“Huh so I guess it depends what you care about in terms of quality then?” J posits.

 “Absolutely” I say as the credits roll. We looked at each other thinking of how there was something both beautiful and sad about having completed the film we had both waited to find each other in order to see. 

“There’s things that are obviously a lot more interesting to the both of us, namely an artistic ability and counterfeiting centered delusional unreliable narrative story with hints of the usual suspects appeals to the two of us more on the face of it than a big budge David Fincher Satirical man on man romance arguing so hard against masculinity that it almost argues for it if you’re a little drunk when you watch it.” J said smiling. 

Both of us felt happy that we took the time to really take it all in and watch it in its entirety. 

“It would have been a lot more romantically fulfilling if he had just loved Sau Ching for herself… they could have escaped together, they could have had a real life together. J said wistfully. She gave him the choice that she wanted him to take all along, he could have stayed at their shared home in Thailand safe and away from the rest of the world.” J continued. 

“It wasn’t in his nature to be trapped, he thought he was powerful, invincible, but really she had nothing to lose, and he had nothing to gain. Lee couldn’t see that Sau Ching wasn’t into being a Yuan Man replacement, especially when Lee’s relationship with her was a wistful illusion. Unlike the unrequited delusional love interest the two of them actually really had something together and could have been happy just off of that.” I added. 

I looked at her and knew what she was getting at, and kissed her slowly, it wasn’t a moment of deep passion, but a kiss of reassurance, that I saw her, that I continued to see her, that to me she was not an imitation of me nor I her, but that we, together, and apart, if only for a few moments when doing separate things in separate rooms, have and had equal validity as people. 

“Ultimately you wanted a successful love story and instead we got a tragedy in the final act. That’s still beautiful but it’s a different kind of beauty, it isn’t exactly something to rewatch on valentines day, meanwhile people, us included, have seen Fight Club twenty seven times.” J adds knowing we both wanted to see love blossom. 

“It brings up another point that they never made within the film– sometimes an imitation can be better than the original, but what if, firstly there is nothing to actually imitate beyond the appearance of love, ie the relationship Lee had with Sau Ching was real, and the one he had with Yuan Man was a sad boy delusion, meaning there was nothing to actually imitate in the strictest most material sense, and additionally, the point I was originally trying to make, if it’s an imitation, there can be more than one, which there most assuredly wasn’t. I felt happy to give voice to the thoughts I had had the entire time. 

“There’s only one of me, even if it looks like there’s two when we stand together.” J added in a tone dripping with romance. 

The tone itself didn’t match the words that she felt so sensually inclined about. It made me wonder what she was thinking without wanting to ask. I know if I waited somehow, one way or another I would find out and there was a more than decent chance that it would be with her on top of me grinding against me, using my body as an outlet for her sensual wants, followed, hopefully by some waffles. 

As if reading my mind, she had me turn and lay down on the couch pressing herself against me from above. 

J kissed me as she got on top, thrusting against me, eliciting a moan even if this moment wasn’t about me, she wanted to cum, and I was little more than the outlet for it. I was cool with that, the feeling, even jokingly of being used absolutely lit my insides on fire. 

Her grinding became a fever pitch taking me with her as she went along a journey of her own orgasm bringing me right to the edge without much care for having done so in that moment. As she came, I did as a consequence of her own passion. I lay there, head now pressed against a throw pillow as she scampered to the shower mere feet away, more inclined to immediately clean herself than wait for me. I lay there taking it all in, amused, and delighted. 

J quickly came out, still naked, still slightly glistening, and made her way to the kitchen to make a pair of waffles for the two of us while I caught my breath. 

As she walked past, I couldn’t help but add “You used me for sex.” I quipped sophomorically. 

J only smiled. She had. She knew she had and was not going to deny it. 

I didn’t feel the need to pout. I had an orgasm that I hadn’t asked for, but wanted, and now I was getting waffles without having to ask. It seems that J was happy, even fond to do quite a lot of work unprompted, much to my benefit. 

I walked into the kitchen quietly lurking around the corner fully nude, still sweat soaked and watching her fuck with the waffle maker in a lilac apron and nothing else. 

The feeling that I had no need to speak, that I could admire her without interruption or obligation was and remains to be my dream. 

J said nothing. I knew that she could feel my eyes on her, that she was entirely aware that I was watching her all but hidden from the side of the ref. 

There it was again comfortable silence. A feeling of peace washed over our home– contentment. It wasn’t asked for, but it was what we have as a result of ourselves. 

Try as I might I couldn’t help but think of all the people in life, the people that were in my life before this but now no longer are, that kept me from this feeling, they might not have meant to, mostly, but their presence, their need, their putting something of themselves into me unasked and unwanted had kept me from this feeling and now the disturbance in the force had gone without any prompting from me on the subject. It felt nice and it felt free, better or maybe worse yet I wasn’t really sure how to take it or handle it or even do more than simply acknowledge that it had happened. 

I wasn’t used to it. To feeling absolutely anything more than a half-realized need for work and control of myself and my environment, to feelings, to having actual deep-seated emotions that I couldn’t simply banish with more work.

I also wasn’t used to company, to having a separate person in my space for extended periods of time, but of course, being my doppelganger, admittedly a prettier, better version, even if only by way of a single trait, J never set off my social battery, she was free to walk around, to be with and around me and never make me feel like I’d rather be well and truly alone. 

It’s sort of unexpected, the things that, despite wanting, and having always wanted a relationship there are things that arise that you don’t expect. I recall, what felt like my first serious relationship and a sense of responsibility, or maybe, really, more so a sense of obligation to that person that I recall very deeply resenting. It hadn’t made me want a relationship any less but the feeling that “I had not signed up for exactly this.” was quickly replaced by the realization that at the time and to the person I had in fact signed up for exactly this and only until I had lived it for myself did I realize what it well and truly really meant and the difference between a real life relationship and the awkward mewling paper-thin thing that passes for one within the context of a romantic comedy. It made me yearn for something that stretched beyond the narrow confines of most “Done for laughs” style romantic situations that arise in rom coms. Despite that I wanted to watch one, no scratch that I wanted to watch them all, I felt the urge to very deeply familiarize myself with romance, and the romantic genre, as well as comedy and get to the point where I felt familiar enough with it where I legitimately felt the same thought that had me start writing in the first place. The thought I yearned to earn is “I can write this better.” 

J looked at me, excitedly, entertained, as I made my way back to the couch while she, unasked, brought me a waffle and pulled out a folding table that I hadn’t owned the day before. 

“I know that look, and I know what that little spark means.” J all but whispered to me. 

She turned on Netflix and browsed around looking for and finding The Ugly Truth and No Strings Attached, before seeing and deciding to skip The Notebook. 

I looked at her and I wanted to ask, “Don’t you get like this about things too?” but before I could give voice to my words, she caught my eye and nodded. 

“Ah yea, the sameness.” I said with glee, thinking the same line from The Giver.

“You should add 2:22 it might give you some ideas and be a bit more to the point that you’re trying to make to yourself, you know, or we could binge Grey’s Anatomy.” J added fully aware that I was going to immerse myself fully in the romantic side of the romantic comedy genre in order to do this, striking out on a whim, going against the project idea that I had been wanting to complete in the next week in favor of some shiny new thing, but then realizing that this welcome and decidedly more narrative based distraction could add another dimension as well as keeping me on track to ultimately get done all of the things that I wanted to get done. 

I was tangentially aware that if I was going to do this I would at some point be served well by swinging back around to the comedy side of things and adding “Do The Right Thing.” into the queue, not because I thought that it was funny, I wasn’t focusing on that right now, but because as Roger Ebert said it was a movie about race that empathized with the people going through it. 

In a moment my feeling crystalized into a thought that I wanted the tools to properly express. 

“The problem with romantic comedies, or either of the two components of the subgenre really, is that it seems largely as though they fail to empathize with the characters going through it.” I met J’s eye and felt moved having been able to express it, to feel it so deeply and for reasons unknown to me able to say it right then. She helped, she aided in my process in a way that I had never had before. 

“Add that Nicholas Cage movie about the writers where one brother replaces the other and has to grow marijuana to save the town.” J added, despite it not quite being what I had in mind I obliged her and added both Adaptation and Leaves of Grass to the queue. 

“That isn’t one movie, it’s two movies, but it serves a greater and more interesting point and adds a black comedy to the mix, so we may as well make this an entire exploration on the concept of Genre.” I added, leaning into her, thankful she had opted for a folding table rather than some sort of tray so I could lean in and cuddle up with her rather than flipping a tray with a syrup-covered waffle in it because I forgot myself for a moment because of romance. 

She leaned back into me and kissed my lips for just a moment. I sighed content with our situation.