by Rachel Kane
I knew it wouldn’t happen. The proof was standing right here next to our table, the evidence that I was bad at relationships. Nat would see that quickly enough--if I couldn’t hang on to Dr. Perfect, if I somehow managed to ruin a relationship with someone like Harris, there must be something really wrong with me. There ought to be a danger sign around my neck, with flashing lights. Run, Nat, run!
That was probably why I said the thing that was going to wreck everything.
“Harris, meet my fake boyfriend Nat. Nat, this is my neurosurgeon ex-boyfriend, Harris. Now, let us stare awkwardly at one another for a moment.”
It seemed innocent enough. But I saw Nat flinch slightly when I said the word fake, at the same time Harris sort of leaned forward--I had a brief flash of memory, a cartoon wolf leaning forward the very same way, towards an unsuspecting lamb. I wouldn’t understand the full implications of my mistake for a while, though.
“I do think we’ve met,” said Harris, extending his hand to Nat.
Nat looked like he wanted to sink into the booth cushions and never be seen again. I’d seen him looking shy, but never quite like this. “I think so too,” he said quietly.
“So you’re the man with the TV show. We’re all very interested in this plan you’ve gotten Owen into.”
Before Nat could answer, I said, “It’s not a trap, Harris. I’m having a good time, meeting new people...you know, all the things you keep telling me I should focus on, so I don’t spiral into depression?”
“I’m glad to hear it,” said Harris. What was wrong with him? The words were all okay, but his tone was hostile in a way I couldn’t understand. “But I have to ask...is this a date? I don’t see any cameras.”
“Why can’t two people just go to dinner at an overly fancy restaurant without it being a date?” I asked.
Nat had gone pale. He wouldn’t look at me.
The muscles of Harris’ face lifted into a smile; his eyes did not move. “Of course, of course,” he said. “Save the lovey-dovey stuff for the television show, that makes sense. I’ll leave the two of you to it, then.”
We said our goodbyes, and he walked away. Nat was giving me the Is it safe to talk yet look, and I looked out from our booth. Harris passed the booth he and Sergio had been sitting at...and walked out.
“Okay, that was weird,” I said. “Even for conversations I’m a part of, that was weird.”
“I was so uncomfortable!” said Nat. “I worried it was just me.”
“No, Harris is never that sinister. Something’s going on. Fortunately, whatever it is, it has nothing to do with me, so I’m going to brush it off.”
A little bit later, the waiter had brought out our food, and we were both trying to eat, but neither of us had much of an appetite. I looked over at Nat, picking at his food. “Are you okay?” I asked.
“Sure, I’m--”
“Don’t say fine! Whatever you do, don’t end that sentence with the word fine.”
He laughed and set his fork down. “Fine, fine, I’m not fine. I feel weird and ooky inside.”
“I feel weird inside too, but I figured that’s because I had your fat cock lodged in me earlier.”
“Hush!” he said, giggling and looking around in a way that was so innocent that I found it charming. “It’s just...you introduced me as your fake boyfriend.”
“Oh.”
“And said this wasn’t a date.”
My brow scrunched. Had I said that? My memory was fuzzy, I had gotten nervous with Harris standing right there, and maybe I put it that way? “I didn’t mean it that way,” I began. “The thing is, Harris--”
“No, no, I understand. I don’t want to read too much into that.”
“Good, you shouldn’t.”
“But since I’m going to read too much into it anyway, let me just ask...when you announce me as your fake boyfriend to your ex, even though we’re on a real date, and then your ex gets all weird--”
“I hope the question part is coming up soon, because your sentence is very long and complicated.”
“You’re not still after Harris, are you?”
My laugh was really too loud for Cassandra’s sedate atmosphere, but luckily the high booths absorbed the sound. I have to admit I wasn’t totally comfortable with that question. It was absurd, but it had me worried. We were on our first date. We’d just had our first sex. I wasn’t sure I was ready for Nat to build a moat around me to protect me from all outsiders.
Still, the truth was the truth. “Not at all,” I said. “God no. Not in a million years.”
“Whew. Good. Okay.”
“Now can we talk about what happened?” Nat asked me. We’d gone back to the condo to get Mr. Thurgood, and were now walking along the promenade, feeding him bits from the doggy bag. Off in the distance, the lights from the pier were bright and festive, and faint music carried through the warm sea air.
I glanced over at him. Why did I feel so wary? “You mean at dinner? You want to talk about that again?”
“I actually meant, can we talk about the...sex?” His voice dropped on that last word.
“You’re adorable when you’re bashful,” I said. “But yes, if you insist, we can talk about the sex. Once upon a time, I was asked to get a towel for a young man who had foolishly showered without one, when suddenly--”
“Oh, I knew you were going to make a joke of it!”
“Go ahead. I promise I’ll be good.” But I felt a little bit of panic. I don’t mind talking to people about my past, about my many, many mistakes. It’s a lot harder to talk about what things mean right now. I was scared to death he wanted to talk about couplehood, about the vast importance our sleeping together had for him.
I was scared he was going to say he wanted a commitment from me, right here, tonight. It was way too soon for that. Did I have feelings for him? Yes, definitely. Did I know what those feelings were? Absolutely not. It’d take me forever to go over them and then ignore them and try to hide them, only to find them bursting up inside me before I could accept them for what they were. These things took time.
God, what if he asked me to move in or something? What could I even say? I knew I had to protect myself, but what hurt was knowing how I would do it. My instincts were always to make light of the situation, to make a joke...and if I did that, it was really going to hurt Nat, in a way he didn’t deserve.
I had to figure out a mature, grown-up way of saying we had to slow down, that one date and some fucking around did not make up a real relationship. That we should let things take their natural course.
As I was putting these words together in my head, the way to let him down easy, he spoke.
“I was just wondering...I had a really good time, and I want to do it again. The sex, I mean. But I don’t want to pressure you. I know you don’t want to talk about your feelings. But...did you like it enough to do it again?”
“I came twice, and you’re asking if I’d like to do it again?”
“I can’t guarantee you’ll come again. I mean, something horrible could happen.”
My eyes narrowed. “Something...terrifying.”
“It’s just, I’m really bad at flirting.”
“You’re awful at it. I meant to talk to you about that. Maybe you need to take a class.”
“The only thing I’m worse at is asking directly for what I want.”
“And yet here we are, with you asking for more, like a gay porn version of Oliver.”
I was messing with him, yes, but I was also keeping a close eye on him. He liked a little bit of trouble, I’d realized...but he had his limits. Push him too far, and that shyness would turn into affronted dignity, and he’d close off from me. All I had to do was constantly monitor him like he was a nuclear power plant and I was the only safety technician on site.
God, wait, how judgmental was that? What kind of hypocrite was I, to think like that about someone? I was at least as fragile as him, if not more so, in my own lighthearted way.
To his
credit, he didn’t take the bait, although he did shove his hands into his pockets with a look of deep determination. He said, “So you’re okay with the idea of doing it again?”
“Yes. Let’s end this date in the traditional fashion, with lots of fumbling around and tomorrow we can have guilty looks and awkward conversations.”
“More awkward conversations.”
Do you see what I was doing there? Do you see how I kept my distance from him a little bit? I really try to avoid being insightful whenever possible, but I couldn’t help but realize that every time things got a teensy bit serious between us, I’d start making jokes and putting the distance there.
It was crazy, because the idea of going back to bed with Nat thrilled me. I mean, yes, I like things a little more spontaneous than this big planning we were doing right now, but there is this pleasurable burning excitement when you know someone really wants you, and I was feeling that now. It was taking away my powers of concentration. I’m pretty sure Nat said a few more things to me on our walk back to his place, but I wasn’t paying much attention.
“So we’re doing this with no strings?” I asked him when we were back at the condo. Mr. Thurgood, tired from his exertions, had curled up on a pillow Nat had given him.
Nat looked at me nervously. “No strings.”
“Friends with benefits,” I said.
“Are we friends?”
Why did it hurt when he said it like that? Why did I suddenly want to assure him, yes, yes we’re friends, how could you doubt that? I suddenly felt vulnerable, a feeling I hate so much. I felt it all the time when I was seeing Harris, this sense that I had left a door or window open, and the world was going to rush in and hurt me.
I could have answered archly. I probably should have. Made a joke of it, put us back on that superficial level of attraction. But I made a mistake. Instead of a joke, I asked a question.
“You don’t think we’re friends?”
He was fidgeting with the hem of his shirt. “I guess I don’t know. You were quick to bring out the word fake when you introduced me to Harris.”
“That? But...it was true, right?”
“Yeah,” he said. He wouldn’t look at me. “But the date was supposed to be real. And you said--”
“Look, can we just establish, as a rule, that anything I say around Harris has so many conflicting layers of tension and overthinking, that it bears no relationship to reality? That I could basically sit there and recite an alphabetical list of zoo animals, and it’d be exactly as meaningful as whatever I actually said to him tonight? I don’t know how to talk around him, Nat.”
His brow furrowed with concern. “What did he do to you?”
“You say it like he was violent.”
“You called him manipulative, earlier.”
But how could I talk about that? How could I talk about the way Harris had destroyed my ego, made me feel incompetent to lead my own life?
“I just...I don’t know how to describe what Harris is like. All that support he offered me after our breakup. Anyone on the outside would have seen him as the generous, magnanimous ex. But I knew the truth, didn’t I? Harris liked to make people dependent. Liked to destroy them from the inside. It was something I couldn’t admit to myself often, because he was so perfect-looking. Everyone loved him. Everyone wanted him. My having him had just been a fluke.”
“Oh, Owen, no.”
“No, you’re right. It hadn’t been a fluke, had it? He had a purpose in mind. He likes a fixer-upper. I was like your kitchen. A project. Something he could gut, and rebuild the way he thought it should actually be.”
He lifted his hand. His fingers touched my arm.
“The thing I’m so curious about, though, is how can Sergio survive that? Is Harris different around him? Or was it just me? Was I so broken that I required gutting? Maybe I was the only one he had to support like that.”
“You keep calling them perfect, talking about how beautiful they are...but they’re just people.”
“Better people than me.”
“Do you really think that, though?” Now he was rubbing the fabric of my sleeve between his fingers. “You can’t think they’re better.”
“You don’t know how badly I’ve bombed my life,” I said, looking away from him. “Do you know, I have a special plan for every day? I plot it all out. Which days I allow myself to watch a movie. Which day I go to the pier. Every Wednesday during lunch I go to that godawful bookstore and I look at the new releases.”
“What’s wrong with having habits?” He had moved closer to me on the sofa.
“They’re not habits,” I said. “They’re my fake life. It’s me, pretending to have a life, pretending to have interests, pretending I’m okay. I do these things even though I don’t feel like them, because the alternative is to lie down on my futon and never get up again. Even Mr. Thurgood--even my dog, Nat, I only got him because the kind of guy I want to pretend to be--funny, confident, at ease with the world--has a dog! I love him, but even he is kind of fake!”
I didn’t expect Nat to laugh. I mean, I would’ve accepted a hug because I was feeling awful and exposed. I would’ve understood some comforting softly-spoken words. But a laugh?
I looked up at him. He was smiling, but his eyes were sad.
“You’re so ridiculous,” he said. “You beautiful, crazy, ridiculous person. You’re doing exactly what every therapist I have ever been to has told me to do. Rhody tells me, too. Fake it till you make it. If you go through the motions, eventually they stop being motions. You’re actually following the advice I never can seem to manage to.”
“Yeah, I’m the picture of health.”
Nat gestured around his condo. “Compared to this, you kind of are. I mean, Owen, I know you feel like shit. Even when you’re trying to be cheerful, it always seems like there’s this weight on you. Always insisting someone else is better than you. I don’t think you understand how smart you are. How you’ve constructed a life, even though you’re in pain.”
“You’re just saying all this so I’ll sleep with you again.”
“Absolutely! I’m hoping soon you’ll burst into tears, and I’ll have to comfort you by sitting on your cock.”
I pushed him away, but laughed, because he looked so sincere when he said it. “I’m not to the point of needing a pity fuck yet, thank you very much!”
“It’ll be fake pity, if that makes you feel any better!”
Why couldn’t I be hurt and offended? If anyone else had laughed at me, I probably would’ve gotten defensive and weird about it, but instead, here I was smiling at him.
Was it possible I had met the one person who would understand why I felt so fake inside? So empty?
My hand went up and touched his jaw. He was stubbled from not shaving. I had so much more to say. My heart was full of words. Would there be time to tell them to him, to tell him the whole long boring excruciating story of my life, before I pushed him away? I kissed the line of his jaw, the scratchy surface of his beard. I kissed the warmth of his throat.
The first time we had been like hungry animals, rushing at one another. Something was different this time. Maybe it was the fact that I had bared my soul to him. Or maybe it was that he’d felt so insecure after our conversation with Harris, and was desperate for reassurance that I liked him. The reason didn’t matter. What mattered was the way he edged into my arms, until the sides of our faces were touching, his breath warm against my ear. The way his fingers traced the line of my collarbone, then smoothed the edge of my open collar.
His intent, intelligent eyes studied me as our faces parted. I thought in that moment I could say anything to him, any of the dark sad truths of my heart, and find that he accepted them. It was something I had never felt with Harris. Never this acceptance. His support had always come with the price of perpetual self-improvement. Nat didn’t care about improving me. He cared about me. I could see it in his face...at least, I could until my vision blurred as my eyes half-closed and
I kissed his cheek, the side of his lips, just the corner of his mouth.
Such tiny kisses. How could they lead to anything more? Yet his fingers were in my hair, smoothing it, bringing me forward until our lips touched again, his mouth open in a hunger for me I was anxious to satisfy.
He moved again, his legs surrounding my waist, pulling himself onto my lap. We held each other so tightly, as though afraid at any moment the world would pull us away.
How quickly we moved from these more innocent shows of reassurance to something more urgent, more primitive. My cock hardened in no time at all. I was so ready for him. Already picturing him naked, sweating, riding me, taking my cock with his legs wrapped around me. I kissed his throat again, tasted the sweat of his skin as his body warmed to me.
I needed him more than I can describe. It took every ounce of willpower not to rip his shirt open. That’s what I wanted to do, rip it, destroy it, to get closer to his skin. I took it so slowly, unbuttoning him, exposing him inch by inch, making myself wait. It was driving me crazy. I heard him gasp; I looked up, saw his pupils expanding. He wanted me to hurry, too. But he understood how delicious the slowness was. His hands were moving under my shirt, easing it upwards. My skin tingled everywhere he touched. Soon the shirt was over my head, tossed aside, and our chests were pressed against each other. I could feel his heart beat so strongly through his skin.
Even though every instinct in my body told me to rush, to ignore everything but my raw need, I took the time to touch him. I wanted to study him as closely as he had looked at me earlier. We were so different. I kissed his earlobe; it was so soft against my lips. The back of his neck was smooth, as though his hair had recently been trimmed, and I ran my fingers over the muscles of his neck, feeling them tighten as he turned his head to look at me. He had such beautiful eyes, big and innocent, full of questions. I kissed him once over each eyelid.
He began to rise from the couch.
“No,” I whispered.
“Wait,” he whispered back.