98/100
To some people, soaring through the sky like an eagle or standing over a beautiful view represented freedom. Not me. I've flown before, plenty of times actually, and heights are nothing new to me. I was still caged by Him even when I was flying, it was just an invisible kind of cage.
It's mundane stuff that represents freedom: a bowl of cereal, a pizzeria, a photobooth. Never in my life can I remember being allowed to have cold cereal for dinner, but Vicious routinely eats a big bowl of it after a hard day of work. Some nights the two of us come home exhausted, share a huge bowl while watching the evening news, fight over who gets to drink the milk, then fall asleep together on the futon.
But tonight wasn't that kind of night. Tonight we dressed up in street clothes-- worn out jeans and a leather jacket for him, heels, a short skirt, and a sweater for me. He drooled looking at me but warned me it wasn't going to be fancy. I didn't care. This was going to be my first real date ever, and I wanted to look good.
It wasn't really what I expected a date to be like. I had a romanticized notion as a little girl that dates were full of red roses and wine and fancy dinners and waltzing. But if that's what makes something a date, I had gone on hundreds of those with Him-- so I don't think that's what a date is anymore. To me, a date is two people who like being together going out and having fun.
So for our first real date, he took me to his favorite pizzeria. Giovanni would have died! It wasn't authentic at all, but everything tasted fresh and amazing. He laughed at me when I smothered my pizza in parmesan cheeses and crushed peppers, and I laughed at him when the toppings on his slice of Surpreme Meat Worshipper Deluxe slid off the slice. Then we kissed, and then we made out, and then we almost got kicked out of the restaurant for inappropriate behavior. Almost. After all, it was just a little groping...
After we'd boxed up our left overs and gotten rid of them by giving them to some homeless bums, we went to the mall and people-watched. We're both naturally observant anyways, given the nature of our jobs, so we made a game of it. But the best part of the whole night was the photobooth. He barely fit, but we must have gone through at least ten sets. We posed, we kissed, we even tooksome really silly pictures. But when we were done, we divided up the pictures and kept them: his went in his wallet, mine went in my folding mirror in my purse. I wanted to save my memories of this night forever.
Maybe that's something other people take for granted. I hope some day I'm one of those other people, if so. It's nice not to have panic attacks over whether or not someone will go through my purse and discover pictures of me kissing someone. It's nice being able to have sex in the wee hours of the morning if we want and not have to rush and worry about whether anyone's noticed me missing or not. It's nice not having to make him pull out anymore. It's nice falling asleep on his chest after a couple of amazing orgasms.
It's nice to have a date that doesn't involve ordering delivery and me hiding when the driver arrives. I think that has to be the opposite of freedom.
Ha, I could write a book about freedom if I felt like it. I would call it something epic, like, "The Real Meaning of Freedom" or "When You Can't Find Freedom by Flying You're Taking Life Too Literally." Or something. But I'm lazy, so I'll probably just stick to keeping a journal. Anyways, that's another freedom I'm taking advantage of. I finally have a journal no one but me is allowed to read.
Because if Vicious touches it, I'm going to kick his ass into next Wednesday. I have the freedom to do that now, too.