Cuddling

by Allan, S. H.

  I dodged the kiss, stood up, and stepped behind the chair, putting some space between us.

  Joel frowned. “Baby, what’s wrong? I’m sorry I missed your call yesterday. I knew you were supposed to be at the playhouse last night, so I waited and called this morning, as soon as I got moving, but you didn’t pick up.”

  There it was, my cue. It was time for my big line.

  I set my drink down and tilted my chin up so I could look him in the eye. “Don’t you ‘baby’ me! I want to know where you were, and don’t lie this time. Because I know you weren’t at work. They told me when I called.”

  “What?”

  Now he looked worried. And was that guilt? Good. He should feel guilty for what he did.

  “I called your office, Joel. Dad was on the way to the hospital. We thought he was having a heart attack, and I needed you! Your cell was off, so I called your office, and they told me you were on vacation. You were off somewhere without me, and I had to find out from a stranger while my dad was possibly dying in an ambulance. You lied to me, and you weren’t there when I needed you the most!”

  “Oh my God, Michael! I’m so sorry, baby. Is your dad going to be okay?”

  He took a step toward me, but I put my hand out like I was one of the Supremes. “He’s going to be fine. It was a false alarm. But that’s not the point. The point is that you lied to me. Who was it, Joel? Who were you with? Do you even know his name? Please don’t tell me it was one of our friends.”

  He blew out a breath, set his beer down on our coffee table, and put his hands up, waving them and shaking his head. “It’s not like that, baby. Please.”

  Now he looked nervous as well as guilty. Also good. He was playing his role as I’d expected, and that would help me continue to play mine.

  “What’s it like, then? You tell me, Joel, and no bullshit this time. Where were you?”

  His gaze dropped to the floor, and he chewed on his lip for a moment, obviously trying to come up with some sort of story to get his ass out of trouble. Unfortunately, what he came up with wasn’t nearly good enough for that.

  “I wasn’t with anyone like that, baby. I didn’t cheat on you. I’d never cheat on you. I just needed a little time away. That’s all.”

  Even if I had believed him about the not cheating part, I was so wrapped up in my scorned lover role that talking things out like a grown-up was pretty much beyond me.

  “Away from me?” I screeched. I could feel the tears coming, but I didn’t want to break down yet. I wasn’t ready to make my exit, and I was supposed to be angry, not hurt, dammit. “Is living with me so bad? Am I that much of a monster that you felt you had to lie to me in order to get away from me for a few days?”

  Okay, so my voice broke a little on that last part. Sue me.

  Joel shook his head emphatically. “Baby, no! I love you. Things have just been really stressful at work lately, and you’ve been doing all those long hours at the office and then at the playhouse. I didn’t want to bother you with it. That’s all.”

  I hated to admit it, but he had a point. Neither one of us had made much of an effort to spend time together recently. We’d slept in the same bed at night, but that was about it. Lately, it seemed like we were both too tired for anything else. It was one of the reasons I’d assumed he was cheating, because we hadn’t had sex in months.

  I started to melt. My righteous indignation was fading under his pleading voice, puppy-dog eyes, and my own insecurities. I began to revert back to thinking everything was my fault and I was just being a big ol’ drama queen, making something out of nothing. I even started moving toward the wall to flip the light switch and get rid of the whole “dramatically shadowed room” thing I had going on so we could sit down together like adults and discuss things rationally. But as I moved toward the front hall, Joel made a weird noise, and his gaze shifted to the box on the floor by his suitcase, and my scorned diva came rushing back again with a vengeance.

  The box. That stupid fucking box that had traveled with us through the first two crappy apartments we’d shared and then on to the condo we had now. The box that was always locked and that Joel would never give me a straight answer about when I asked.

  For six years I’d let him have his privacy. I hadn’t pushed about it, because I loved him, and I didn’t want to rock the boat. And honestly, the box had stayed in the storage units at all of our places, so I actually forgot about it most of the time.

  But now there it was, in my face, another lie, another secret he wouldn’t share with me. I was in enough of a snit that I didn’t give a shit about his privacy anymore. He’d taken that box on his getaway weekend, not me. And this time, I wasn’t going to let it go without finding out what was inside. I was the injured party here, and I deserved some fucking answers.

  Did I mention I was a little dramatic?

  I stormed over, all pinched lips, narrowed eyes, and righteous fury. I snatched Joel’s coat off the box and threw it in his face as he came after me. The box wasn’t locked. For once, TSA security measures actually worked in my favor. I crouched down and flipped the latches on the case, all the while glaring at Joel, daring him to stop me, as I threw open the lid with the flair of a Las Vegas magician.

  Joel stopped dead in his tracks and made a little noise of protest. His face even paled a little. The look and that sound were so odd coming from him. He was my rock—solid, confident Joel—and seeing him like that almost made me reconsider my actions, but it was too late to go back at that point.

  I’m not sure what exactly I was expecting to find inside, but I have to tell you, the sight that met my eyes was so beyond anything I had imagined that it took me a solid minute of looking at it for me to comprehend what I was seeing.

  Giant green slitted eyes glowed up at me from beneath a set of tufted pointy ears. Whiskers poked out in every direction around a heart-shaped hot-pink nose. And a huge mouth, full of blunt white teeth, grinned at me, mocking me with its lolling pink tongue.

  It was a head… a head in a box.

  A cat’s head, to be exact—a giant purple-and-blue-striped fuzzy monstrosity of foam, plastic, and fake fur.

  “What the fuck is that?”

  I looked back and forth between the head and Joel, and when I lifted it out of the box to get a better look, Joel flushed and looked away. Beneath the head was what looked like a bodysuit in the same electric-blue-and-purple shaggy fur, with a curled fuzzy purple tail, a pair of fluffy clawed gloves, and matching booties. This time, I was the one left with my mouth hanging open. I was so confused and surprised I even forgot to be angry for a while.

  “I can explain.” Joel’s shaky voice broke me out of my stupor, and I looked at him with my eyebrows raised.

  When he didn’t say anything else, I wafted a hand in his direction, gesturing with all the regality of the queen herself for him to please continue.

  He cleared his throat and licked his lips. Normally the sight of his pink tongue wetting his nearly perfect lips would’ve distracted me, but the last thing I wanted to think about was sex at that moment. Not with a giant purple-and-blue cat head in my hands.

  After a few moments’ hesitation, Joel blew out a breath and let his massive shoulders slump. “There was actually a work conference in Atlanta. But… but it got canceled. Things have been so crazy around here, and I already had the ticket, so I just decided to go anyway.”

  “And this?” I asked, shaking the head at him.

  He grimaced and blushed. “There’s this, uh, con in Atlanta… at the same time as my meeting was supposed to be, and I decided to go.”

  I put the head back in the box and stood up with my hands on my hips. “What kind of con?”

  I knew already, but I wasn’t going to let him off that easy.

  Well, scratch that, I didn’t know exactly, but I was sure it was some kind of kink convention by the way he was acting.

  “Furries,” he whispered.

  One word, no embellishments or explanations, but
it certainly called to mind all kinds of images, from the comical to the utterly disturbing, and I had to take a second to rub my eyes to make them go away.

  “Baby, please look at me,” Joel pleaded. “I’m sorry I lied. I made a mistake. Can we talk about this? I love you.”

  My lips started trembling. “Not enough to tell me the truth,” I whispered. Then I looked up at him and searched his face. “You do this? You get dressed up in this, and what? Fuck other guys in costumes while your partners stay home, clueless? How many, Joel? How many times have you done this and I was too stupid to realize?”

  The waterworks started then. Was that on cue? I don’t think I even cared anymore. My scene was supposed to end with him admitting he’d fucked up with some nameless trick in a Holiday Inn somewhere and begging me to come back while I grabbed my bag and stormed out. Now, not only was my relationship fucked up, but my dramatic exit was too. I was at a loss, and I hated it.

  “Baby, you have to believe me. I didn’t fuck anybody. The conventions aren’t like that, not unless you go looking for it. It’s just a chance to let myself go, to be somebody else for a while. That’s it.”

  “I have to believe you? When you already admitted to lying to me for weeks, even years, about this? You tell me how I’m supposed to do that, Joel!” I yelled through my tears.

  He shook his head and threw his arms out. “Dammit, Michael! I knew you wouldn’t understand. I just knew you’d go all diva and make it all about you somehow! I just knew it!”

  Okay, now, it’s one thing for me to call myself a diva. It’s completely another for Joel to call me one in the middle of an argument, as an insult. After six years together, he certainly knew how to hit my buttons.

  “Diva? You did not just go there! And for your information, of course I made it about me! Because I’m the one who was lied to, in case you forgot that part!” I stormed past him, picked up the suitcase I’d packed that morning, and headed toward the door. “You want to see diva? Well, here you go! I hope you and your little furry friend have a blast together, because obviously I’m too much drama for you!”

  And that was my grand exit. It wasn’t as satisfying as I’d made it out to be in my head. Slamming the door behind me felt kind of good, but the long slow elevator ride to the garage and the quiet walk to my car were a bit of a letdown.

  II.

  ONCE I closed the car door and started the engine, the tears began to fall in earnest as reality set in. The scene was over, but the rest of my life wasn’t. I didn’t even make it a block away before I pulled my phone out and hit number two on speed dial.

  “Hello, dear.”

  “Mom? Can I come see you?” Sniffle.

  “Sure, honey. What’s the matter?”

  Sniffle. “I’ll tell you when I get there.” Hiccup. “I just wanted to check before I came, in case you were too tired or busy taking care of Dad.”

  “Your dad’s asleep, sweetie. The trip to the hospital and the new blood pressure meds he’s on wiped him out. I fell asleep as soon as we got home this morning, and I slept most of the day, so I’m wide-awake now. Besides, you know I’ll always have time for you, honey. Come over and tell me what’s wrong.”

  Sniffle. “Okay. I’ll be there soon.”

  I turned off my phone and drove the rest of the way on autopilot with tears blurring my vision. Luckily, I didn’t run anybody over on my way there.

  Mom was waiting for me in the kitchen with a cup of tea and a hug when I arrived. I squeezed her tight for a long time while I cried. She was shorter than I remembered her being the last time I did something like this. Joel had been the one to hold me when I cried for the last six years. But she still smelled like home, and her soft gray-brown hair still felt warm and comforting against my cheek.

  When I’d cried myself out, she handed me my cup of tea, and we sat at the little island in her kitchen. She didn’t push for details, knowing I wouldn’t hold back once I got control. She just sipped her tea and waited quietly until I could bring myself to start.

  As I spilled the events of the last twenty-four hours, beyond what she already knew, there were a couple of times when it looked like she wanted to say something, but she knew I needed to get everything out before I’d be able to listen to what she had to say. We worked well together like that. It was comforting, and I found myself relaxing and even feeling a bit silly rehashing some of what I’d said and done. I didn’t tell her about the whole “furry” thing. We shared a lot, but if my boyfriend was into kinky faux-animal sex, I didn’t think my mom needed to know that. I just told her he’d gone to some kind of secret convention that I didn’t really understand and that I wasn’t sure I could believe him when he said he hadn’t cheated on me.

  When I was finished, she put her hand over mine and looked into my eyes. “Honey, I can’t tell you whether you should believe him or not. All I can tell you is that I know he loves you. If there’s something he hasn’t shared with you, it might be because he’s too ashamed or embarrassed by it, and he’s afraid of what you might think of him. We all have things we’d rather our partners didn’t know.”

  I couldn’t help but snort in disbelief. “Mom, we’re talking about Joel here. Prom king, voted most likely to succeed, youngest VP in his office, so gorgeous he has guys practically falling all over themselves for him. Even if he is into something a little weird, I can’t picture him ever being too embarrassed to talk to me about it. I mean, look at me. I can’t exactly cast stones here.”

  Her lips twisted in annoyance. “That’s just it, honey. You’re a wonderful, beautiful person, and you don’t seem to have any idea of how lucky Joel is to have you.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You have to say that. You’re my mom.”

  “I’m serious, Michael. You spend so much time thinking he’s too good for you that maybe you miss the fact that he’s human too. Sometimes it hurts me to think I did something or didn’t do something, when you were growing up, that made you believe you weren’t good enough. If I did, I want you to know that I’m sorry.”

  Well, shit, there went the waterworks again.

  “Mom, you didn’t do anything wrong. I’m just being realistic. I have eyes. I know what he could have if he wanted to.”

  “Realistic for who, honey?” She set her teacup down and grabbed both my hands. “You are an incredible person, my darling. Joel knows it, even if you don’t. You might think he’s perfect, but that’s only because you love him so much. He’s got his flaws too. Everybody does.”

  I gave her a skeptical look, and she laughed. “You remember that first time we were all supposed to go to dinner together, and you got stuck in traffic, and Joel had to meet us without you? I have to tell you, I thought he was a good-enough-looking guy, but kind of stiff and dull. I was afraid things were doomed between you two, because you were just too vibrant a soul to be chained down to someone like that for very long. But then you showed up, and he lit up from within. It was like a switch had been thrown, and he got more animated and open and funny. I wouldn’t have recognized him as the same person if I hadn’t seen the transformation myself. All I’m saying is, don’t sell yourself short. You aren’t doing either of you any favors when you do that.”

  I bit my lip and nodded. She might just possibly have a point. Maybe I was so busy being down on myself that I’d missed the part where Joel actually needed me as much as I needed him. Maybe I’d put him on so high a pedestal that he was afraid to fall off it by telling me the truth.

  “What should I do?”

  “Talk to him.”

  “I don’t know if I can ever trust him again,” I wailed in true Michael fashion.

  Mom humored me by pouring me some more tea, handing me a tissue, and patting my cheek. “Honey, you won’t know unless you talk to him. All I can say is, when your father was in that hospital yesterday and I was terrified that I’d lose him, I wasn’t thinking about any of the times he might’ve failed me or any of the bad times we’d had over the years. I was thinking
about the good times and how much I loved him. I was thinking that the only regrets I had were the times I’d missed out on telling him how much he meant to me or that I might never get a chance to make any more of those good memories with him.”

  I couldn’t let that speech go without a hug. I might be a bit selfish and self-centered at times, but I knew my mom had been through the wringer the day before, just like me. She needed a little love and understanding too. We held each other for a long time, and we cried a little more. My mom started that round, and I couldn’t let her cry alone, now, could I?

  After the weeping, we both started laughing for no reason, and she gently pushed me away. “Look at us. We’re a mess,” she said, wiping tears from her cheeks as I did the same with mine.

  She’d left me with a lot to think about, so I was actually pretty quiet while I finished my tea.

  I know, right? Who’d have thunk it?

  Anyway, Mom sent me off to bed with one more little tidbit of advice.

  “You have to decide what’s more important to you—staying mad and making Joel pay for hurting you, or the fact that you love him and he loves you.”

  “If I choose the second, can I still make him pay just a little?”

  She swung a hand at my arm, and I grinned as I danced out of range.

  “You can, but I don’t suggest you let it drag on too long, or you might regret it,” she said as she wagged a finger at me.

  I leaned in and gave her a peck on the cheek. “Thanks, Mom. I owe you.”

  She smiled. “I’ll add it to your tab. Now, go on. Go to bed and sleep on it. I’m sure things will look better in the morning.”

  She was right. They did.

  Despite how worked up I was, the stress of the last two days caught up with me pretty quick, and I slept hard. I don’t even remember dreaming. The next morning I was thinking a little more clearly, and I regretted storming out on Joel. All I could see was his puppy-dog eyes pleading with me to understand.

  Okay, maybe some big green cat’s eyes found their way in there a couple of times, but I did my best to shove those back into the box. I wasn’t quite ready to deal with the whole furry thing. I didn’t understand it. It wasn’t a kink I had ever even considered, and I wasn’t sure Joel and I could meet in the middle on that particular subject. But my mom was right. I loved him. The furry thing was only a small part of him, and while it still hurt that he felt he had to hide it from me, I could understand why he’d done it. No one, and I mean no one, would ever picture big, buff, toppy Joel in a purple-and-blue fluffy kitty costume, least of all me. It changed things. I just wasn’t sure how at the moment. But I didn’t really have to figure that out just then. The only thing I needed to decide was whether or not I loved him enough to put in the work to get past this rough patch.