Textual Relations

by Cate Ashwood

  I had really fucked this up. No matter how hard I tried to fit in, to be like everyone else, to have easy friendships, and to date nice girls who are smart and funny and beautiful and interesting, it never worked out.

  Had I known he was gay, would I have realized sooner he’d construed our evening as being romantic? And what the hell was I going to do about it now? He was supposed to be calling the next day to make plans.

  I dozed off sometime around ten, only to be woken up a few hours later by the sound of someone moving around in my living room. Dread settled over me as I slipped from bed and grabbed the cricket bat from my closet. I crept down the hallway, my cell phone in my hand, thumb poised over the send button and 911 pre-dialed.

  As I rounded the corner, the phone in my hand rang, the melodic tone splitting the silence of my house.

  “Shit!”

  I dropped the phone, and the cricket bat thunked to the floor on the other side of it as my heart did its best to hammer its way out of my chest.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” Calvin asked, running over to me.

  “My god, what the hell are you doing here?” I demanded as I picked up my things. “You scared me half to death. I thought there was a prowler.”

  “In the middle of the day?”

  “Criminals do not solely operate at night,” I pointed out indignantly, standing there in my boxers, holding a bat in one hand and my phone in the other.

  “Would a prowler have a key?”

  “I wasn’t thinking clearly. You woke me up, and my brain wasn’t functioning at full capacity yet.”

  “You were sleeping?” Calvin looked at me like I’d told him I’d decided to move to Uzbekistan to become a goat herder.

  “Yes.”

  “But it’s—” He consulted his watch. “—twelve seventeen.”

  “So?”

  “And it’s Saturday.”

  “Again,” I said, my heart finally returning to a normal rhythm, “so?”

  “You should be sitting at your dining room table, eating a bacon, lettuce, tomato, and avocado sandwich on multigrain while you work on grading papers or researching. That’s what you do every Saturday at noon.”

  I cringed. Was I really that predictable?

  “Maybe, but not this Saturday,” I said defiantly. I was capable of breaking with routine; I just didn’t do it all that often. Or ever. “This Saturday, I was sleeping. I was up later than usual last night.”

  “Please tell me you were up all night with the hot blonde you went to meet.”

  My mind flew immediately to Asher. “Ash is a hot blonde now?” I avoided answering the question. I also avoided using his full name. Perhaps that was slightly dishonest, but I didn’t have the energy to parse out exactly what had happened, and I certainly didn’t have the energy to deal with Calvin’s reaction to it. My only successful date in over a year… Come to think of it, it might have been my most successful date ever… and it had been with a man.

  “Isn’t she?”

  “What do you need, Cal? It must be important or you wouldn’t be in my living room right now, and I would still be asleep.”

  “I need to borrow your tools. Holly wants me to take a look at her hot water tank.”

  I sighed. “You still have my tools, Calvin. You never returned them after you borrowed them the last time when you helped Mike build the shelving in his garage.”

  “Seriously?” He looked perplexed.

  “Please tell me you did not leave them at Mike’s place. I’ll never see them again.”

  “I didn’t.” He paused. “Pretty sure I didn’t.”

  I sighed again.

  “I’ll call Mike. Sorry I woke you.”

  “It’s fine. I should get up, anyway.”

  I resisted the urge to admit I needed to get some work done and had a craving for a BLT with avocado. I walked Calvin to the door and said goodbye, closing it behind him after he’d gone. My phone was still clutched in my hand. I glanced down at it to see the missed call notification.

  I’d almost forgotten about my phone ringing when Calvin had first arrived.

  There, in backlit text, was Asher’s name and number, and the little icon notifying me I had a voice message. I stood there like an idiot, my thumb poised over the icon, too nervous to tap it.

  I knew I was being ridiculous, but the unknown of what was waiting on the voice mail was terrifying. What I was dreading more than hearing what Asher had to say was hearing Asher say it. There was something about his voice that cut right through me.

  Taking a fortifying breath, and reminding myself that listening to the message wouldn’t change anything, I pressed the icon and waited for the line to connect. Reluctantly I brought the phone to my ear, and a moment later, Asher’s voice sounded over the speaker.

  “Hey, Henry. As promised, this is me calling you. I wanted to say again that I had a great time last night. I tried to play this cool, but that’s clearly not happening. I like you. And I want to see you. Are you free tonight? Give me a call back when you can, and hopefully we can set something up.”

  I ended the call, noticing my hands shaking as I sat on the couch and lowered the phone to the table next to me.

  Well, damn.

  It was such an odd reaction, or at least I thought it was. Is this how everyone felt on the cusp of having to reject someone?

  I flipped the phone over so the screen was facing down, then pushed myself to standing. I didn’t need to call back immediately. I needed a little more time to figure out what I was going to say. Even after spending hours turning things over in my mind, I still had no idea.

  Two weeks had passed since the accidental date with Asher. He’d called twice more since the morning after, and I hadn’t answered. I hadn’t called back, either, despite the kindness of the messages he’d left me.

  I was a terrible person. I wanted to talk to him, to explain, but every one of the thousands of times I’d run the conversation through in my head, my words had gotten muddled. If I couldn’t string together a coherent sentence in my mind, how the hell was I supposed to do it with Asher on the other end of the line?

  I’d put it off and put it off until it was awkwardly belated to be phoning. After a few days, he’d stopped calling, and although I felt incredibly guilty about it, it was for the best. He’d gotten the picture, and I would never see him again.

  It should have been a relief, but the thought of it plagued me. In the quiet hours of morning, at my desk over my cup of creamy Earl Grey, while I cooked myself salmon on Thursdays, and as I lay in bed at night trying to sleep, thoughts of the evening I’d spent with Asher filtered their way in.

  Every time I walked past Contempo on my way home from work, I caught myself checking the table where he’d been sitting, waiting, to see if he was there.

  Of course, he wasn’t.

  And every time he was missing from the bar, I felt an odd sort of emptiness.

  As the week wore on, and I was faced with another Saturday afternoon over a BLT and avocado sandwich, a part of me itched to pull Asher’s name up in my contacts list. I hadn’t brought myself to delete his name yet, though I should have done it the first day.

  A knock at my office door pulled me out of my thoughts of Asher.

  “Come in,” I called.

  “Hey, Henry. We’re heading to Mulligan’s tonight for a couple of pints if you wanna join us.”

  Scott was a new addition to campus, having just started the semester prior, but already he seemed to have gotten comfortable, fitting right in with the other profs. I didn’t know him all that well, apart from meeting him a few times in the hallways and at a couple of our departmental meetings.

  It had taken me almost two years of uncomfortable conversations to be invited out with my coworkers on a regular basis. Even that had probably been more Megan’s doing than my own, but he’d slotted seamlessly into the group.

  “Tonight?”

  He shrugged. “I know it’s pub night and half our
students are gonna be there, but no one has plans. It’s last-minute, but I figured you might wanna go.”

  I hesitated before nodding. “Yeah, sure. That sounds good.”

  “Cool. We’re meeting there at seven.”

  Scott said goodbye, then showed himself out of my office.

  Truthfully, I didn’t want to go out. My bed was calling to me. After two weeks, sleep deprivation had caught up with me. Apparently, guilt was more powerful an emotion than I had thought. It was the only explanation I could come up with for why Asher was constantly invading my mind.

  Eventually it would fade and life would return to normal, and in the meantime, I’d do what I could to maintain a level of homeostasis wherever possible. That included pub night with the other profs in my department.

  A knock at my door for the second time that hour had me sitting up in my seat.

  “Did you forget something?”

  The door opened and a moment later I nearly swallowed my tongue at the sight of Asher standing in the doorway.

  “Hi,” I said. It was all I could manage, and to be honest, I barely managed that. It came out as more of a squeak than a word.

  He took one step forward but kept a grip on the door. He looked… almost nervous.

  “Hi. I hope I didn’t interrupt…”

  I waved my hand in the air. “Not at all. Come in.”

  He walked all the way in and shut the door behind him, cutting us off from the rest of the world. As the door clicked shut, it felt as though all the air had been left on the other side of it. I pressed my hands against the underside of my desk and waited for Asher to speak.

  “I’m sorry if this is way outta line, showing up here like this… I don’t even really know why I’m here. I never do shit like this, but I tried to call you… a few times… and you didn’t call me back.”

  “I—I know. I’m sorry about that.”

  “You made it pretty obvious that a second date was not on the table, but I thought we had a nice night. Things seemed to… I dunno, click with us.” He was so earnest. “I haven’t been able to get you out of my mind, and I figured that maybe I’m an idiot for chasing you down, but maybe I’d be a bigger idiot if I didn’t at least try.”

  “It was fun, but…”

  This was harder to say out loud than I thought it would be. Something so intrinsic to my being, and I was having a difficult time vocalizing it.

  “I’m not gay.”

  “You’re not gay,” Asher repeated, as though he wasn’t certain he’d heard me right.

  “No.”

  “Bi?” he asked, his voice laced with hope. He combed his fingers through his hair, laughing feebly. “I really am an idiot for showing up here.”

  “You’re not,” I insisted. “I’m the idiot for not realizing we were on a date until the end of the night when you kissed me. I should have said something then, but you caught me off guard.”

  “You weren’t expecting me to shove my tongue down your throat.” He looked at me, his eyes soft. “It’s understandable. I’m sorry. I read that situation entirely wrong.”

  He dropped his hand to his side. Several beats passed and neither of us spoke. I wanted to say something, but the words wouldn’t form properly in my head. I’d never been on this side of rejection before. It turns out I liked it about as much as when I was the one being rejected.

  “If you can forgive me for coming on to you, I’d like to hang out with you again. As friends.”

  “You would?”

  “Well, yeah. I had a good time the other night, and a guy can never have too many friends. I pinkie swear I won’t make another move.”

  I laughed. “Sure. Okay. Friends. I’d like that.”

  “Great. Now that we’ve cleared that up, you don’t have to dodge my phone calls anymore.”

  “I’m sor—”

  “I’m teasing you, Henry. I get why you did it. I probably would have, too. I’ll give you a call later in the week and we can set something up for the weekend if you’re free.”

  “Yes. Please do.”

  A little after five, as I was walking through the door, my phone rang.

  “Hello?”

  “It’s me. Asher.”

  I nearly dropped the stack of papers I’d been carrying. The smoothness of his voice wrapped around me, and inexplicably, my skin heated. I knew I was blushing a deep red and I was grateful he couldn’t see me.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “I know I said later in the week, but I thought if you were free tonight, we could grab a bite to eat somewhere?”

  I opened my mouth to accept, the thought of another evening spent with Asher curiously attractive. “I can’t tonight. I promised I’d meet up with some people from work at Mulligan’s.”

  “That sounds like fun.”

  For a moment, I thought Asher was going to suggest tagging along, and I balked. I couldn’t wrap my head around why bringing him to meet my coworkers felt so risky, but it did. The possibility of introducing him to Scott and… oh god… Megan. It felt… almost dangerous. It was ridiculous. I dismissed the notion.

  “It might be, but most of the time, it’s just us complaining about our jobs for a couple of hours.”

  “So, every work function ever?”

  “Something like that.” I set my papers down on the table and loosened my tie, then unbuttoned the top two buttons of my shirt.

  “If tonight’s out, are you free tomorrow?”

  I paused, thinking through the contents of my social calendar and coming up completely empty. The fact that I had plans at all was a rare occurrence. “Tomorrow works.”

  “Good.” I could hear him smiling through the phone. “Tomorrow it is. I can pick you up at seven? Or meet you somewhere if you’re more comfortable with that.”

  “My place is fine. We can meet there.”

  “Gimme a sec. Let me grab a pen…” There was a slight pause before he said, “Okay, ready.”

  “It’s 2849 Sixteenth, the little blue house.”

  “Got it.”

  “Did you have a specific activity in mind?” I braced myself for what would, no doubt, be something far beyond my comfort zone.

  “I thought we could figure that out as we go, see where the evening takes us.”

  “Like last time?”

  Thoughts of the night we’d spent together shuffled through my head, flipping swiftly like pages of a book in the wind. Each little moment was still so vivid, even after weeks, but the one moment that stood out the clearest was the moment Asher’s lips first brushed against mine.

  I sat down on the sofa, sinking into deep cushions and leaning my head back, trying to push the memory of the taste of him from my head.

  “Something like that, but let’s try to avoid the places most frequented by tourists, and I don’t know about you, but crowds make me itchy.”

  “Says the man who led me into a packed market the last time we were together.”

  “Touché. There’s a difference between waiting in line for an hour to eat subpar food because some blogger liked one of the cocktails on the menu and stumbling across a busy night market with weird booths and crazy food trucks.”

  “That’s true.”

  “I’m still regretting not buying that vagina needlepoint.”

  I laughed. “Now more than ever, that confuses me.”

  “Not all gay men are afraid of vaginas,” he protested. “We just don’t want to touch one.”

  Well, this conversation had taken a strange turn. Questions bubbled up, lodging themselves in my throat, but I couldn’t bring myself to ask.

  The researcher in me wanted to know everything.

  How did he experience attraction? Was it the same way straight men did? When did he know he was gay? How did he figure out how gay sex worked? Was it instinctual? And on an evolutionary level, I understood that homosexuality was present from birth and that there was a genetic component to it.

  It was exceptionally intriguing.

&n
bsp; “Hello? … Henry?”

  “Huh?” I blinked twice, realizing my brain had run off on a tangent and I’d zoned out to the fact that I was still on the phone.

  “I thought you’d hung up. You went quiet.”

  “No, sorry. I was… distracted for a moment.”

  “Did I freak you out?” He sounded concerned and that made me feel like an ass.

  “What? No. Not at all. I was just thinking.”

  “What about?”

  I hesitated. I didn’t want to seem completely ignorant. “I don’t think I’ve ever met a gay person before.”

  The laugh that came across the line wasn’t cruel or mocking. “Henry, I assure you, you have.”

  My cheeks heated and I felt like an idiot. “Statistically, I know I have, but no one has ever told me they were gay before.”

  “It’s not all that different from how you have relationships, but if there’s anything you wanna ask, feel free.”

  “Thanks,” I said, not brave enough to voice the questions that had filtered through moments before. Maybe one day, if our friendship got to the level where I felt comfortable talking to him openly about those sorts of things, it would be an interesting conversation to have.

  “I should let you go or you’re going to be late.”

  “Late?”

  “For the pub. You said that was tonight, didn’t you?”

  I shook my head to clear it. “Right. I almost forgot.”

  Asher was still laughing when he said, “I’ll see you tomorrow, Henry.”

  “See you tomorrow.”

  Broad hands glided along my skin, each touch making me feel better than the last. I arched into it, craving more, needing more contact. Every sensory nerve in my body was alight, synapses flooded with dopamine and serotonin. I was overloaded, unable to process all the feelings at once.

  Warmth and strength surrounded me, making me delirious with sensation. I grappled for something to hang on to, for something to keep me anchored as I shattered, pleasure splintering through me, a million fragments seeping through my skin, expanding to consume me completely.