I am Roadrunner and you are Rattlesnake; I’ll fuck you up.

When a married ex-coworker from another life texts me, “I was thinking about you.”

I sat up in bed, marked my page and closed the book to think what could possibly be my most unsexy response back to stop him on his tracks. He always thinks this is my first fucking rodeo though I’ve outsmarted him time and time again always laughing in his face at his stupid advances. I may not be the prettiest of the birds, but to you I am roadrunner and you are rattlesnake. I will fuck you up.

You eventually text back, “Why? You had to deal with a bunch of IBM programmers?”

“No. I was watching the game last night at a bar.”

What fucking game he was even talking about I didn’t know and didn’t ask. I just wanted to get his predator ass off me. Why, after so many years of not seeing me, was I still a target of his predation? He did meet me at a low, low point in my life, the most unhappiest, but I never led on to that. I don’t think I had a sign that said, “come eat me.” I also know I was not the only one he hoped to pounce on, there was a woman at the company where we worked and she told on him, and nothing happened to him, but later we did hear that he had been fired from high positions at other companies because of SH allegations. Yet he still walks the earth unbothered doing it again and again. He has a wife and children who post about their happy family life. What does he tell her when he gets fired from jobs for SH? My inkling with these women is that they know, but chose to look the other way. In which case makes me hate them more than the husband.

I thought that would be the last of the exchange since I hadn’t given him an in, and then:

“I’m about to get in the shower and if you’re home I was gonna send you some naughty pictures.”

I threw the phone down. “Motherfucker.” I didn’t ask for this, I was happy in my bed reading my book. I think of not replying, but I’ve been in such a situation too many times before, and no response to them means, “yes, please send.” So I had to say something and say it fast before the next text was his dick.

“No, thanks, I’m good.”

“I was just kidding,” he replied.

I am no stranger to these things, but this episode disturbed me more than it should have. I guess because there was zero context and nothing about this rapey, psycho fuck that has ever made me think he even likes me, to him I’m just something to prey on even from 545 miles away. I told my lover of a thousand years about the incident. He said nothing and disappeared, me knowing in my heart of hearts that was it for us and me thinking it’s okay, ‘someone had to finally put an end to it.’ But I trusted the process even if it lasted decades.

The bat then began roosting in my porch. Sleeping head down. The Hanged Man. Though I drove it away with wind and light for fear of rabies, I got its message loud and clear. Transition is in order.

Picture by me of the hanging bat in my porch.