Actually, it’s more like a grin.
“I appreciate that. I really do.”
“Well?”
He sighs, then puts his hands on the table. “I don’t think I meet the other qualifications.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t ever say my age on my show, but I’m twenty-nine,” he whispers.
“Holy fuck! You’re practically middle-aged.”
He laughs. “Yeah, I’m an old man, McKenna. But keep that between us. I want the kids to think I’m cool. Besides, somehow, a viewer updated my Wikipedia page and it says I’m twenty-three, and I never got around to correcting it.”
“Well, I am so glad we resolved this issue. You are clearly not in contention.”
He reaches out and briefly touches my arm. Then he looks me straight in the eyes and says, “It’s a shame.”
He’s serious. At least, I think he’s serious. My breath catches, and my heart skips, and I want to go back in time and rewrite the age rules for my Trophy Husband game. Let them be thirty or younger, even though that makes no logical sense. But hearts aren’t logical and my heart wants Chris to play. I don’t know what to say next though, so I return to the one topic I can handle — business. Besides, I made a pact with my girlfriends. They’ve had my back, and I can’t let them down. This isn’t about me. This is about the point, the pursuit, the game.
“So, what can I do for you? You’re helping me and I don’t want this to be a one-way street. I’ve got to be able to do something to help you out, though truth be told, most of my viewers are young women and I’m not sure how many are gamers.”
“You play,” he points out. I like that he’s willing to change directions so quickly, that he doesn’t keep harping on some philosophical question, or practical question, neither of which I have answers to.
“Well, yes, but I’m just a casual fan.”
“Exactly. And a lot of young women are. In fact, the female gamer is one of the fastest growing categories in the whole video game business,” Chris says excitedly. “I’m actually starting a new show in a couple months targeted for women who are sort of the casual online gamers, but new to the console games. And I need to get the word out, promote my new show.”
I nod. “So we do a cross-promo, maybe? You’re thinking some of those girls who watch my show might want to try a little Guitar Hero?”
“Guitar Hero? Did you just say Guitar Hero? That game isn’t even made anymore.”
“Oh, I didn’t realize that,” I say, feeling stupid. “Someone gave it to me a few years ago. It looked kind of fun. I think I played it once, but I haven’t been able to find my copy since.”
“Hey. I didn’t mean to sound like a gamer snob.”
“It’s okay. You didn’t.”
“I mean, it’s a totally awesome game. You should definitely play it more. I was just saying I think chicks are getting into other games too. The shooter games, the sports games, even just trivia games. They’re all taking off into the mainstream, especially with hot young chicks, like yourself.”
It’s my turn to blush now. He said it again. Hot chick.
“Oh look,” he points at me. “Now you’re cute blushing.”
“I guess we’re just a bunch of cute blushers.”
He smiles again, and then places his palm on my wrist, and that single gesture of his hand on my skin melts me. And while there’s a part of me that wants the kitchen table fantasy with Chris, I also want the other side with him too. The part where I let him into my heart and my soul, the part where we get to know each other. Because right now, I want to lean forward and taste his sweet lips. I want to hop into his lap and wrap my arms around his neck and smother him in kisses. I haven’t felt this way in years. I don’t even know what to do with all this wanting. I want to spend the day with him. To wander around the city, and stop in shops, and grab a coffee, and talk, and get to know him, and ignore my phone because he’s so much more interesting than any text message could ever be. I look at his hand, resting on me, and it’s almost enough for me to throw the whole Trophy Husband quest away, to just ask this guy to spend more time with me. But I don’t know how to back down, or how to let go. Most of all, I don’t know how to begin to let someone into my wounded heart. I don’t even know if my heart is healed, or if the scar tissue has just grown so thick and knotty that no one can ever touch me again.
So I return to a subject I can handle. Games. “Speaking of games, I kicked ass at Qbert when I was a kid. My parents were totally into this retro bowling alley near our house, and it had all the classic arcade games.”
“I was a Mario Brothers man myself.”
I reach for a fry and dip it into a lime-ginger sauce. “I loved that game. I used to play for hours, bouncing from square to square, trying to avoid Coily and the gremlins, trying to jump on discs. I went from level to level, to the white and green level, then to the ones where you just saw the tops of the squares…” I take a bite of the French fry. “I miss Qbert. And I mean the real Qbert, with the diagonal joystick, the pixilated graphics, the funky sounds.”
I notice Chris has a devilish little smile on his face, that one side of his mouth is curled up.
“What?”
“I have Qbert.”
“For the Playstation, you mean?”
Chris shakes his head. “I have the real Qbert.”
“The arcade Qbert?”
He nods proudly a few times.
“You have Qbert, arcade Qbert?”
“The real deal. In my living room.”
“I am having visions of eighth grade now. I am having visions of Silverspinner Lanes and me getting the high score, punching my initials in for all the world to see.”
“Bet you can’t beat my high score.”
“Oh, you think you can take me on in Qbert?”
“I do.”
“You are on.”
He holds out a hand to shake, and I have to wonder if he’s trying to find ways to touch me too. If he’s liking this little flirty stuff as much as I do. If he’s imagined more than flirting, more than lunches, more than kissing too.
“You’ll have to come over sometime and we’ll have a Qbert match,” he announces and then digs back into his chicken sandwich.
Now, take me to your house now. Show me Qbert, and let me play, and kiss my neck as I move the joystick. Then brush my hair aside and flick your tongue against my earlobe, and make me shiver so much that Qbert dies and I don’t care, because all I want to do is turn around and have you kiss me so deeply and so much that I can feel your kiss all the way through my veins.
* * *
After we finish, we leave the restaurant. As we walk down Union Street, I notice that Chris is a few inches taller than I am. I don’t often meet men who are much taller. I like the feeling of being next to someone who is.
“You know something about those fries?”
“What about those fries, Chris?”
“I will eat them in the rain. And in the dark. And on a train. And in a car. And in a tree.”
“They are so good, so good, you see.”
Chapter Nine
I close the blinds in my bedroom and slip into bed. I pull my computer onto my lap, settling under the covers. It’s been ten hours since my lunch with Chris and I know one thing for certain: I want to see him again.
I knew pretty much the second I sat down with him, the instant we started talking, that I wanted to see him again. I think it works that way more often than not. The whole idea of liking someone. You just kind of know, right away, within minutes usually. There was a moment, maybe when he was talking about having looked me up online, when he paused and then moved on to something else. It was almost as if he was going to say that he thought I was cute, or something. Or maybe it was when he said it’s a shame. It felt like something went unsaid, something good went unsaid there at our lunch.
Maybe I’m fooling myself. Maybe I’m just wishing and hoping for things I won’t have. Thing
s I don’t even know how to deal with. Even if he does like me, what would I do with that? How would I fit that into my grand scheme?
I don’t have the answers though, so I focus on the here and now. On the feeling. On the wish and the hope that I might see him again.
I open an email message to him and start it in medias res.
So that one time I played Guitar Hero I only made it through two songs. I think I have two left hands.
I hit send, then slide out of bed to brush my teeth. Once they are scrubbed and buffed and clean as can be, I turn off the light in the bathroom, then the bedroom, telling myself to close my computer for the night, to resist hitting “send and receive.” But self-restraint has never been my strong suit. So I hit that tantalizing little button in my email program, just in case.
The icon whirs and a few seconds later, I’m rewarded.
That is so not OK on so many levels. I will teach you. Meet me at that electronics store on Thursday at 2 p.m. for a lesson.
I write back.
Lesson? You teach at the computer store?
His response comes moments later.
That’s why I was there when I met you. I teach newbies how to play video games once a week. Like yourself, evidently. Go ahead and say it. I am a full-fledged Internet geek.
I reply.
You are indeed. But then again, so am I. I will see you there in two days.
Then I do shut my computer down for the night, as Ms. Pac-Man sleeps at the foot of the bed. My laptop occupies the left half of the bed, the side Todd used to sleep on. I sleep alone, haven’t shared a bed for the last year. Except with a computer and a dog.
I snuggle under the covers and close my eyes, thinking about Chris and how he blushed something fierce when I asked him to be a Trophy Husband. Of course, I was just playing around.
Still, he would make a good candidate if he were twenty-three. Then I wonder what actually constitutes a good candidate.
I say the words quietly aloud.
“Trophy Husband.”
I break it down.
“Trophy.” Then, “Husband.”
As I separate them, as I pull the adjective away from the noun, I find I don’t really like them apart, I don’t really like the second word by itself.
Husband. Husband. Husband.
For the first time since I started this project that word echoes in my brain. That title, that role. But I don’t want to think about the practical application of the title. Because I’m not ready to think about what it means. That’s why I have answered the question in other ways. That’s why I have turned the question into one I want to answer, a question about politics, about equality between the sexes, about what women can do, about proving the naysayers wrong, about making a point. Or about my friends, and how they want me to do this to move on. How I need to need move.
Even though now I kind of want to move on to Chris. So I close my eyes, and think of him, and the way he blushed, and how he touched my hand, and how he said all those nice things that make me want to curl up with him instead of my Mac.
I’ve let my mind wander to him so often already. I’ve pictured snapshots in time with him – on my table, kissing him by his car, making out with him on my couch. But today, for the first time, I felt as if maybe, just maybe, he might want those things too.
And so, I let the images rush by. I picture him here with me, walking into my bedroom, seeing me here in my bed with just a tank top and bikini underwear on. He drinks me in, his eyes saying how much he wants me. He doesn’t lower the light. He wants to see me, to watch me, to savor every inch of me. He walks over to the bed, crawls up onto it, and straddles me. He’s pinning me, a knee on each side, then he brings my wrists up high above my head. I’m helpless, but I don’t care. Because each move he makes stakes his claim to me. He buries his face in my neck, kissing me behind my ear, and making me groan. He runs his tongue down to my chest, cupping my breasts through my top. I’m completely aroused in an instant and I wriggle under him. He flashes me a quick and wicked smile, knowing he’s having the desired effect already. But he doesn’t give in to the arch of my hips just yet. Instead, he lets go of my wrists, removes my top, and kisses my breasts. First one, curving his hand all the way around and tugging at my nipple until I say his name in a hoarse kind of voice. Then the other, so deliciously, that all I want right now is to know exactly how his mouth feels against the center of me. I writhe underneath him, trying to guide him faster down my flesh to the throb between my legs. And soon, soon, he listens to my body, inching down my waist, kissing my belly button, and then nipping at my hipbone. I cry out.
“Please touch me,” I say. And he knows what I mean and how much I need to feel his tongue swirling a delirious line across all that liquid heat in my core. In one swift move, my panties are off, and his face is between my legs, and my hands are in his hair, and I am mindless with pleasure as his tongue swirls against me. My knees fall open, blood rushing through my veins, heating my body, as I see him, feel him, picture him here with me. He is masterful, his tongue painting dizzying brushstrokes through all my wetness. I grab him, bring him closer, wrap my legs around his shoulders. He grips my calf, running his hand over my smooth skin as he buries his face between my legs, spread open for him and holding him tight at the same time. I rock into him, and I can’t stop. I can’t hold back. I don’t want to. He goes deeper with his tongue, as if he can’t hold back either, as if he can’t resist drinking me in, as he grips my hips and devours me with his lips so intensely that the neighbors may soon know his name. Drenched with desire, I am panting and moaning, singing his name and wishing he were the one doing this to me right now.
Chapter Ten
I brush last night’s solo ride from my mind when I see him. I have to. I can’t let him see that he’s already done so many things to me. That he’s unraveled me and I’ve come for him. I have to back this all up and let him be my gaming tutor.
“So do you teach a lot of newbies how to play Guitar Hero?”
“Not as much as a few yeas ago,” Chris says, then hands me a black plastic guitar. The guitar is a cross between a real guitar and the sort of miniature kid-size guitar someone might give away in a grab bag at a party for musically-inclined ten-year-olds.
“What can I say? I’m a retro-loving gal.” I point to my flirty little vintage blue dress with a cherry pattern on it.
“That’s a totally hot dress, and if you keep pointing to it, it’ll make it hard for me to concentrate on giving you lessons.”
I hide a wild grin at the compliment, as I drop the guitar strap over my head, slinging the plastic instrument across my belly. It’s not mere fashion happenstance that I chose this dress. It accentuates all my best assets, and I also love it, so I feel good when I wear it. And with his comment, I’m left to wonder if he’s entertained after-hours thoughts about me too. How far they went. If he touched himself, if he pictured me doing things to him, if I made him come too. My mind is awash in dirty thoughts that are dangerously close to making me too turned on to function. So I shove away all the delicious images of Chris undressed, naked, in his bed, lost in thoughts of me.
Chris turns on the Xbox and then hits the on-button on my guitar. We’re in the former car stereo room at the electronics store, only now it’s been converted into a sort of gaming living room. Customers can come here and test out all sorts of games on the various consoles. Or they can get lessons from the master once a week.
The game whirs on, a picture of a dark pink mountaintop, set against a black night sky, appears on the gigantic television screen hanging on the wall in front of us. Chris moves closer to me, taps a few buttons on my guitar to click past that screen, then the next, then the next. I want him to touch a few more buttons on my guitar.
He teaches me the basics, how to play the green, red and yellow notes on the easy level of the game. How to hit them at just the right time. How to hit the strum bar at the same time too. I butcher my way through Slow Ride and Hit Me wi
th Your Best Shot, getting booed at by the virtual audience, tossed off stage. So I dig in, like a batter at the plate, eyes fixated on the screen, feet planted firmly on the ground, index, middle and ring finger poised over the notes. Chris walks behind me, adjusts the strap a bit, moving the guitar a bit lower. He places his right hand on top of mine on the notes.
Damn. There goes my concentration. His hand feels so good. The slightest bit of contact with him turns me inside out. I’m not used to this feeling. I don’t know what to do with this feeling. It doesn’t fit in my life. It fits in a song, and I don’t know how to make it fit for me.
“So this may sound cheesy, but the real key is to let go. Let go of the need to check where your hands are, or to look constantly at the neck of the guitar.”
I nod.
“So what I want you to do is close your eyes.”
“Close my eyes?”
“Yes, close your eyes. I know it’s going to be real hard for you not to be in control for one second, but trust me.”
“Oh, ha ha,” I tease.
“Yes, McKenna. I’ve already picked up that you like to be in charge.”
“You’re astute.”
“I am. Now do as I tell you. Close your eyes.”
I do as he tells me.
“So you have to just feel where your fingers are. So here’s the green note.” He places his finger down on top of my index finger, playing the green note.
Mmm…
“Here’s the red.” He presses his middle finger against mine, playing the red note now. I want to lean into him, to fall against him, and feel his chest on my back. I want him to wrap his arms around me, and hold me tighter as he teaches me to play. I want to feel his touch. I want contact. I want it so badly, I don’t know how I’ll ever play a song because I am living and breathing only one thing right now – the wish to be closer to him, my back curved into his front, his arms wrapped tight around me, our bodies beginning to entwine.
“And here’s the yellow.” He keeps his ring finger against mine, playing the yellow note. Then he holds the note. His fingers are playing my fingers, and my entire body feels like a tuning fork, vibrating hotly from his touch. “So you want to feel the notes, not look at them. Just know when green comes up, your index finger presses down. When red appears, your middle finger. When yellow shows up, your ring finger.”
Trophy Husband Page 9