The Three Kiss CLause

by Harlan, Christopher

  I won’t be mentioning this to my partners—they don’t ever need to know. What I will be doing is getting out of this time machine of a bar and heading home to my present—to the girl I never thought I’d end up with. We have an interview to conduct.

  “Sorry,” I say as I walk through the door. “I got home earlier than I thought.”

  “That’s fine, we can do it now.”

  “Okay, perfect.” I sit down on the couch, where she’s already waiting with her recording equipment. “So what’s on the menu for tonight?”

  She hits record. “Kylo have you ever cheated on a woman you were seeing?”

  Wow. That was kind of a jarring way to start. “Where did that one come from? I already told you my feelings on monogamy.”

  “I know, but some women consider cheating to extend past the traditional definition of sex.”

  “Extend how? Like what kind of things do you mean?”

  “Well. . . things like private messages on social media, or even seeing them without telling your current partner.”

  “I see. Seeing them how?”

  “Like going out with them behind your partner’s back. Seeing them in private, without telling the person you’re with that you’re doing so. It could be anything. Going to the movies, hanging out at their house. . . going to dinner or getting a drink. Whatever.”

  “Wait, so you’re telling me that women you interviewed thought that a DM or running into their ex was something they considered cheating?”

  “Not running into—more like intentionally seeing them, but without telling their current partner the truth about where they were going, or who they were with, no matter what the activity was.”

  “So, what’s the question? Have I ever done any of those things, or have I ever cheated— ‘cause I don’t have the same definition of infidelity that your female subjects apparently do.”

  “Fine. We can put that aside. Have you ever done any of the things that I—that they mentioned in their responses? Like meeting up with an ex behind your current partner’s back. Yes or no.”

  “This is starting to sound more like an interrogation than an interview. What’s with the tone shift?”

  “I think you know.”

  “I really don’t. Why are you shutting off the mic?”

  Tori

  I hit the pause button. It isn’t all that I want to hit.

  “Because I know, alright. I know about tonight.”

  I didn’t want to do it this way. Really, I didn’t want to be in this position at all, but he’s put us here. I wanted to confront him gently—to ask him about his little meeting and have him look me dead in the eye and tell me the truth—that it was a meet up with his ex girlfriend. I wanted him to prove me wrong about men, to show me that all of my assumptions weren’t fair—but here we go again—another liar.

  The more I thought about it the rest of the day, the more steamed I got. Maybe bringing it up like this, under the guise of our last interview, wasn’t the best idea, but something’s come over me. I need to know if I’m being played.

  “You know what?”

  “Oh, come on, Cormac. I know you saw Maryanne.”

  “Jesus. How do you know about Maryanne at all?”

  Here’s the part where the conversation fully turns into the fight it’s already becoming.

  “Because I looked. . . I mean, I saw. . . you left your phone out in the kitchen this morning.”

  “And you read my texts?”

  “Don’t make it sound so shady. It popped right up on the screen in front of me while I was trying to make a cup of coffee. So, yeah, I looked down, but I wasn’t going out of my way to snoop. It was just kind of there.”

  “Just kind of there. Right.”

  “Can you just answer me and stop repeating everything I’m saying?”

  “Yes,” he says right away. “I saw Maryanne tonight, but I didn’t lie to you. Do you know who she is?”

  “Your ex?”

  “Yes, my ex, but I meant do you know who she is, professionally?”

  “Can’t say that I do, no.”

  “LM Branford.”

  “LM Branford? Isn’t she the one who wrote. . .”

  “The Cadence Chase Detective books? A New York Times #1 best selling author? Borderline famous? Yes, she’s all of those things.”

  “I don’t need her resume, I know the name.” I can hear the pettiness in my voice, I just can’t seem to stop it.

  “I’m not giving you her resume,” he says. He sounds frustrated. I don’t blame him, I can be frustrating. “My point was, she’s an author, and she used to be a client of ours.”

  “Oh, really. Do you always sleep with the authors you have as clients, or is it just me and her? Oh, excuse me, I’m not actually a client. So I guess I asked the wrong question—do you always sleep with authors and potential authors you offer contracts to? Is that part of the signing process?”

  “Jesus, Tori, of course not. What do you think of me?”

  “I’m not so sure anymore, Cormac.”

  “What the hell does that mean? Come on.”

  “Look, I think we can end this little. . . whatever it was we were trying to do here. I have the data I need. I’m sure you still think my work is total feminist man-hating shit, but hey, at least you got to fuck me before it was all over.”

  “Tori, listen. I don’t know where all of this is coming from, but I promise that you’re overreacting to everything right now. If you’d just let me explain.”

  “I’m overreacting? Just being a stereotypical woman, I guess.”

  I stand up. I have to leave. I can’t be in this house anymore. He tries to stop me, but that’s not going to happen right now.

  “Tori!”

  “Just let me go, alright? I can’t be around you right now.”

  I go into the bedroom and grab my suitcase. I don’t pack so much as throw my shit inside as fast as I can. I practically have to sit on it to get it to close, but I get it done. Now I need to drag it to my car and head back to my place in the city. When I get to the door he yells for me one more time.

  “Tori! Wait. I can explain all of this.”

  “I don’t need you to explain. I know all that I need to know. The experiment is over, I’ll talk to you later.”

  I leave, holding back the tears and feeling like a fool. This isn’t how I thought our experiment would end. I’m going to stop calling it that, because for me it was something much more, even though I never expected it to be.

  I never wanted us to end this way.

  PART III

  The Three Kiss Clause

  Cormac

  Friday, July 21st

  So that was an epic fail, huh?

  I shouldn’t joke, it’s not really funny, but what was supposed to be a month-long experiment turned into a week-long disaster.

  I moved back to my place. I make the drive over to Cynthia’s house every day so I can keep up with my ‘house sitting’ responsibilities, but I’m back at my apartment in the city full time now. I haven’t heard from Tori except a few polite texts back and forth, and I have no idea where things stand between us, other than knowing that they can’t possibly be good.

  On top of that, there’s the very real issue of her last book meeting. It’s coming up in a couple weeks and I have no idea what I’m going to do. Right now, I’m sitting at my place, staring, once again, at a blank computer screen, fooling myself into believing that I could actually write something good at the moment. There’s no way. I’m distracted from my intellectual stupor by a noise.

  Someone’s knocking at my door. I don’t know who it could be.

  I don’t bother looking through the peephole. I don’t bother with the cliché yell of ‘who is it?’, I just open up. Part of me lives out an entire fantasy in the two seconds it takes to go from doorknob grab to swing of the door—in it, I open the door to Tori, standing there looking all cute and vulnerable, apologetic for assuming the worst of me.

&
nbsp; That image is replaced by the reality of her best friend, Shoshana, standing in my doorway looking anything but vulnerable and apologetic. She doesn’t ask to come in, she just comes in.

  “Shoshana?”

  “We need to talk, sexy publisher man.”

  “What are you. . . how did you know where I. . .”

  “Lived? I followed you. Don’t be alarmed, I can be a stalker when I want to be, but I’m not, like, Glen Close in Fatal Attraction or anything—you don’t mean that much to me. I’m not gonna boil your bunny.”

  She’s like a cartoon character. “Are you always like this?” I ask as I close the door.

  “Like what?”

  “Nothing. Nothing at all. What’s going on, Shoshana?”

  I sit down on my couch. The growth on my face that I called a five o’clock shadow two days ago is now rapidly turning into that itchy ass, pre-beard mess that makes all guys look like scumbags. On top of that, I need a shower. I haven’t done much since Tori stormed out on me. I should probably shower at the very least.

  “You look like absolute hell. But you’re still cute, even behind the funk and the lack of a razor you’re clearly afflicted with. I see why Tori fell for you.”

  “Fell for me?” I ask. This is the last thing I need to hear. “She didn’t fall for anything. We were a terrible social experiment, and that’s all she ever thought of me. Otherwise. . .”

  “Okay, Captain Dramatic, I’m gonna need you to stop whining for a second and listen to me.”

  What did this girl just say? “Whining? I’m not. . .”

  “Oh, please,” she says, putting her hand up. “You sound like me three days before my period. Actually no, no one is that bad, but you are legit whiny. Stop talking and listen for a minute.”

  “Shoshana, I don’t feel good. And I think you can see that I don’t look great, either. If you came over here to make me feel worse, I really think we can skip all that.”

  “That’s not why I’m here, Cormac. I don’t do that. That would be kind of a cool job, though, now that you mention it—kind of like the anti singing telegram.” She looks up into the ceiling as she speaks, like some kind of demented fairy, and for a second, I think she might be insane. Then she kind of floats back to the actual conversation we were having. “But, anyway, that’s an idea for the Shark Tanks of tomorrow—right now I’m here to talk about our girl.”

  Our girl. Yeah, right. “Your girl, maybe,” I say. I hear the bitterness in my voice and I don’t like it. That isn’t me at all. “She’s not mine. She stormed out.”

  “Listen, Cormac. Can I sit down?”

  Without waiting for me to answer, she plops her butt down on my couch. And she goes from flighty to focused and serious, and as she does I start to wonder which one is the act—the sarcastic ditz or the serious friend. Like Tori said, maybe they’re both the real her. “What is it, Shoshana? Why’d you stalk me to my own place if you’re not going all Single White Female on me?”

  “That reference doesn’t work, first of all. Single White Female would mean that you were another girl and I was trying to take over your life. You’re good looking and all, but I really don’t want to be a grizzly, un-showered, bitter publishing exec. Sorry, just not my deal.”

  “And second of all?”

  “Second of all, I need to ask you one question and one question only—I’ll believe what you tell me because Tori can spot a liar a mile away and she never called you one. She called you some other stuff in the beginning, but that doesn’t matter anymore. I’m sure she changed her mind if she slept with you.”

  “And that question would be?”

  “Did you do anything with your ex? And do you have any romantic feelings for her, whatsoever?”

  “Technically, that’s two questions. And I’m not really sure what business that is of yours.”

  “Tori’s my business, alright, and don’t get cute, Cormac, this is serious.”

  I look her straight in the eye and tell her the truth. “No and no. I ran into Maryanne a few days ago when I stopped for coffee. I tried to blow her off, but she’s a little south of sane at this point. She texted me to meet up because she wanted to do what she always did—use me to further her career. I stupidly agreed to meet her and as soon as she started talking I knew it was a mistake. I blew her off and walked out of the bar. That’s the truth. That’s the entire story. That’s what Tori didn’t give me thirty seconds to explain.”

  Shoshana listens closely, and she looks at me like she’s examining my every word for authenticity, like some human bullshit detector. “Alright. Then I did the right thing coming here.”

  “How’s that?” I ask.

  “I’m the one who needs to do the explaining, I think—about Tori and her past. Did she ever tell you anything about her ex boyfriend?”

  I think about it for a second. “Only that it was a bad experience. No real details.”

  Shoshana laughs. “Bad experience? That’s our Tori, always keeping her cards close to the vest.”

  I lean in, wanting and not wanting to ask what I’m about to ask. I don’t want to make Shoshana tell me anything that isn’t her place to tell me, but for all I know I’ll never see Tori again. I think I at least have the right to understand why she reacted the way she did to whatever text she saw.

  “Can you?”

  “Tell you the whole story? I don’t see why not.”

  “You won’t be betraying a confidence or anything?”

  She laughs again, this time I can tell it’s at me. “Cormac, dear Cormac. I’d never, ever, betray a confidence with Tori, even if you came to me begging and crying—which is actually kind of funny to imagine.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Oh, relax, you’re not offended. A little hurt by what happened, but not offended. Am I warm?”

  “Red hot. I did my crying already. Now I need to understand what happened. I know I lied, according to Tori, but we weren’t really boyfriend and girlfriend so I don’t get why she flipped out on me.”

  “Okay, I see the problem now.”

  “Thank God!”

  “You’re an idiot.”

  “Wait, what?” I ask. “Excuse me?”

  “Oh, sorry, sometimes I speak too fast and people can’t understand me. I said, you-are-an-idiot. Was that better?”

  “No, it’s not better. I heard you, that’s not the issue. I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Listen, there’s a lot you have to learn. Not just about women, but about Tori, specifically. You may not have technically been a real couple, but I know you were acting like one. That’s right, Cormac, I know about the animal sex!”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You gave the girl an orgasm for the ages, took her out to dinner, and have been her closest confidant for a while now. Face it, Cormac, this wasn’t an experiment. You are her boyfriend, and when you lied to her, she took it like a girlfriend who was being lied to.”

  Fuck. I feel so stupid there isn’t even a word for it. Shoshana’s right, and it turns out that Tori felt the same way as me this whole time. And I went and fucked it all up. I bury my face in my hands and sigh. “So this guy, this ex, he cheated on her? And this reminded her of it?”

  “Ha,” she laughs. I’m starting to hate the sound of her laughing. “He did much worse than that, Cormac.”

  The protective male in me takes over. My mind goes to the worst place ever, and I look Shoshana in the eyes intensely. “You don’t mean? He didn’t...?”

  “No. Not that. He didn’t hurt her—well, not physically.”

  “What did he do?”

  “Uhh.” She takes a deep breath—the kind you would if someone asked you to tell them your life story. “I’ll give you the short version—and the preface here is that he was Tori’s first real boyfriend, and she was head-over-heels in love with him.”

  “Okay.”

  “They were dating for about eighteen months—long enough that she was making jokes about marrying him one day. I
t was the end of senior year when it happened.”

  “What happened?”

  “Well, unbeknownst to our Tori, her ex was something of a player.”

  “So he did cheat on her?”

  “Yes,” she answers. “But, believe it or not that wasn’t the worst part. The cheating was bad enough, but there were signs of that Tori chose to ignore, in my opinion. That wasn’t it. It was the video that changed everything.”

  “What video?”

  She sighs again. “Tori didn’t realize this, but her ex used to set up a tripod for his cell phone whenever they had sex. He recorded her all the time. And not just when they did it—when she got changed, when she showered. Turns out the guy was a major perv. Even tried to sell a video of the two of them to an amateur porn website. She had to take him to court and everything to get a judge to take the video down. Everyone on campus saw. It was going around that if you wanted to see ‘that girl in Dorm G’ fucking her boyfriend, all you had to do was pull out your phone and log onto PornHub.”

  Holy shit. No wonder she didn’t trust guys. No wonder she didn’t want to give the details. “I can’t believe that happened.”

  “Oh, it happened alright. I went with her to court on more than one occasion. Eventually the video got taken down by court order, but it wasn’t fast, and by then the cat was out of the bag. Everyone knew. She was devastated. Depressed. Worse than depressed—whatever that is. But it took a long time for her to come back. It took a lot.”

  “And you were there for all of it?”

  “Every step of the way. But don’t worry, she’s no victim. She’s just damaged. We all are. She just turned her damage into a podcast with a million loyal fans. I wish we could all do that.”

  “Have you. . . talked to her?”

  “Of course,” she says. “Every day.”

  “Do you think. . .”

  “She doesn’t want to talk to you right now.”

  “Jesus, would you let me finish a sentence? How do you always know what I’m going to say?”

  “It’s a gift and a curse. And time is money, Cormac. I’m cutting off valuable seconds that don’t need to happen. That, and I have to get my nails done in about fifteen minutes and I don’t have the time for you to process as slowly as you do. But look, I tried, okay? I really did. I’m on your side because, even though this was all some experiment, our girl is complicated. It takes her longer than a week to show everything she has inside of her. Hell, I haven’t even seen it all. But like I was saying, I tried to tell her she was overreacting, to get her to call you, but when it comes to this stuff she’s hyper sensitive. I think she’ll come around, she just needs some time.”