THE DECONSTRUCTION OF PRINCE CHARMING

1

It's Saturday evening and you're sitting at a coffee shop with a 15-year-old associate from the fashion industry who just came back from Bora and your music-aficionado writer boyfriend.
It's a Saturday evening and instead of your usual psychedelic tantric stoner sex music techno rave club tripping you're at Kohikan at the Greenhills Promenade, nursing a honey milkshake and asking yourself why the fuck are you here. You've already tipped two-thirds of the honeycomb mud shake mix from your smuggled 7-11 bottle into your drink and still, all you can taste is bitterness. Rule number one of the fucktard club is you will talk about the fucktard.
I'm staring at the back of his head again.
Staring at the back of his head and wishing that I had a pistol to blow it off because he' too busy talking to the girl that he used to have a thing for. My colleague.
My workmate.
My best friend twice removed≈once for sleeping with a rock star I used to date and twice for boasting that he said she was a better fuck at a dinner party.
Used to and yet he's still entranced by her≈and his eyes gobbling up every inch of her that he can see. He drinks her essence≈bathes in her words≈purest whispers of promise.
All because she just broke up with her boyfriend.
He pats my knee condescendingly as if I'm supposed to give a damn. As if he's talking to a child≈ And I think for a split second of ramming my one of my sneaker pump stilettos into his face repeatedly.
So this is what it felt like to be a man-- Irrational, insane and fucking stupid.
And she's talking again.
Talking to me and asking what car I drive now.
I say a Camaro and she snorts≈and for a split second I'm shown her metal Cheshire grin, rows upon rows of braces tainting her broken smile. I want to bash her face in as well.
But instead, I sit up straight like a cat whose fur is bristling on end and I think, I'm bigger than you, bitch. I'm bigger than you'll ever be.
"You mean like in Starsky in Hutch?"
"Yeah." There's a grin tugging at the curve of his lips and I'm thinking of stabbing him again≈ Rule number two about the fucktard club is that you will talk about the fucktard.
We ran into her at Fully Booked accidentally, right after we watched a string quartet concerto at the Music Museum.
He asked her if she wanted to chill with us.
I failed to ask her to leave.
Things fall into place and I'm here.
While as she, she with the Shibuya Ko-Gal haircut and matching clothes, she of the Issey Miyake perfume and Asian ball-jointed doll eyes listens to him talk animatedly about how he's planning to go to Bora as well. And then I'm reminded of a puppeteer making a dummy talk. And talk. And talk.
And talk.
"Are we still meeting up with Erik and Katrina later?" And I swear, I ask this as off-handedly as possible, because really. I just want to know.
And he looks at me as if I just fucked his world over completely.
"Do you want to leave?"
"No, not in the least."
"Hon--"
And my eyebrow quivers for just an instance.
"Don't start."
I think of my heels again, digging into his face, puncturing his skin.
Rule number three about the fucktard club is that you will date the fucktard.