His Little Black Book

Prologue Bowdoin College, Brunswick, MaineDecember 2005 "No more of this shit," Brooke told Delia at the campus diner where she, Brooke, and MJ went for a coffee break every day. "I can't stand seeing you like this. He's not worth it! He was a pig, he treated you like swill. And he did it because he could. Do you hear me? Because he could. Because you let him." But, Delia thought, Brooke just didn't understand. She had everything: confidence, looks, grades, money. Delia had nothing, she came from nothing, and her mother had told her she'd never have anything. She'd never find a man, never get married, never be anything. But she had -- she'd gotten into college, she'd found friends, and she'd found Frank. But now Frank was gone and she had nothing, just like her mother had said. And in the end, just like she always feared, she was still alone. She was terrified of being alone. "I can't," she moaned. "I want him back, I need him, I'm lost without him." "You're lost, period," Brooke retorted impatiently. But Delia didn't want to believe she was lost. She had just lostsomething-- the man she loved. Who wasn't so bad. Really. Brooke looked at MJ, who shrugged. For the past month, Delia had been mourning this impossible and destructive relationship, and they'd been trying to talk sense into her. Brooke looked out the diner window that fronted the main street in town. It was a cute town, with lots of old brick buildings holding quaint shops, a nice college town if you wanted to be far away from everywhere -- which maybe wasn't a good thing to be. The place was insular, the school population was too small, and you couldn't hide from your professors, your responsibilities, or your lovers when they didn't call. This was the lesson that Delia had yet to learn, Brooke thought: You couldn't get so involved at this stage of the game. There was no point toevergetting involved, really. Involvement led to pain. You lost control. You lost self-respect. You lost yourself. Better just to have sex wherever you could find it. Then you were in control. No one could hurt you; you inflicted any pain. So much more satisfying... Brooke twirled the spoon in her cold coffee, feeling her fury rising yet again at the thought of everything Delia had been through with Frank. Everything she herself had gone through, and MJ, too, whose businesslike demeanor protected that heart on her sleeve. "We've given them control," she said abruptly. "We've just up and handed them everything and given them tacit permission to give back nothing. It started when we were young, because we were always pushed by the need to be popular, to be cool, to be part of the "in" crowd. And so we gave away everything precious in the service of not being the odd one out. Everything, including our virginity. Even now." Just saying it out loud infuriated her even more. "Damn it -- we're not baby girls anymore. We're not stupid. We know the ropes. Yet we fall into the trap every time: We fall in love. We invest in the relationship, and what do we get? Shafted. Dumped. Dropped." "Excessed," MJ put in caustically. Brooke made a derisive sound. "Enough of that. When do we learn the lesson? It's all about sex, anyway. It's never about anything long-term. It's about the five-minute future -- as much time as it takes them to get it up and get it in. That's all they want: five minutes of pussy time. That's their idea of a relationship. And what do we get?" They looked at her blankly. "Time to weep and mourn every time they abandon us," Brooke answered her own question emphatically. "Well, hell -- if all we have is time, then you know what? It's time to take control. It's time to make them pay." Make them...pay? An idea skittered around the edges of her mind. A delicious, salacious idea that, when she bit into itDevine, Thea is the author of 'His Little Black Book', published 2006 under ISBN 9781416524151 and ISBN 1416524150.