by Rachel Kane
I felt myself cringing, and hating myself a little bit for cringing.
“Wait,” he said. “Hold on.”
“What?”
“You look like you’re about to bolt. Like you’re about to have one of those I’ve got to get out of here moments. In ten seconds you’re going to come up with some excuse for leaving because I’ve made you uncomfortable. So I’m saying you don’t have to do that. I’m changing the subject.”
“To the fact that I’m about to flee in terror? Is that a good conversational topic?”
He laughed. “To anything else. I don’t want to make you freak out! I’ve already done that once today! Remember how you walked away in a huff? It looks like you’re preparing to do it again.”
I sat very still for a moment. “Holy cow, you’re right,” I said. My whole body was in fight-or-flight mode.
“You don’t have to go away. We don’t have to talk about you going away, either. This isn’t some ploy to delve into The Psychological Health of Nat.”
“That’s a relief. That’s too dark a topic for a sunny morning like this.” I looked down at my coffee. “You know, you’re surprisingly insightful.”
“For a shallow person?”
“I mean...well.”
His laugh filled up the whole diner. “You meant it! You think I’m shallow!”
“No! No!”
“It’s fine, it’s just so funny to hear you say it outright!”
“I didn’t say that!”
“Surprisingly insightful. See, it was the surprise part that gave away your true meaning.”
“Oh god, are you mad? I didn’t mean anything by it.”
“I’m not mad at all! I have carefully cultivated my aura of superficiality! It honestly saves so much time. Nobody expects a deep opinion from you. Nobody expects you to be considerate.” His smile faded. “Maybe that last part isn’t such a good thing.”
“You’ve been very considerate today.”
“Surprisingly so?”
I shrugged. “Let’s agree not to have any more deep topics in this conversation, okay? I don’t want you to run away either.”
“Awww. That’s very sweet.”
“Conversations are so hard,” I said. “That’s why I’m a wallflower. I’m not sure what to talk about. People...they’re like minefields. You don’t know what will offend them, or hurt them, or make them laugh at you.”
“Yeah, but everybody knows that. Everybody understands it. That’s why ninety percent of what we talk about is inconsequential. How was your day? Do you like this dress? Did you see this kitten video online? I mean, we’re all scared of talking about stuff. I’m just more honest in my shallowness than they are.”
“Then let’s have a nice, shallow conversation.”
“Very well,” he said. “How was your day?”
“It was long and arduous, and I’m already wishing I could go to bed, and it’s not even noon yet.”
“Again the terrifying specter of bed creeps into your speech. You must have had safe, comforting dreams last night, to be so eager to return to them.”
I froze. I blushed. I looked away, and couldn’t make eye contact.
“What just happened there?” he asked.
“What? Nothing. Everything is fine.”
“Oh no,” he said. “I’ve touched another nerve. You’re like a walking model of the nervous system. I’m sorry, I didn’t realize dreams were off-limits too. Were you--”
“It’s not that they’re off limits! We can talk about dreams! Like, I’m always dreaming that I’m back in high school, and it’s so stressful, like there’s a test I have to take, and I haven’t studied.”
“I think we all have that one. In mine, I’m in college, and the entire semester’s grade depends on it, and I suddenly realize I haven’t been to class in months.”
But the look he gave me was significant, like he knew I was covering up something. I could almost see his mind working: Nat suddenly froze when I mentioned dreams. Ergo, he has had a dream he doesn’t want me to know about. What sort of dream would Nat not want me to know about? A sex dream?
“What’s weird about those dreams,” I said, hoping to keep him distracted, “is that you never actually take the test. I mean, the dream never really follows through. It’s all about the anticipation. Maybe you’d get to the test and do fine. But the point of the dream is the fear, the worry.”
He raised a curious eyebrow. “That’s strange. I’ve never thought about it that way. But you’re right. I think I’ve had maybe one where I actually saw the exam, and instead of words, it was all these dancing squiggles.”
“Right. But did you finish the test? Did you fail it? Were there any repercussions?”
“It never got that far. Wow. It really is all about the fear. Is that a deep insight, or is it one of those things that feels deep just because I’ve never thought about it before?”
“Sometimes I try to tell myself that a lot of my thoughts are like that,” I said. “Lots of fear about something that never ends up mattering.”
His phone interrupted us. It dinged, and he checked his texts. “Oh, great. It’s my boss, wondering why I’m missing.”
“Oh no, are you in trouble?”
“Nah, it’ll be fine, but I do have to get back. I’m sorry. Right when we were in the middle of an interesting conversation!”
It was almost a relief to know he was leaving, so I wouldn’t have to constantly be walking this tightrope with him, this fear of saying...what? That I found him attractive? That I wanted to go on an actual date with him?
“We’ll catch up this afternoon,” I said. “I’m sure Joan will want to film you saying all sorts of outrageous things.”
“Forget Joan,” he said, staring right at me. “I want to hear more about your dreams.”
He knew. I shivered and watched him as he turned and walked out of the diner. He nodded at me through the window once he’d gotten Mr. Thurgood untied.
He knew, and I was doomed.
11
Owen: Lying about Lying
Work was exciting and vibrant, a real adventure, which I will now describe in detail.
Just kidding. It was a dull blur, like if you accidentally dropped an earring into a vat of pudding at one of the buffet places the tourists go to, and then spent another six hours swirling your spoon around in there trying to find it.
The one thing on my mind was Nat. Not work, not Harris and Sergio, and not Kitchen Miracles. Nat.
What a weird conversation we’d had. I felt like he was trying to tell me something the whole time, something secret that he wouldn’t admit aloud. Was I reading too much into things? It had been such a relief to apologize to him, to get back to normal. I discovered in that last conversation that I really liked talking to him. He was so funny...not necessarily joke-ha-ha funny, but behind that shy exterior lurked someone with a wit and charm wanting to come out. You just had to peer closely to see it.
Not to mention his blushing! I’d never met anyone so easily moved to embarrassment. It made me want to say the most scandalous things to him, because I knew he enjoyed it even though he wanted to look like he didn’t.
What a strange man.
I am being very innocent here. Because while I was thinking about all that at work, what I was really thinking about was, what was Nat like in bed? Would all that tentative shyness fall away, leaving a mighty warrior in its place, ready to smite someone with his cock? Or would he seek to embrace someone in that shyness, a warm, tender (but sweaty) slow-fuck that took all night and left you exhausted but feeling closer to anyone than you ever had before?
Not that I would ever find out, because I was pretty sure he saw me as a superficial troublemaker who couldn’t be trusted enough to date. Hah, date was such an old-fashioned word. What was I expecting, Nat to invite me to the drive-in for a black-and-white movie?
What was I expecting? What was it reasonable to expect? Should I just...make a move? Would he flinch an
d run away? Or would he be all hells yeah and rip off that shirt he had buttoned all the way to the top? Or would he be rational and say, I’m sorry Owen but you’ve proved that you’re too unstable for relationships, much less one-time hookups?
Of course, if I asked him, I’d be risking the fakeness of our relationship. I don’t mean that the relationship would be real--it was really premature to think about that, wasn’t it?--but that it would put the show in jeopardy, because what if things were really tense between us? Even more tense than they’d been when I’d made up his history. Things might fall apart, and then we’d be so embarrassed, on national television.
Or maybe we’d have a quick fuck and be mature adults about it, knowing it was a one-time thing with no repercussions, and could get on with our lives after it.
While I took phone calls and answered emails and filed advertising orders, I drew a series of dicks on my pad of paper. Long ones, skinny ones, curved ones, big fat ones spurting, little shy ones tucking away. Some had hair, some were bare, some poked into a derriere. I hadn’t sketched this many penises since high school, and at some point, I realized what I was doing, and flipped the pad over really quickly before anyone saw.
I spent the whole day half-hard, thinking about taking a quick break to go jack off, but damn that would be rude at work. Although then I started to think about what would happen if Nat were here...maybe we could take each other over the desk, or maybe--so as not to be rude at work--we’d run off to the bathroom and he could hold on to the sink while I fucked him.
I swear I don’t usually think such filthy thoughts at work. I just couldn’t help it. Something had happened in that conversation, something had changed.
Purifying my thoughts, I somehow survived the rest of work, and Mr. Thurgood and I went on our scheduled rounds, picking up a new chewie for him at the pet store, and grabbing my usual after-work doughnut. Only this time I picked up two, one for Nat.
The condo was buzzing with activity. “Oh my god,” said Nat, thrilled to see me, “come in! Come look at this!”
It was hard not to notice the cameras pointing at us. Joan turned her attention from her crew to her tablet: She was watching us.
“I brought you doughnuts!” I said, trying hard not to look at the cameras or say anything regrettable. Everyone was so smiling and happy, and Joan was giving me a gesture, like brushing me and Nat together. Oh. That’s right. Happy couple. I leaned towards Nat and gave him a quick kiss.
His eyes went wide. I think mine might’ve been too. Then he looked at me speculatively.
“For the show,” I whispered.
“Oh,” he whispered back, nodding. He leaned forward and kissed me back.
It wasn’t quite as quick as mine had been. It lingered, just a little bit. His lips were so soft.
I was in so much damn trouble. I think I might’ve just stood there thinking about kissing him again, silent and dumb for a few minutes, if he hadn’t taken the bakery bag with a smile and said, “Come look!”
His kitchen was a wreck. It almost didn’t even exist at this point. The counters were gone. Sink, gone. No more cabinet doors. Weirder, the floor had been ripped up so that there were just tar-paper and the subfloor showing.
“Wouldn’t it be funny if they just left it like this?” I said.
“Hilarious. They’ve been prying and unscrewing and ripping all day. Tomorrow they start putting new stuff in. It’s kind of exciting, isn’t it? Look, you can see over there where water had been dripping into my downstairs neighbor’s place. You know him, I think...Marcus?”
“Yeah, I know him pretty well.”
Why were we talking about the downstairs neighbor, when all I wanted to do was kiss Nat again? But there were still people all around. They were pretty busy, although several took the time to greet Mr. Thurgood, who accepted their love with solemn dignity.
We took our doughnuts to the couch. In the short time it took to reach it, I made up my mind: I was going to ask him out. Just get it out in the open. See if he was on the same wavelength.
“I can’t believe this is really, finally happening,” he said, and my brain tricked me into thinking he was talking about us. Then I realized he was referring to the kitchen.
“They’re making a lot of progress.”
“And my water is back on! We can shower!”
“We? Together? Taking this fake relationship a little far, aren’t you?”
I only meant it as a pleasant joke, just a way to keep the mood light.
Who am I kidding? I said it to gauge his reaction, and his nervous laugh gave me no information at all. He concentrated really hard on his doughnut for a few minutes. There was a little of the glaze sticking to his lip, and I swear it was going to drive me insane. I wanted to lick it off his lip. I wanted--
“Joan has some more interview questions for us this afternoon,” Nat said.
“I’ll try not to make up too much crazy stuff.”
“Hopefully it’ll be less about our pasts, and more about our present. What we do for a living, that sort of thing.”
I raised an eyebrow. “What do you do for a living?”
“Didn’t I tell you? I’m an associate operations manager in charge of quality metrics.”
“I...what?”
“I make pretty spreadsheets and charts for a living.”
“Fascinating. Tell me more about these spreadsheets.”
“Well, some of them are pretty extensive, like there’s this one--oh, wait, you were joking.”
I laughed. “Of course I was! I can barely figure out what my own job is, aside from begging local businesses for money for ads. I’m like one of those panhandlers out by the pier.”
Joan came in. “Are you boys ready for more questions? Oh, Nat, what have you been eating? Go wash your face, dear.”
I wanted to look my best too, so I grabbed my toothbrush and followed him into the little bathroom. “Look at us, cleaning up together just like a real couple,” I said.
“Hah,” he said, in a hollow voice.
I looked at his face in the mirror. “Nervous?” I asked.
“Is that weird? I mean, no offense, but after this morning, I’m scared. Maybe we didn’t plan enough. Maybe we should’ve made some lists of information. Like, those people who get married to get a green card, I hear they do all this planning to keep their stories straight--”
“Nat, will you go to dinner with me tonight?”
He blinked and was silent for a second. He looked at my reflection. “You mean pick something up--”
“I mean like a date. You and me. Away from the condo and the show and the fake part of all this.”
“With me? You want to go out with me?”
I wanted to do more than that with him, but better not to scare him off just yet. “Yes, with you.”
“But the show--”
“You can say no. It’s okay. No harm will come to the show if you don’t want to. I just thought--”
“I will.”
“You will?”
“It caught me off-guard when you asked,” he said. “I’d been trying to figure out a way to ask you.”
My heart gave a little leap. “That’s settled then. Now wash your face before Joan comes in here and spanks you.”
“I’m so amazed,” said Nat. He looked more confident this time. He kept his eyes on Joan rather than the camera. “With everything ripped out like that, suddenly I see the potential of the kitchen. It doesn’t have to be grim after all! Wait, is it okay to say grim? Will the viewers not like that?”
She shrugged. “The editors will snip it if they don’t like it. What about you, Owen, how did you feel when you saw how they’d gutted the kitchen?”
The look she was giving me made me uncomfortable, a knowing, ironic look. I was supposed to have real feelings about the kitchen, after all, I was allegedly living here too. But it just looked like another room to me. I was too busy panicking about the upcoming date. I’d asked him out, great, yeah, but n
ow what? Now that it was actually going to happen, what would I say, what would I do? Nat was deeper and more complex than I was. What if I bored him? What if I annoyed him by keeping things light and superficial? What if halfway through dinner we realized there was no spark, and then we knew we had to grudgingly pretend to be together the rest of the week? I really worried.
But everyone was looking at me, including the camera. I swallowed. The lights were so bright on me. They were hot. The room felt thirty degrees hotter than it should have.
Then I felt Nat’s hand slip around mine. His fingers squeezed me. It’s okay, you can do this, he seemed to be saying. Or maybe it was, You already told the world I have lupus, why are you nervous now?
He spoke for me. “One thing Owen always complained about was the cabinet doors. He likes to get up in the middle of the night for a glass of water, and in the dark, he wouldn’t realize the doors had swung open, and pow, he’d bang his head into them.”
Finally, my tongue was able to work. “It was awful,” I said. “You’d be sitting here late at night, and hear one of them open, all by itself, creaking on its hinge. For the longest time, I thought the condo was haunted.”
“So, when you see that progress is being made...?” prompted Joan.
I understood she needed a particular kind of response for the show. “So when I see that progress is being made, it’s like an exorcism! I can finally walk in there at night without a helmet!”
It was a weak joke, but at least it elicited a laugh from everyone.
There were a few more questions, but honestly, I don’t even remember them. I do know that I didn’t give Nat any more diseases, and from his smile at the end when Joan said her goodbyes and promised to be back early tomorrow morning, I knew I must not have embarrassed him too badly.
After the last of the crew left, and Nat closed the door, he turned to me and said, “Where do you want to go?”
“Let’s go to an Actual Restaurant,” I said. I scritched Mr. Thurgood about the throat. “I think my friend here is mature and responsible enough to stay on his own for a few hours, is that correct?” His little tail thumped in agreement.