The Three Kiss CLause

by Harlan, Christopher

  “Shosh, I promise I’ll tell you more when there’s more to tell. You have my word. That’s not why I was calling.”

  “Alright, alright,” she interrupts. “But can you at least answer those two questions?”

  “What were they again?”

  “Are you sleeping in the same bed, and did he ask to kiss you?”

  “No and no.”

  “Well that sucks. I’m bored now.”

  “Shoshana, focus!”

  “Sorry, sorry. What do you need?”

  I explain the situation. I sound like the most selfish friend ever, but I need her to drop whatever plans she had and get to Long Island asap so we can go to a bar with this strange man who’s now my fake boyfriend, and one of his friends.”

  “Done!” she says without missing a beat. “Is that all? I thought something was really wrong.”

  “You mean besides this situation?”

  “Oh, stop, Captain Negative. If I remember correctly this was your idea to begin with.”

  “That doesn’t make it a good one. It was just. . . necessary, but I don’t actually want to live with this man for four weeks. We don’t even really know each other, and what we do know about one another we don’t like.”

  “Sexual tension.”

  “What was that?”

  “You’ve been going a little hard for this project, don’t you think?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “And we know why—because being published will help me bring my message to even more of my listeners.”

  “I know, I know, your book. But it’s more than that, admit it.”

  “I will do no such thing,” I say, wondering how we got on this.

  “You don’t have to, but I’ve known you the longest of anyone in your life outside of your family, and I’ve never seen you like this with a guy—even one you pretend to hate.”

  “There’s no pretending going on.”

  “Oh, come on, you can’t fool me. You’re attracted to Mr. Publisher Man. You said he was really hot.”

  “He is, but that’s not the point.”

  “That’s always the point, Tori. But I’ll let you get there on your own—that’s what friends do.”

  “No. Friends get their ass on the parkway within the next hour so that they don’t get stuck in gridlock traffic, so that they can accompany their best friend and her fake boyfriend to a bar.”

  “Done. Let me go. Text me the address and I’ll GPS it.”

  “Thanks again, see you soon.”

  I go back inside and see that Cormac is diligently unpacking. He has no idea that in just a few short hours I’m about to unleash the force of nature that is Shoshana on him.

  Cormac

  Of course I just moved in with an anal-retentive freak—and I don’t mean ‘anal’ or ‘freak’ in a good way.

  While she was outside I started unloading my stuff, and by unload I mean I started to drop my crap in the Cynthia’s husband’s empty drawers. I hear the front door close, and now that she’s back in from calling her friend she starts to unpack. There’s nothing unusual about that—it’s how she’s doing it.

  When I look over to her side of the room her open suitcase tells me everything I need to know about this experience—there’s not a thing out of place in that little box—her socks, her shirts, everything folded more neatly than I ever could—or than I ever would. I mean, who needs their socks folded so perfectly? They’re matched, folded in half, and stacked with the others in neat little piles. As she unpacks, she takes each sorted pile out, never dropping anything, and putting everything in carefully thought out positions in Cynthia’s drawers and closet. She looks like she’s handling rare glass instead of some shirts and pants.

  When she’s done with that little ritual, that’s when suitcase number two comes out—and that one is way bigger than the first one, by the way. “More clothes?” I ask.

  “Nope.” Once she opens it I see more shoes than I’ve ever owned in my life. Besides the sheer number of them, I’m impressed that she got all of them into that small space. No exaggeration—there might be twenty pair. I tried to count but stopped after she saw me doing it. “What?” she asks. “What’s your problem?”

  “No problem,” I say. “But you have a few pair of shoes right there.”

  “Keen powers of observation you have there.”

  If she wants to play sarcastic tennis I have an awesome return of serve. “You know, for a woman who hates gender stereotypes so much, you have a lot of fucking shoes. It just seems a little too on the nose for you.”

  “You’re right,” she says, to my total surprise. “I guess some stereotypes are true.” I can’t believe my ears. Are we actually turning a corner here where she admits she’s wrong about something? I get too excited for what I think is the first reasonable thing I’d heard her say since I met her, and then she ruins the moment completely. “You know, like you wanting to know if you could kiss me all the time. That’s pretty stereotypical, don’t you think?”

  Uhhh! I should have known it couldn’t just be a nice, easy exchange, that she would have to get me back. I guess I should pay less attention to her and do my own unpacking. I don’t answer her back, I just smile and grab my bathroom bag.

  I brought a few essentials—nothing crazy—but it looks like she brought her whole medicine cabinet from home, along with everything in her shower, and she may have stopped at CVS for a few extras on the way over here. There are a million little lotions, body washes (what the hell is wrong with good, old-fashioned soap?), a razor (at least she shaves—you never know with these radical feminist types—probably thinks armpit hair is some kind of liberating act), and more things than I can even count. She even has this plug-in thing that makes the room smell like. . .

  “What is that?” I ask.

  “A scented plug-in.”

  “No, I know that. I mean, what scent is it?”

  “Lavender,” she says.

  “Lavender?”

  “Yeah. It smells good, right? I suppose you think that’s a stereotypical female thing to say.”

  I throw my hands up. “I didn’t say a word. All good with your friend?”

  “All good. She’s going to meet us there at 9:30. Who are you bringing, your brothers?”

  “Hold your roll there, sweetheart. Meeting the family is another phase of this little game. We’re still in phase one.”

  “Excuse me?” she says, her nostrils fuming like a Looney Tunes episode.

  “I said, meeting the family...”

  “Nope,” she says indignantly. “Not that part.”

  “Which part then?” I’m pretending to not know exactly what she’s talking about, but I do. I wanted to see if pet names were going to fly.

  “Don’t call me sweetheart, okay? While we’re at it, don’t call me anything except Tori.”

  “You know, boyfriends call their girlfriends things like ‘babe’ or ‘baby’. And despite what you think, pet names aren’t some male conspiracy to subjugate woman. They’re. . .”

  “What?” she asks.

  “I was going to say that they’re meant to be endearing. Some might even say sweet.”

  “Well I’m not a fan, but I’ll meet you halfway. In public, and only in public, if you want to throw a ‘babe’ out there, I’ll fake a smile. That’s the best I can do, but don’t push it.”

  “Fair enough. And in private, and only in private, if you get the urge to have crazy animal sex with me, I’ll fake a moan or two. Best I can do. And feel free to push it as far you like.”

  She just looks at me — that look you give the crazy guy on the subway who whips his dick out while you’re taking your morning commute to the office. She doesn’t even make a comeback, she just rolls her eyes. “This is going to be a long four weeks.” She turns her back and goes into the bathroom—probably to organize her fifteen little bottles of lotion.

  While she’s in there, I look over at her mostly empty suitcase and my eyes go as wide as melons. Look at
what we have here! Sitting at the bottom of that suitcase is some of the hottest, skimpiest lingerie I’ve ever seen. That’s shocking enough, but sticking just outside of the lace bra and panties is a big, fat dildo. Holy shit, maybe there’s more to this girl than meets the eye. When I hear her coming back I look away and pretend like I didn’t just find a huge fake dick in her suitcase. God, all sorts of thoughts start running through my mind at the same time.

  “Almost done?” I ask.

  “Pretty much.” She looks over in my direction, then down towards her almost empty suitcase. Even though she doesn’t realize that I saw, she realizes that at the very least I can see her lingerie. She scrambles to cover it up, slamming and then locking the suitcase so that I won’t see—even though I already did. “Done, actually.”

  “Great. I’m going to run into the office to catch up on a few things. Are you going to stick around here?”

  “Yeah,” she says. “I’m going to get used to the place. Watch some TV. Maybe write a little.”

  “Make yourself at home—Cynthia’s home, anyhow. I’ll text you the address of the bar and we’ll all meet there at 9:30. That work?”

  “Perfect.”

  “Oh, and to answer your question, my old college buddy Maxwell is in town. He’s been asking me to hang out for a few days, so I figured why not introduce him to my new girlfriend and one of her friends.”

  “You told him about me?”

  “I sure did. The way I figure, if we can’t convince someone who’s never met you and never seen us together that we’re boyfriend and girlfriend, then this whole thing is a waste of time. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  “You have a point. . . I guess. I mean, you have a point.”

  “See, sometimes I’m not just a dumb man. I hit a home run every now and again. I’m gonna run, remember to be convincing later.”

  “Don’t worry, it’ll be an Oscar worthy performance. Meryl Streep won’t be able to hold a candle to me. I’ll see you then.”

  “Alright,” I say, pulling the front door shut. “Bye, babe!”

  I don’t wait around to see her response.

  As I get in my car and pump the a/c up to high, I think about the bottom of that suitcase. Why would she bring such sexy lingerie here? I expected straight granny-panties, but I see that she’s full of surprises. And that big fake cock? I wonder how many miles she gets out of that thing.

  Maybe she’s a closet freak. Or maybe she wants to be, but doesn’t know how to tap into that part of herself. I guess I’ll find out soon enough.

  Heading to the office may occupy my mind for a little while until it’s time to meet her at the bar. We’ll see what happens tonight.

  Tori

  I wait in my car, nervous for no reason.

  I literally talk to millions of people each week on all of my social media platforms, but meeting my fake boyfriend’s college friend at a bar is somehow filling me with anxiety. I take a few deep breaths and wait for Shosh.

  Shoshana: I’m here. I just parked next to you.

  I look up from the text and turn to my left. Nothing. Then my right. Shoshana is smiling and waving like a little kid. I wave back and smile. Shoshana’s always positive. I’d never tell her this, but I envy that trait, no matter how much I make fun of it—like I’m about to. “Took your meth before coming here, I see.”

  “I’m high on life. Don’t be a hater. Where’s your man?”

  “Don’t call him that. He’s not my man. He’s. . . I don’t even know what he is. But definitely not my man.”

  “Fine,” she says. “Your fake man, then. Where is he?”

  “Should be here any minute with his friend.”

  She perks up when I say that. “Friend? You didn’t mention any friend? Who is he and what does he look like? Is he hot like Cormac?”

  Shoshana’s never met Cormac, but I—can’t believe I’m admitting this—I stole a picture of him while we were in the house before he left. He was lying back on the couch in nothing but a tight-fitting tee shirt, and it framed his chest perfectly in white. His hair was messy, the way I like it, and he was leaning his head back. I took out my phone like a stalker and stole a pic. I was stupid enough to have left the sound on, so a giant camera ‘click’ sound came on.

  “What was that?” he asked. “You taking pics of me for later?”

  “There’s that crazy ego of yours rearing its ugly head again.” I was making fun of him at the time, but he was totally right. If only he knew. I texted it to Shoshana right after with a heart emoji in the text.

  Back in real time, we’re waiting just outside the bar. “I don’t know if the friend’s hot or not, but it’s not like a double date situation. I don’t think it is, anyway. He made it seem like this was. . . what did he call it? Oh, right, phase one. What does that even mean?”

  “My dear, sweet Tori,” she jokes. “So much to learn.”

  “So teach me,” I tell her. “What’s phase one?”

  “I’m pretty sure he’s talking about the phases of a relationship. I guess he wants friends to meet you before you meet his family. How it works is that you normally start with with lower risk situations and people and then build you way up to the important ones. Like, who’s this friend?”

  “Cormac said he was an old friend. He made it sound like they hadn’t seen each other in a while.”

  “Exactly, see, low risk situation.”

  “Meaning?” I ask, not sure what she means.

  “Meaning that—and understand that I’m not talking about you, specifically—if you turned out to be some crazy psycho stalker—like the kind who’d sneak a pic of a guy and text it to your best friend right on the spot. . .”

  “Good one.”

  “Then you might be too crazy to introduce to someone more important—like his mom or someone.”

  “I see, so drinks with the buddy is like a trial run for a relationship? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “Exactly. See, now you’re getting it.”

  “Speaking of the devil. . .”

  Cormac pulls up with his friend. He’s leaning out the window. Shoshana sees him and without missing a beat she says, “I don’t want no scrubs.”

  “Huh?”

  “Oh, come on,” she says. “It hasn’t been that long since we’ve done it.”

  “I get it now. He’s. . .”

  “Hanging out the passenger side of his best friend’s ride, silly. But so far, he’s not trying to holler at me. He looks pretty sexy, I kind of wish he would though.”

  Shoshana and I were roommates in college, and back in the day we used to be obsessed with 90’s and early 2000’s music. We used to do this thing where we’d say a line from a popular song whenever it made sense for the situation we were in. Then the other one would have to say what song it was. It’s been a while, and I’m clearly rusty.

  “Don’t go chasing waterfalls,” I say, and she gives me the you-fucked-it-up look.

  “That doesn’t fit. The moment’s passed.”

  “Sorry. Didn’t know you were the game judge.”

  “Well I am. Have it make sense next time.”

  We giggle a little as Cormac and his friend approach. “Hey.”

  “Hey yourself.” Cormac walks from Maxwell’s side to mine and gives me a big hug. Did I say ‘big’—I meant ‘bear’. He pulls me in tight to his chest and squeezes me. I let him hold me tightly and when I do, something strange happens inside of me. I start to like it. He feels warm, comforting, and despite the fact that he looked a mess before, he smells like a man. The hug feels like it goes on forever, and when he lets me go I feel cold. I’m not expecting that at all. When we separate, I breathe in a little deeper, like maybe I’ll catch some of that amazing musk that was just coming off of him.

  “Sweetie, this is the friend I was telling you about. Maxwell.”

  Sweetie. Well played, Cormac, well played. “Nice to meet you, Maxwell.”

  “Likewise,” he says.

  “It’s f
unny, Shoshana and I met in college also. We were roommates.”

  “Is that right?”

  Cormac has his arm around me, and I can’t decide if I like it or not. The hug was one thing, but now his big arm is just draped across my shoulders. I don’t pry it off—that would look strange, but I try to give him a look that communicates how I’m feeing. It fails miserably.

  “Why don’t we go inside and get a drink?” Cormac suggests.

  “Great idea.”

  We all head inside. I can hear the music blasting from outside, but it doesn’t sound live. I look around. “Where’s the band?” I ask Cormac.

  “They start at ten,” he answers. “They’re probably on their way or already setting up in the back.”

  We grab a table and the guys take our orders. I’m happy I don’t have to push my way through the crowd standing around the bar. Maybe chivalry isn’t so bad. I order a rum and Coke and Shoshana gets a Maker’s Mark and Coke. As the guys go to get our drinks, Shoshana nudges me.

  “He’s gorgeous,” she says.

  “Maxwell?” I ask. “He’s alright. You interested?”

  “No, not Maxwell! I mean, yeah, he’s attractive enough, but I’m talking about your. . . excuse me, your ‘fake’ man. Cormac is a Greek god.”

  “An Irish god, actually. And he’s not bad, is he?”

  “Not bad?” she repeats. “Come on, Tori, you see it as much as I do. That man is totally gorgeous.” Shosh just stands there, deep in her weird thoughts, and then she blurts out. “I bet he has a huge dick.”

  “How did we get there?”

  “I’m always there, Tor, I practically live there. I only vacation in the normal world. Anyhow, who cares? I’m just saying what everyone else thinks.”

  Typical Shoshana answer. “I can guarantee you that not everyone is thinking about Cormac’s dick—or dicks in general.”

  “I’m just saying, nature tends to be proportionate. Big guy, big feet, big hands. If he had a tiny little dick I’d really be surprised. It’s just a read—you can let me know.”