWO HUNDRED PERCENT when you take it all into consideration. Yessir. Lookin' good. I mean sure, there's times when I have to let Chantelle down, and I feel bad about that, you know? She's done me meals three or four times now that I've had to duck out of. But she's cool with it. That's one thing I like about her - no histrionics. She never kicks off. Dude that chick is so laid back she can hardly stand up, if you know what I mean. No, sometimes I just have to be around for Jill. Now there's a woman who knows how to throw a tantrum. But listen, I've been keeping her sweet for years. This time's no different. She'll calm down eventually. She's knows when she's onto a good thing: me! Anyway listen, I gotta go. Got my eye on that new piece over at Tawnee Miller's Bar & Grill. Whooo boy! She's one hot momma, and she's been givin' me the eye for the last coupla weeks. Some girls can just spot a good thing from a mile away, know what I mean?