Author Archives: Raul Felix

She Held Her Newborn Daughter In Her Arms

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She held her newborn daughter in her arms.
Tiny, delicate, pink, precious, amazing, perfect.
Dead.

They had just met! How could this be?
She thinks back to the moment she found out it was a girl.
The possible names she and her husband considered,
How she would examine and caress her ever growing belly,
Eager to meet the little person who was growing within.

What kind of person would have her daughter been like?
What would have her voice, tantrums, and laughter have sounded like?
What would have been her first word?
What would have been her favorite toys, songs, and activities?
This she will never know.

She held her newborn daughter in her arms.
Beautiful, pure, lovely, light, innocent, soft.
Dead.
She isn’t ready to have her leave this embrace,
She holds her a bit longer.

She sees a dove flying as she walks out the hospital,
That little piece of herself is gone,
Will she ever be whole again?

~Raul Felix

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Why Do You Struggle?

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There are those days when you wonder,
Why the fuck are you even going through the struggle?
You’re making no progress,
Wheels spinning,
Failure after failure,
False start after false start.
Perhaps, it’d be better to call it quits
Settle for mediocrity.

Mediocrity isn’t that bad,
You can have a nice quiet life,
Full of normal experiences and things,
The typical shit.
Be another man who didn’t really matter.

It’s disgusting to think of your fate in that manner isn’t it?
That’s why you struggle.
Because its better to burn attempting greatness,
Giving it your heart and soul,
Than it is never have done much at all,
And wonder, “What if?”

~Raul Felix

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12 Things Only Veterans Of The Global War On Terrorism Will Understand

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SGT Brian Kohl, 55th Combat Camera, US Army

SGT Brian Kohl, 55th Combat Camera, US Army

There are some things about the deployment experience that will cause a veteran to look off into the distance as he quietly remembers those days in vivid detail. There other are things that he will totally forget until something random sparks his memory and causes him to shake his head at the silliness of it all. This is a list dedicated to those little nuances about being deployed that you can’t experience in the real world.

1. The Smell of Iraq

One of the most significant moments a soldier has is when he gets his first nose full of the thick Iraqi air. It’s a smell that’s nearly impossible to find anywhere else in the world. A combination of burned garbage, desert heat spoiling everything, spilled sewage, and the Cradle of Civilization getting old and senile.

2. Rip-Its

An off-brand energy drink that came to be the go-to caffeine infusion for many a troop before a mission. Got the call to go hit an objective? As you head toward the ready room, you’ll always make to sure to take a quick stop at the MWR (Morale, Welfare, Recreation) facility in order to grab one or four 6-ounce cans and put them in your cargo pockets. You never know if this is going to be a simple three-hour mission or an all-nighter. Best to carry a full battle load.

3. Pirated Movies From the Haji Bazaar

Through the generations, boredom has always been a major enemy for the man on the ground to fight off. With the nonexistent copyright laws of the Middle East, American troops have found themselves able to procure full series of their favorite TV shows for only a few bucks thanks to enterprising Hajis eager to make a semi-honest buck. Whole squads and sections will partake in marathon viewings of The OC, Scrubs, Lost, and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. They’ll form educated and fully developed opinions and theories on the show’s characters. It becomes a huge annoyance to get called up for a mission in the middle of a particularly juicy episode.

4. Piss Bottles

You’re en route to a mission in a helicopter or a Stryker. Those Rip-Its you drank are going right through you, and you’re not even close to getting to your objective. Since you ain’t no cherry, you came prepared for this event. You take out the Gatorade bottle that also doubles as your spitter. You unbutton the front of your pants, slightly hunch over, shove your dick in the bottle, and take a piss that fills it to the top. You seal the top. As you get on target, you toss it into pile of garbage on the side of the road. There’s an off chance that a Haji kid will think it’s just yellow Gatorade and drink it.

5. Care Packages Filled With Useless Shit No One Wants

Teaching a rather insightful lesson of good intentions does not always equal good execution, the MWR facilities will at times be packed with care packages from well-intentioned people eager to get rid of their useless shit. The occasional care package will have goodies such as fun-sized Snickers, Hot Cheetos, Gatorade powder packs, and other shit you actually want. Others will contain generic Halloween candy, pocket Bibles, crappy disposable Bic razor blades, some cheap electronic mini-game that breaks five minutes after you start playing it, and a coupon book that expired six months ago.

6. Unintentionally Grim Cards From Kids

A good way for a kindergarten teacher to fulfill her patriotic duty and kill an hour of class time while she nurses her hangover is to have her students draw and write up cards in crayon to send to GIs overseas. The GIs will receive a crude drawing of stick figure soldiers shooting at shit and tanks that also have wings while shooting out flames and random stars plastered throughout with captions such as “Tank U for my Fredum Solgier, pleeze don’t lose yor legs,” or “Kill people with towels on their heads. USA!”

7. Rushing To The Chow Hall After A Mission

“Fuck, I’m starving. If this mission isn’t over soon, there is no way we are going to make it back in time for mid-rats. Fuck, today is Mexican Monday. My favorite!” many a Joe has thought to himself while on target. Chow is always on a soldier’s mind. In fact, having hot chow is one of life’s pleasures he’d never willingly miss. Since this is the Global War on Terrorism, there is a surprising amount of food variety cooked by cheap Filipino and Ethiopian labor.

“Holy shit, we have five minutes before chow closes,” Joe will announce to his buddies as they get back to the compound. Covered in sweat, dirt, and mud, the whole platoon will rush to the chow hall to ensure they don’t have to wait until breakfast to get their next meal.

8. Hard Drive Full of Porn

Unless you’re in a unit with females, you’re not going to be getting any pussy whatsoever if you’re deployed. Yet you’re a young, testosterone-filled freedom machine with a sack full of semen that needs to be released at regular intervals. Advances in technology have not only made quality porn cheap and accessible for the masses, it’s quite common for a soldier to have a whole external hard drive full of porn geared toward his own deviant desires. With his laptop and jack-shack you make out of your bunk bed with some extra sheets, you’re ready to give your privates some hands-on action. Or if times are truly desperate, you can always go jerk in the Port-A-Potty.

9. The Deployment-Eight

Just because you aren’t getting any pussy doesn’t mean you won’t see females. If fact, you’ll see them throughout the installation doing various jobs. You’ll see the occasional prize specimen of femininity, but more often you’ll see chicks you wouldn’t fuck with your buddy’s dick. A couple of months of not having any sexual contact with females will have you creating elaborate fantasies about that one Air Force E-6 you always see at the chow hall with the buck teeth, horrible acne, and a totally flat chest. Yet she does have a big ass that even a military uniform can’t hide. Oh, what you wouldn’t give to have those cellulite-covered ass cheeks bouncing off your dick.

10. Overhearing Your Buddy Argue With Their Significant Other On The Phone

“You’re a fucking stupid cunt. I’m going to fucking kill you and that motherfucker when I get back home,” you’ll casually overhear one of your buddies say to his significant other as you use an Army computer to Facebook-stalk chicks you used to like in high school. Since you’re doing some rather important stuff for national security, all forms of communication you have with the rest of the world are being monitored. This means that there is very little privacy when it comes to telephone conversations that everyone in the room can hear.

11. The Smell of Haji

The locals have a uniquely foul body odor to them. Whether it’s because they live in a shit hole and can’t shower regularly, their diet, or other social/economical factors that we don’t understand, there is no denying it. You can smell a local from ten to fifteen feet away. Wearing leather gloves is mandatory on missions, so it helps out when you have to handle a Haji from point A to B. Their smell will funk up your gloves for a day or two.

12. Scraggly, Feral Dogs of Various Breeds

There are many feral dogs of nearly any kind of breed you can think of roaming the streets of Iraq. They’ll travel in packs digging through rubble and garbage looking for something to eat. You’ll see little Yorkshire Terriers who answered the call of the wild running alongside German Shepherds and Labrador Retrievers. Most of the dogs are not pure breeds and are so deeply intermixed that you can’t even begin to guess what type of breed they are. The dogs will usually avoid American troops, making them smarter than your average terrorist.

~Raul Felix

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An Army Ranger Interviews A Navy SEAL On Resilience

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What is resilience? It’s not something you can buy off the shelf. You can’t pout until it’s given to you, either. You acquire it by doing the most human of things: struggling. In this struggle, it’s essential that you keep fighting through and driving on, whether you have succeeded or failed in your goals. Each time you go through the process, you become a bit more resilient.

Eric Greitens is a former Navy SEAL, Rhodes scholar, and founder of veterans organization The Mission Continues. He has written a book on the subject: Resilience: Hard-Won Wisdom for Living A Better Life. In a series of letters to his SEAL comrade who struggles with depression, alcoholism, and post-traumatic stress disorder, Eric seeks to break down the elements that make for a resilient life so he can help out his friend and, in turn, others.

Raul Felix:
Eric, your organization, The Mission Continues, puts post-9/11 veterans to purposeful work by leveraging their already established experiences, skills, and giving them additional training. This is a bit contrary to what other organizations have done, which focused on giving veterans goodies with no long-term value. When did this idea come about and what does your organization do?

Eric Greitens:
Our wounded and disabled veterans had lost a lot. Some had lost their eyesight. Some their hearing. Some had lost limbs. All of that they would recover from. If they lost their sense of purpose, however, that would be deadly. I also knew that no one was going to be able to give them hope; they were going to have to create hope through action.

I wanted to welcome returning and disabled veterans not just with charity, but with a challenge.

So I donated my combat pay to begin a different kind of veterans’ organization, and two friends contributed money from their disability checks. My plan with The Mission Continues was to offer fellowship for veterans to serve at nonprofit, charitable, and public benefit organizations. We would provide veterans with a stipend to offset cost-of-living expenses and with mentors to help them build plans for their post-fellowship life. Most importantly, we would provide them with the challenge and the opportunity to rebuild a meaningful life by serving again in communities here at home.

Raul Felix:
In your book, you mention three forms of happiness: Happiness of Pleasure, Happiness of Grace, and Happiness of Excellence. All three are needed. Many veterans, especially the ones who get out in their early or mid-twenties, fall into the trap of overindulging in pleasure with alcohol, drugs, unscrupulous sex, and other whims in order to get that emotional high they experienced while on mission. I know I did and still do. Why does focusing more on excellence, which is way harder, lead to a richer form of happiness?

Eric Greitens:
I think that—most simply—the happiness of excellence leads to a richer form of happiness because it involves growth. When we push ourselves and engage in activity that leads to excellence, we exercise our power—and this leads to growth, to mastery, and—in time—to achievement. All of that deep engagement with the world creates joy along the way.

In addition, part of what makes this happiness richer is that, often times, our efforts actually make others happy along the way. You, for example, know that it takes a lot of effort to write a good piece. As you write more, you become better at your craft. At the same time, your writing offers something to others. And if this is true for you, you’ve got a great combination—inner growth and outer service.

Finally, I think that the happiness of excellence is often richer because it helps to provide us with a sense of direction and, over time, a sense of purpose. When I think, for example, about the kind of happiness that’s available to the man in your poem, “Keep Moving, Young Man,” we both know that the happiness of pleasure might offer a moment of relief, but afterwards a guy like this might plunge even deeper still. If, however, he had a sense of direction…if, however, he felt himself getting better…if, however, he felt like he was making a contribution to others…that might—over time and with lots of hard work—lead him to a different place altogether. And that’s the great promise of the happiness of excellence.

Raul Felix:
You mentioned that “The naive mind imagines effortless success, the cowardly mind imagines hardship and freezes, the resilient mind imagines hardships and prepares.” We were taught in the military that you have to have a contingency plan in case things do go wrong. When you acquire a veteran fellowship, what do you do in order to ensure they are prepared and do succeed?

Eric Greitens:
That’s a great question. We try to apply all of the lessons in the Resilience book to make sure that they have the best chance of success. So, for example, we make sure that they have mentors to learn from, models to follow. We create counselors to guide them, friends to aid them, and there is a curriculum that they complete, all designed to help them to build the mental toughness and to develop the sense of purpose that are necessary to make it through a tough time.

Raul Felix:
You have a whole letter dedicated to friendship. I agree that having good friends is one of the great things that makes life worth living. My friends have been there for me and have bailed me out of physical and legal trouble more times than I can recall. Also, real friends will call you out when you’re messing up your life, business, or just plain being an asshole. Can you give us a recent example of when your friends have helped you out?

Eric Greitens:
Of course. I run a small business—I started it when I came home from Iraq, and I’m proud of it. It provides a good living for my family and for the people on the team. A few months back I had a guy who worked for me—a guy I’d given a lot of opportunities to—who lied to me and stole from me. That’s a gut punch. I called a friend [to replace him] the next day. He was at my house two hours later, and he’s been with me now every day for over seven months. My company is so much stronger than it was before—and we got there because of my friend and the incredible people on my team. It’s a classic Resilience case: I never would have wanted it to happen, but in retrospect, I’m actually grateful that it did because it made us so much stronger.

Raul Felix:
Part of the allure the military, especially Special Operations Units, has to young men is that whole transformative process. It pushes you to your physical, mental, and emotional limits. It has the power to test you and make something more out of you than you were before. If not the military, what other rites of passage do you think would a young person need to go through in order to earn the same amount of pride and sureness of oneself?

Eric Greitens:
A rite of passage usually marks a transition from one phase of life to the next. When you join the military, you literally step off of the bus, and *bang*, you’ve got a drill instructor yelling in your ear and you’re in a whole new world. You’ve come to a place that is meant to transition you from a citizen into a citizen-soldier/sailor/airman/Marine who is built to serve others.

Going to college usually marks a transition, as does entering a monastery, getting married, or having a child. You move, in each case, from one phase of life to the next. You become a husband or wife, a father or mother.

For young people looking to develop pride and confidence, there is only one path: self-created success. You will know you are good and strong when you have done things that are good. Achievement can take place in the art room, on the athletic field, in an auto body shop, in your business, on a farm—and achievement can take many many different forms. But true confidence comes when we grow, when we learn, when we master new skills. Almost everything new can be frightening at first, but with the right kinds of experience, we grow in courage.

That’s why resilience is an essential virtue; you can’t grow without it.

Raul Felix:
You’ve done quite a bit with your life. You’ve been a Rhodes scholar, humanitarian volunteer, Navy SEAL, and you’ve started a great non-profit organization. A lot of people would look at what you’ve accomplished and think they can’t hope to reach that level of excellence and may be even intimidated by it. Obviously, everything you’ve accomplished was a result of your own hard work and resilience. What last bit of advice would you give to someone who is young but hasn’t really done much with their life in order to get moving toward the right path for them?

Eric Greitens:
Well, thank you, Raul. That’s very kind of you. I’ve been fortunate to work with wonderful people along the way.

What I say to young people is this: You have a contribution to make. You have something to offer. And to develop your own sense of purpose, do two things. One, stay humble. It’s important that we remember that every person is better than us in some way. Every person has something to teach us. So learn from people around you. At the same time, be bold. Try new things. Attack hard problems. Do the tough stuff. Push yourself. If you can be humble and bold at the same time, you’ll create something beautiful.

~Raul Felix

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4 Things That Security Contractors Love To Spend Their Money On

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The Global War on Terror has offered unique career opportunities for American veterans that past wars have not. The US military’s inability to recruit enough troops to fill the mission requirements in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other sites throughout the world has created the need to hire private security contracting firms.

Being a private military contractor allows a combat veteran to grab some of those big bucks that are usually reserved for those in the upper echelon or technical side of the military-industrial complex. Since well-paying jobs on the home front are hard to come by, it makes perfect sense for a man who was willing to fight in a foreign land for less than $20,000 a year to become a shooter for a six-figure income. If you’re one of these men, you come back with quite a bit of money in your pocket after doing a contract or six. How should you go about spending it?

1. Getting a sweet ride.

Now that you’ve spent a few of the best years of your life in a shithole country being the personal security for some faceless executives of Tax Payer Money Funnel Incorporated, you’re ready to live out your own dreams—unless you’re a closet hipster who has wet dreams about owning a Prius, which signals to the world you’re trendy, environmentally conscious, and gay. It will include one or all of the following: a truck, a badass sports car, or a motorcycle.

You’ve been stalking the vehicle that catches your fancy for months. Checking out every color and trim variations. Deciding which features and extras you must have: sound systems, limo tint, grills, and lift kits. You know what? Fuck it! Just murder that motherfucker out. Should you put 24s on it? You fantasize of cruising down an open highway with your hands in between the thighs of a hot brunette sitting in the passenger seat in a tank top who is barely able to contain her breasts and singing along to the latest Taylor Swift hit single because you’re confident enough in your heterosexuality to listen to pop music without irony.

You’re finally able to strut into a dealership like an OG gangster with cold, hard cash. You’re not playing any games; you’re getting the car you want.

“I have $XX,XXX cash,” you say to the shady salesman who is eager to take as much of your money as possible. “You will give me this car, at this price.” He’ll then try to swindle you by saying they don’t give special cash discounts. You’ll then be like, “Hey Broseph, I ain’t no dumb private just out of Basic that you can financially rape with your 18.99% APR loan you’re able to secure through a subprime lender because I got a secure job in the military. I’ve been contracting and doing my research. You’re going to give me the car I want, with the specs I want, in the color I want, and at this fucking price.” You then drive away with a gangster lean in your car because you just dick-slapped the dealership.

2. Taking a vacation that fully indulges your vices.

Sure, your friends and family back home will be eager to see you and have missed you dearly. But if you have learned anything from your years when you were in the military, it’s that being home on leave is pretty lame after two or three days. All your friends and family are doing their own thing. Even if you do show back up, you’re not really going to see them more than once or twice. Why sit around in your hometown where not much has changed when you can take a trip to a foreign place where the foreigners aren’t trying to kill you?

Wolf Of Wall Street

Wolf Of Wall Street

If Hollywood and music videos have taught us anything is that it’s standard operating procedure to celebrate your newfound riches with scantly clad women in an exotic location while snorting mountains of coke and popping piles of Viagra to combat chronic erectile dysfunction. However, since you’ve spent the last few months around men, your game with females may have suffered. No worries; the time-honored profession of prostitution is there to make sure you have someone who will pretend to care about you for the allotted amount of time that you have bought her. Make sure to hide your drugs.

Perhaps you’re not the hookers-and-blow type. Perhaps you’re the drinking copious amounts of alcohol, brooding by your lonesome, thinking to yourself how everyone in the bar seems like a pussy and you miss hanging around real men, awkwardly hitting on chicks, and then falling asleep as you jack off type. No matter; you’ll have a way better time in foreign places where your American brutishness will be considered a cultural flaw rather than a personal one.

An extravagant vacation may not give you any tangible assets, but it will give you life experiences. Think of all those stories you’ll be able to tell while you’re pulling security at your next contracting gig to break up the monotony of everyone bitching about who they think are total cocksuckers on the contract and bragging about how hard they were back when they were in the military.

3. Embracing your right to bear arms.

You can’t spend all your money on cool toys, travel, drugs, and hookers; you need to be an adult and make a responsible investment. A gun is an asset that assures the security of the rest of your assets. It insures that any person who intrudes upon your person or property will get two in the chest and one in the head.

As much as freedom haters will protest, gun ownership is your right as an American. You risked your life for this country not just selflessly in your military service, but for personal profit when you became a mercenary—I mean, a security contractor. You’re the embodiment of patriotism and capitalism, two major principles in our mighty nation.

Now it’s also crucial that you just not have enough to arm yourself, but everyone in your household, and two or three of your closest friends. When Obama causes a nuclear holocaust, currency won’t be stocks or deeds, but weapons and ammo.

4. Getting yourself out of the rat race.

OK, you’ve blown your money from your previous contracts, but this time you’ve learned your lesson. You can’t keep on deploying anymore. You hate being away from your wife/girlfriend, kids, or dog. You need to figure out how to make your money work for you, not the other way around. While the pay is great, this isn’t a long-term career. You have to make plans for the future on the off chance that the zombie apocalypse doesn’t happen.

You’ve sacrificed and put a lot at risk for the opportunity you have now. You can use your money to start that business you’ve always wanted to start. Or invest in real estate to create a steady stream of income. Or learn a new skill set that actually has a market in the US.

You earned the money; whatever you do with it is up to you. You’ve been broke before and now you’ve gotten a taste of what making real money feels like. You know having money is awesome and it allows you to buy the things and experiences that make you happy to be alive. But it’s also a trap to keep you coming back for more and more. With a little smarts and a bit of luck, you can figure out how to have a sustainable income instead of being caught in the up-and-down cycles of being contractor-rich.

~Raul Felix

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For This One Day, She Made Me Forget

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She met me at an English pub in Toronto.
It had been almost two years since I’d laid my eyes on her.
She walked through the door, saw me, hugged me, and sat at the bar.
She was as pretty as I remembered.
Pale skin, petite frame, curly hair, freckles about her face.
My ex-girlfriend.

We talked awkwardly at first,
My legs were shaking, my hands flailing in conversation,
I was stuttering and mumbling.
It was tough to resist the urge to kiss her right away.
I deeply wanted her.

We slowly grew comfortable with each other again.
Talked, teased, and flirted like we used to.
I went in for a gentle kiss,
I looked into her eyes,
Then I pulled her close for another.
Her lips had a calming effect on me.
We ate dinner and though she was hesitant,
She agreed to go back to my place.

The next morning I awoke to her by my side.
She was wearing my T-shirt, work-out shorts,
Her hair a mess, reading glasses, and no makeup.
Beautiful.
She was watching a TV show on her laptop,
I scooted closer and lost myself in her.

It’s as if the past two years never happened.
I was back in her room in Jerusalem.
Where the winter cold would cause her to seek my body for warmth.
Where the summer heat would have us waking up in sweat.
Where her cat would attack my feet in the middle of the night.
Where we would take long walks exploring the streets, bars, restaurants, sites, and parks.
Where she grew to understand me more deeply than any woman has.
Where Orthodox Jews, Muslims, soldiers, tourists, pilgrims, merchants, and stray cats appeared on all corners.
Where she was mine.

We got ready and headed out for the day.
I felt it in my chest,
A dam of repressed emotions,
Finally allowed to be free,
I would win her back.
We will have new memories, new inside jokes,
New adventures, new fights, a new life.
She’ll be mine again, and I’ll never let go.

It hurt her to say,
That she no longer felt the same way.
It hurt her to say,
That she could no longer see herself with me.
It hurt her to say,
That she was sorry but needed to make the best choice for herself.
It hurt her to say,
That she didn’t love me anymore.

I walked her to the subway station,
Held her close, kissing her forehead.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
She nodded.
“I really do love you,” I said.
She looked up at me.
“You don’t have to say it back,” I told her.

She boarded the subway,
I saw her through the window,
Never taking my eyes off her,
I waved at her and she waved back,
As the cart left
I blew her a kiss.

As I walked, tears I’d held back started rolling down my face.
For this one day,
I possessed the happiness I once had,
For this one day,
Life seemed full of possibilities,
For this one day,
I had felt whole again,
For this one day,
I had forgotten I was alone.

~Raul Felix

You can read more of my work at Thought Catalog.

She Was Traveling Through My Country

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1SheWasTravelingThroughMyCountry

She was traveling through my country.
Olive skin, long silky hair, deep brown eyes,
full lips, quirky smile, physique of a Disney princess.
We walked down Hollywood Boulevard,
sharing bits and pieces of ourselves,
she was interested in my experiences, my family,
my ideas, my writing, and my goals.
In me.

She was traveling through my country.
She carried herself with dignity, but without pretension.
sweet with a biting wit,
She gave me half her dinner and bought me a beer.
Every time she spoke, my heart melted.

She was traveling through my country.
She had a man back home whom she respected.
Though she couldn’t be mine that night,
she gave me something more valuable:
Hope.
That the type of woman I desire does exist,
That I am able to get her attention and interest,
That all the work I’ve put into myself is paying off.
She was traveling through my country.

~Raul Felix

I Was Hot For Teacher But Late For Class

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I loved staring at her small, maroon-colored lips as she read aloud to the class from The Catcher in the Rye. Her brown eyes would shift from line to line in the those squared glasses. Light freckles were sprinkled on her cheeks. Her long black hair would drop past her shoulders all the way to the small of her back. At times, she would wear it in a bun or pigtails.

She would step out from behind the podium exposing her outfit for the day. Her style was neither trendy nor outdated. It was professional and nerdy while maintaining her artistic flair. I’d occasionally catch a glimpse of her neck tattoo. No matter how conservative, no outfit could conceal the shape of those huge breasts. I would imagine squeezing them, sucking them, and using them as pillows. She’d give me a boner at the most inopportune time—right before the bell rang so I would have to put my hand in my pocket to hold it down and hide it as I walked out of class. Later on at night, my mind would fill with thoughts of Ms. Salazar as I masturbated.

On Valentine’s Day, her desk was piled up with roses and flowers that other male students brought for her. The single rose I bought, pathetic in comparison, was lost among them.

My friends and I would speculate about her.

“You think she has those nice little nipples or those ugly pancake types?”

“No fucking way, man; she for sure has little, half-dollar-sized pink ones.”

“I’m sure she has a little landing strip on her pussy. I like that.”

“You’re a fucking virgin; you don’t know what you like.”

“So are you. I’ve seen plenty of porn, and I know what gives me a boner.”

“How are you going to fuck her?”

“Doggy style and then cum all over her mouth.”

“Ha-ha, no you’re not. You don’t even know how to talk to girls. You’re only going to fuck her after I fuck her. You can enjoy my sloppy seconds.”

“Fuck you! She’s mine!”

She was only there for a semester. She was a student teacher working on her credentials. On her last day she gave a sweet goodbye speech and thanked us. After class, I went up, said I’d miss her, and gave her a hug. I wouldn’t see her again for ten years.

“Hey, man,” I said to my best friend Sleazy-E, “remember I told you about the teacher named Ms. Salazar I wanted to fuck in high school?”

“Yeah?”

“She’s in my summer chemistry class.”

“What’s she doing there?”

“I guess she wants to be a nurse or some shit now.”

“Does she remember you?”

“Yeah, I reminded her she was my junior-year English teacher, and she said she thought I looked familiar.”

“Are you developing a scheme to fuck her?”

“Of course.”

The plan of action was to play the long game. It would be a multi-stage operation. I’d acquire her as a lab partner and then a study partner. When time permitted, I’d work in bite-size pieces of humblebrag—but not so much that I’d stir any suspicion into my ulterior motives. With these little kernels of Felix propaganda, she would be impressed by my unique set of life experiences since we last met, how well traveled I was, and that I have lived in foreign lands. She was an English teacher who loved to read books, so she would also see I have the deep creative soul of a writer. I got this covered. Just need to play it cool and not fuck it up.

I am one hour late to meeting her at Starbucks for our study session. She was already there with another fellow student. We are two weeks into the class, and I was already fucked. I just failed our first exam. I was going over some of the rudimentary stuff we had learned during Week One trying to catch up. We take a little study break.

“So you have a boyfriend now or what?” I ask.

“Yeah, we’ve been together for four years,” she says.

“Oh, shit—long haul, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“What does he do?”

“Well, not much of anything. He’s kind of in a weird spot in his life. He’s really smart. But he is slacking on completing his master’s degree. He only needs a few units, yet he keeps making excuses.”

“He doesn’t have a job?”

“No. He’s also never lived on his own.”

“How old is he?”

“Thirty-five.”

She continues to give me more details about him. I make the educated conclusion that I’m not going find out whether she has half-dollar-sized or pancake-sized nipples or whether or not she has a landing strip in the foreseeable future.

A text message awakes me at 10:37AM.

“Why aren’t you in class?” asks Ms. Salazar.

“I’m too far behind. I dropped it.”

“:(”

One Friday night a few months later, I’m working as a bouncer at one of the bars on Main Street in Huntington Beach. I’m performing my job with the utmost professionalism while scrutinizing every female specimen that enters the establishment to borderline-creepy degree. Amid the crowd in the dim lights of the bar appears that petite little body that I spent many an English class ravaging in elaborate daydreams instead of paying attention to the class discussion. I walk up to her.

“Heather!”

“Raul!” she says as she gives me a hug. “You work here now? You still in school?”

“Yeah, just a few classes, but I’m focusing more on my writing now. I even had one article go viral.”

“Ah, good for you! I remember you told me about that. I never got around to reading it.”

Then a guber appears from the shadows, hosting a drink for Ms. Salazar.

She introduces him: “Raul, this is my boyfriend.”

“How you doing, bro?” I shake his hand.

“Good,” he says.

I talk to her a bit more and walk back to my post. I never expected her boyfriend to look like such a dirtbag. His demeanor reeks of fecklessness. His dirty blond hair spills sloppily from the brim of his sweat-stained baseball cap that he wears backwards. His slight belly protrudes over an ill-fitting shirt. An unearned sense of self-worth is plastered on his shit-eating smirk. I continue comparing and contrasting us visually; I am superior to him in every way.

“I need a man, not a boy,” she had said to me during the study session. “Someone who has his act together.”

I recall all the things I’ve done to be a self-sufficient man since I was 18. I’m superior to him in that regard also.

I had admired Ms. Salazar as a woman of high intelligence, good taste, and sound decision-making skills. But this healthy dose of reality smashed those delusions. She was as flawed as any other chick I’ve encountered. She was just another woman: driven by emotions and love, even if it involves a man who’s a piece of shit. I may have been superior to her man in all aspects, yet he had me beat at the most important one: He got to her and won her heart first. Sometimes, that’s the only quality a man needs to have.

~Raul Felix

You can read more of my work at Thought Catalog.

Watching You Get Dressed Again

Posted on by Standard 4

You’re walking around the bedroom, freshly showered with towels wrapped around your body and hair. I’m lying on your bed, observing your every move. You bend over and dig through your drawer and scoop out a pair of panties. You pick my favorite pair—the hot pink ones with the black laces. The towel hits the ground, exposing your petite body. You slip on your underwear one foot at a time, stumbling. I laugh.

“Oh, shush,” you say.

You’re looking through your closet, trying to pick out an outfit to wear. I’m staring at your ass, a slight red outline of my hand still imprinted on it from when we fucked earlier. You can’t decide what to wear, so you reach in and grab a bra. It doesn’t match your panties, but that zebra pattern makes your already perky breasts pop. I get up, hug you from behind, feel up your chest, place my lips on your neck, and begin kissing you.

“OK, OK…I have to get ready, baby,” you giggle.

I slap your ass and go back to lying on the bed. You’re frustrated by your closet’s inability to provide anything worth wearing today, so you start rummaging through your roommate’s selection. After much deliberation you find a blouse that fits your fancy. It’s black and perfectly complements your torso’s curves. It covers most of your ass, except for the bottom portion. Glorious.

“Come here,” I say.

“No, I have to finish getting ready.”

“Come here,” I direct you with my fingers.

You approach me and I firmly place a hand on each butt cheek, then kiss you and bite your lip.

“This is why it always takes me forever to get dressed when I’m with you,” you tell me. “All you want to do is touch.”

“Fuck, yeah, I do. You turn me on.”

You struggle to squeeze into your tight blue jeans, scooting them up your legs a few inches at a time. You zip up the fly and fasten the last button. Oh, God, those jeans—the way they hug your thighs, then run snugly all the way to your pussy. It shows off your ass in its full, wondrous splendor. I always stare at it when you’re walking ahead of me.

Your hair has had time to dry off. You remove the towel and toss it on the ground. You lean over to one side and vigorously begin to brush your hair, doing your damnedest to remove all the knots and tangles. You switch off to the other side and repeat the process. You put in some product and your curly hair begins to shine as you brush, brush, brush until it’s sculpted to your liking.

You powder your face. A slight rose color on your cheek contrasts starkly with your pale skin. The eyeliner is skillfully applied around your eyes that are at times green, at times brown, and in the right lighting hazel.

“Sweetie, should I put on red or pink lipstick?”

“Red!”

“You always want red.”

“Then why the fuck do you ask me?”

You smile at me with your red lips. Now it’s the arduous task of choosing which pair of shoes to wear. You know we’re going to be doing a lot of walking, so you skip the high heels. After much thought, you settle for your tried-and-true pair of black slippers.

“Well?” you say to me. “Are you going to get ready? All you’ve done is take a shower and you’re still in your shorts.”

“Give me a second.”

I take off my shorts, grab my pair of jeans from the ground, and put them on. Then I reach into my backpack and put on the first T-shirt I touch. I quickly slip on my socks and shoes. I go to the bathroom, brush my teeth, rub on some deodorant, and run some gel through my hair.

“Alright, mi amor, ready to go.”

~Raul Felix

Read more of my work at Thought Catalog.