Member-only story
Tattered Temptations
Oh, love is an elusive thing sometimes.
Harris had never thought much of romance. Rather than try to get a woman all in a tizzy with subtle mind games, he instead focused on the end result. Being an attentive boyfriend had always eluded him because women rarely fascinated him. And he knew how that would make him sound: more than once he had been thrown a well-timed “you’re an asshole” before the woman in question stormed out of the room.
Shortcomings? Oh, yes, he was aware of them. But somehow most women he met rarely looked past the surface. He was handsome, so of course he would be willing to make them swoon. He was charming, so of course he would have plenty of sweet nothings to whisper in their ears.
Maybe that’s why he was thirty-five with barely a handful of relationships to his name.
“You need to do some internal work or something,” his friend Alisha told him one niht. “Don’t you ever think of how you make these women feel?”
“It’s an exchange,” he said matter-of-factly as they waited for the bartender to bring their drinks. “It’s not my fault the world’s like this.”
“Have you ever thought you’re just aromantic?” Alisha asked, and the word shook him. Needless to say, the idea had turned up in sporadic therapy sessions over the years.
