by Maggie Voysest

The Fatal Attraction that made Gigi snap!!

Gigi was sitting on the steps of her front porch. It was a cool, yet sunny December morning. And she was waiting. Waiting for the one who was coming back into her life after a five month absence. Her stomach had been in knots, pure knots for almost a week. She’d been filled at times with a sense of unbearable happiness and then almost near panic, as she thought of, considered, ignored, and of course, totally rejected ideas of “WTF am I doing, giving him another chance to hurt me after what he did to me?” followed by thoughts of “Oh my God. He’s back. Niles is back and I’ll be in his arms again, and everything will be alright.” She kept standing up, peering around the corner, trying to remember what his car looked like, wondering what it would feel like. She’d never thought she’d ever see him again. Yet here she was, waiting for him to show up once again. Was she meshuggenah (crazy)?

All last week, she’d ignored the advice from her girl friends who warned her that she shouldn’t trust him. That he had let her down once before, and would probably do it again. She did listen to Mary who told her that she should give him a second chance, that everyone deserved a second chance. After all, Mary had given her man Paul quite a few chances, and they were still together, more than a year later, slowly but surely, getting stronger. Gigi needed to give Niles a second chance. It was the only way she’d either get him back for good, or get her darn closure and move on without him once and for all.

So here she was, shivering slightly on her steps, looking at her watch every few minutes. Waiting with her heart in her throat. Oh I wish she’d had someone nearby to just thwack her in the head, beat some sense into her, or lock her up in some Rapunzel-like tower. Oh Gigi, when will you ever learn? But no. Gigi’s head was filled with the happiness of the past, not the sadness of it. This always happened to her when someone returned. It’s as if all the hurt caused by them mysteriously disappeared, replaced only by fricking happy thoughts. Gigi was more a Perky Pollyanna than a Moaning Myrtle (Harry Potter fan anyone?).

Just last night, she’d realized that it had been exactly five months to the day since the last time she’d seen Niles. To Gigi that was a huge sign that it was all meant to be, and we know Gigi and her belief (albeit at times a totally misplaced belief) in the importance of signs. Just who sends her these fricking signs, and can he (because it MUST be a he) be sued? Five months ago, Gigi and Niles had made love and told each that they loved each other. He’d even texted it to her in Spanish that day as he left. She’d just taught him how to say it, and there he was texting it. Ironically that was the last time she saw him in person, and just a few days later, he stopped answering her texts and emails, and she was left wondering WTF had happened, and then had to go through the 6 Gigi steps of WTF (explained in the last chapter).

Gigi was feeling happy today because she’d heard several times from Niles yesterday and this morning, so she just knew he would show up, and that he was not going to let her down ever again. How unlike two nights previously… How unlike the way she’d all too soon be feeling, in just a few darned days. The sick foreboding had begun two nights ago, when she’d been totally unable to sleep, suddenly and inexplicably filled with terror, with a sick feeling deep in her stomach, that that she wouldn‘t hear from him, that he just would simply not show up. Have you ever had that feeling? Gigi had felt it a few times in her life, and it never boded well for her.

The reason she’d been so scared was that she’d logged on to the dating site where she’d first met Niles, and she realized that for the first time in five months, he’d read all the messages she’d sent since he’d disappeared. ALL the messages. Too many to admit to. Quite a few sent the first month. Just as many the next month. And then one more in each following month. OMG. And he’d read all the messages in a row. It must have made her look like a real loony, basket-case. She’d immediately gone in to read them, and at least they weren’t ranting and raving mad, nor did they swear at him, and call him everything she’d been tempted to call him. Gigi couldn’t do that to the men she lost. Meanness and spitefulness just wasn’t a part of her character. But just the thought that he had read all the messages filled her with fear. Why the heck had he decided to read them before coming to see her? What if he now changed his mind?

She’d spent that whole summer wondering what had happened. Sending him messages had been the only way she knew to try and move on. Not that it had helped that much. She’d forget about him for a while, until he’d sneak into her thoughts again. Niles had been in the middle of a divorce when they first met, although of course, the cynical part of Gigi had wondered if maybe there had never been a divorce. They’d never met at night, but had only spent days together at her house, so it had never been much of a real relationship, apart from long and happy hours spent in bed, many hours of amazing sex, lots of talking, and cooking together when they got hungry. Niles had been one whom she could never quite forget, and she had never been able to understand how he could suddenly disappear without a word, after almost two months together. So every once in a while, she’d send him a text to his phone, or a message through the dating site where they’d met.

Why Niles finally answered her text on Thanksgiving, five months after disappearing, Gigi will never understand. She almost dropped the dish she was preparing when she saw his reply to her “Happy Thanksgiving.”
He’d simply texted “Happy Thanksgiving. I owe you a lot of apologies and I’m not sure where to start. It’s complicated and we should talk at some point, if that’s ok with you?”
Gigi’s heart had almost literally stopped and it was with trembling fingers that she texted back “Wow. Never thought I’d get that from you. And yes. Of course I’d like to hear the apologies and find out what happened. Otherwise I wouldn’t bother contacting you.”

His answer back was just what Gigi had been hoping to hear from him one day, as he told her “I’m not proud of how I have treated you. It’s the worst thing I’ve ever done. It was all because of my guilt over my son, and his behavior over my wife and I splitting.”
Gigi told him that she had not deserved to be abandoned without a word. That he had hurt her, but that despite all that, she had not been able to stop thinking about him. He immediately texted her “I think about you all the time too.”
Gigi asked him what he was trying to say “Are you saying you miss me?”
His response was “I do miss you. Of course I do.”

Gigi’s heart just flew at that. She couldn’t have stopped it if she tried. Not even if a very gorgeous, black man had appeared at her doorstep, declaring undying love for her, Not even if it was one of her top five dream African American actors: Shemar Moore, Denzel Washington, Mekhi Pfeiffer, Idris Alba, and a new one (who’d just thrown white Southern boy, Matthew Mcconaughey off the list), Morris Chestnut. When Niles told her he’d missed her, Gigi simply melted on the spot. Gigi was always very honest with her feelings and didn’t lie to the men she was involved with. Not about her feelings for them. About her weight and how much she spent on shoes, yes. But if she told them she cared about them, loved them, or missed them, then she was telling them the God’s honest truth. It never entered her mind that a man might be lying to her when he said those same things to her. In her mind, she thought, “Why lie? Why tell someone you miss her, just to get into her pants again?” She just never suspected that, and of course, it was her major downfall in trusting men.

Gigi had always been afraid to ask men what their intentions were, thinking that if they were honest and told her it just wasn’t working out, then the truth would kill her. She had somehow, over the years been able to overcome this fear, and now had no trouble asking men what their intentions were. Ironically, now that she asked this, she received lies that she believed. She asked Niles why he had finally answered one of her texts, and he told her “I thought maybe there was a chance we could resolve this, and I could apologize. Also the fact that you were willing to talk to me at all.”

So when Gigi asked Niles what his intentions were, and his response was everything she’d been waiting to hear for months, then she knew it was all about to start again. He texted that “I would love to be able to try again… I thought you probably found someone by now.” Gigi had to laugh hysterically (too hysterically?) at that. Oh yes, because we all know how lucky Gigi is in the man department. Ok, maybe she is able to find them. Getting them to stay is a different matter. Since Niles had left, Gigi had:

• found and lost three good dating candidates: a poet, a sailor, and a gentle giant (Sounds like a very bad bar joke)
• had some pretty great booty with a few men from her past, and two new men not yet written about, men who would never hurt her fragile heart. Gigi should just stick to booty. It’s honest and never hurts.
• tried going back to her safe 50 year old man Arthur, the one she’d settled for in the first chapter of her memoirs (this has not been written about yet, in case you are busy looking for this in past chapters).
• flirted with men who ran away, were married, or were too busy for even booty… Who could ever be too busy for safe, uncomplicated booty? No wonder Gigi is so thoroughly confused.

Nope. Gigi had not come close to finding someone with the potential to make her fall in love, not the way Niles could have.

For the next few days after Thanksgiving, Niles and Gigi had texted away happily, counting the days (only six) until they’d see each other. The night after Thanksgiving, Gigi asked him just what he had missed about her, and his response further melted her heart. He texted her that “I’ve missed your smile, your laugh, the way you can talk with a British accent… your body and the way you make love to me.” He told her that he’d missed the way she’d bite him (he had such a thing about that) and “the way we could make love all day.” He told her that he “couldn’t forget you although I’m sure you thought I had.” They started texting about what they were dying to do to each other, and Gigi was taken back to those afternoons spent in bed, and how amazing it had always been.

He called her on the weekend, and the minute she heard his voice, and that darned sexy British accent, Gigi was done for. Oh British accents. If she ever meets a black man with a British accent, Gigi will kidnap him and tie him to her bed, and never let him go. The phone conversation with Niles was everything she’d wanted it to be. He apologized several times, told her he’d missed her so much, and that he had never stopped thinking about her. He told her that the reason he disappeared was that he and his wife had told their son they were getting divorced, and his young son had totally freaked out. They had both blanched at his reaction, and had stopped their divorce proceedings and tried to make it work. But making it work was not what either one wanted, if Niles is to be believed, and soon the divorce word was back in their mouths.

As the days until their reunion passed, Gigi tried not to worry about what this new future with Niles would bring her. The romantic side of her told her to believe in him. The cynical side told her to keep on dating men until Niles proved he could be trusted. But the romantic side was winning and the Jekyll/Hyde part of Gigi was becoming more Hyde than Jekyll. No wait, Jekyll was the good one, and Hyde the evil one. Though Gigi swore to herself, that if Niles fucked up, she’d go all Hyde-ballistic on him. She’d fucking snap and kick his sorry British Boomerang arse all the way back to England. Yes Gigi can swear at times, not often, but at times. It’s just that her mami once washed her mouth with bleach when she was very small and said “mierda” and ever since then, swearing is very hard for Gigi to do.

When Gigi freaked out about Niles reading her emails, she’d spent the whole night worrying, and had asked Niles if she was still going to see him, admitting her fears to him. He told her to stop worrying. That he would see her in two days. That he couldn’t wait to see her. That he’d missed her so much, and that this time it would work. And suddenly there was his car, turning the corner, pulling into Gigi’s driveway. And there was Gigi, simply flying off her porch steps and jumping into his arms, as he twirled her around, and held her close. As he leaned down, held her face, and kissed her with the desperateness of one who has not eaten or drunk in days. It was like a magical scene from a movie. They walked into her house and sat on her couch. And it was as though he’d never left. As though she’d just seen him yesterday. As though he’d never hurt her and never again would. They held hands, and talked, and kissed and just looked into each other’s eyes. He apologized again, and wiped Gigi’s tears off with a finger, kissing them softly away as they trickled down her cheeks. He swore that he’d never do it again. That if he freaked out about his son and his divorce, he would simply tell Gigi, and they’d work through it together. He promised.

Now a more wise person than Gigi would have waited before taking it any further. But Gigi had not had someone make love to her since he left. No one in the past five months had made love to her. She’d had some great sex, and she’d even told Niles that she’d been with other men. According to him, he had not been with anyone since Gigi. Again part of her believed this and part of her didn’t. But Gigi didn’t have it in her to stop the longing inside of her. And she simply held out her hand to him and they went upstairs, where they spent the next three hours in bed, and he made such beautiful sweet, passionate, mad, crazy love to her, that at times Gigi was in tears. He told her he loved her, and always had. That she was so beautiful. That he had missed her so much and really wanted to make this work.

Gigi believed every last word. She believed it when he texted her that he loved her just minutes after he left her to go to work. She believed it when he texted her a few times that night. She believed it when he called her the next morning the minute he left work. And then she simply stopped believing it. Because he stopped. He stopped texting. He stopped calling. He let one night go by with no contact, and told her the next day that he’d left his phone at home. And after that text, sent just two mornings after he’d made love to her, he once again disappeared without a word. What’s that famous saying? “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” Well, Gigi felt like the biggest fool on earth to have fallen for him, for his lies, for his absolute bullshit. She didn’t know why he came back. Why he was so sweet and loving for a day after making love to her. If he wanted booty that badly, why text and call after? If he wanted booty, why not stay for more? It’s not as though it could be easy with his schedule to find women willing to spend one morning a week in bed together with no other physical contact, to be content with just a few texts a day. God, when would Gigi learn? She should have listened to her friend Karma, when he gave her famous advice from Maya Angelou “When someone tells you who they are, BELIEVE THEM.” Niles had told her who he was they first time he ran away without a word like a coward. At least men in Gigi’s past had run away with a text, email, or phone call. Only Niles had ever disappeared without a word.

That weekend was desperately sad for Gigi. She avoided face book. How to put up a sad status after days of happy ones. Thank God it was a Helen weekend, but she just couldn’t write about Niles. They went out disco dancing, and Gigi tried to ignore the warnings in her stomach that Niles was gone again. She told herself that he was just busy with his son and she’d wake up to another text from him, telling her his phone had been left at home, in the car, that it had been chewed up and gobbled up by his pet python, that it had mysteriously been kidnapped by aliens. She’d flirted half-heartedly with cute black men, telling herself she’d be all right. That if Niles disappeared, she had two new numbers of gorgeous black men willing to give her all the booty she wanted. But Gigi didn’t want booty. Not really. Not even if it was honest and didn’t hurt. She wanted just one man. One man who wouldn’t run away… one man who wouldn’t lie his way into her heart, enter her bed, and then leave, her heart in tatters around her.



Being with Helen helped. It did. I don’t think Helen had ever seen Gigi feel so low, and didn’t know what to do or say. But being with her was infinitely better than being alone. They danced one night, went out for lunch and to a movie the next night, and Gigi told herself that it was over. That she’d never hear from Niles again. Of course that didn’t stop her from texting him. At first pretend happy texts as though it was ok that she hadn’t heard from him in two days. Then texts asking him what was going on, She received no answers. Gigi and Helen ranted and raved about the jerks in their past. They spent the second night editing their first 8 chapters together, and told themselves that soon they’d be rich and famous and fighting off men. They laughed about a new fantasy story they were going to write, in which Gigi would be a vampire and Helen a mummy, and they’d systematically go after all the men who’d let them down.

I must confess that Gigi shed a few tears, and once again began the all-too well-traveled path of letting go of a jerk who didn’t deserve her. As the day approached that she’d have to write the conclusion to the happy chapter she’d written just the week before, Gigi was filled with a strange mix of shame, embarrassment, and self-pity. She knew that her readers would think, if not say ( god, hopefully not say) an “I told you so” which must be the cruelest words ever invented. Don’t friends realize that we must be allowed to make the wrong choice, make our mistakes, and that all we need, expect and want from them is a shoulder to cry on, and not a smug reiteration of the warnings they’d given?

Mary was the best. She might have been absent from Gigi’s life in the David episode of her life. But she was her strongest supporter this time, apart from Helen (who kindly offered to go kick Niles in a place guaranteed to hurt). Mary sent her the funniest suggestions the day that Gigi had to write about Niles, telling her that she should send Niles a copy of the video “Fatal Attraction” along with a decapitated bunny (a stuffed one, not a real one!! Mary is not sadistic at all). She said that would scare the bejesus out of him, just like it had scared all married men having affairs when that movie first came out. And that he’d soon be calling up Gigi to at least, at the very fricking least, explain that he was sorry, but he’d been scared off again, and just couldn’t get involved in a relationship when still not divorced. Mary even offered to drive to Chelsea with Gigi, where the lying, spineless coward lived, and that she’d quite happily stalk him with her, either at his home (yes, Gigi had found his home address listed on his work website) or at work. She’d even suggested that Gigi should go in for a sleep study, and get Niles assigned as her technician.

Gigi seriously considered it all. Why should he once again get away with using her and hurting her, and getting off stock-free? Didn’t he deserve to suffer? Shouldn’t he have to worry about Gigi and what she could do to his life, that must surely not have the slightest hint of divorce in it? Would it be worth it? For Gigi to snap and go ballistic, and all Glenn Close on him? Maybe Niles deserved that same fate. How funny would it be to send him a copy of “Fatal Attraction” to his home, with a headless bunny in it? Gigi didn’t care if he went nuts on her for this. He’d had his one chance and truly blown it, lying his way all through it. But what was Gigi to do… Readers out there? What do you think? Should Gigi go ballistic? Or should she go once again, quietly into the night? She was just so tired of men hurting her… She was tired of giving them second chances only to be burned again.

In fact, Gigi was highly pissed off. She’d gone from confused right to angry, skipping through her six Gigi steps of WTF. How dare he play with her emotions this way? Mary, pack your things, we are going stalking!! Helen, get your ass-kicking shoes ready… Brie, hop on a plane and get over here asap. Just last week Brie had told Gigi to enjoy Niles until he turned back into a toad. Brie knew about second chances, having given her at times not so funny, very jealous comedian-boyfriend-fiance, Matt, many an undeserved chance. After Brie read Gigi’s chapter on BBB (British Boomerang Bastard), she offered her stallking help. So that’s three. Three friends ready to help Gigi get some well-deserved revenge… Anyone else in? Please send in ideas on how to make him pay and suffer. You will get all the credit and none of the blame. Good thing Gigi just met a hunky Detroit cop (black of course) to rescue her from possible jail. Oh, and she already has arranged a first date with him for this Friday. A real date, at a classy restaurant that has a band that plays easy listening tunes to dance to. And he is HOT. Darned if she’s going to hang around, crying for that idiot. She still wants him to suffer. Suffer and worry and fear for his very sanity…

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About Paquita Roth: Paquita Roth is originally from Spain, where she was a journalist and interpreter for the Majorca Daily Bulletin. She currently lives in Michigan with her two teenage children, and teaches Spanish and English. Writing and dancing are her passions. She is now highly allergic to dating. Check out her blog on dating at http://www.adventuresindating.net

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