by Sharpe, Elle
“You still don’t trust me, do you?”
“Maybe not entirely, no,” I said through a full mouth.
So far I’d experienced two whole days of him behaving decently towards me. I had plenty of far less pleasant memories of him kicking around in my brain.
“So how can we solve this problem?” he asked. “What do you need from me?”
I had a hard time not snorting syrup out my nose. “What do you need from me?” was one of negotiation strategy lines they fed us in business school.
“Ronan Baylor, are you asking me a ‘diagnostic question’?”
“Oh, so it turns out you were paying attention in class.”
“Yeah dude, I never really wanted to be there but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t paying attention.”
He grasped the edges of the counter eagerly and leaned in closer.
“Alright then, let’s have a negotiation.”
“Pfff. I still have PTSD from the last time we negotiated. And that wasn’t even real.”
“Well, so do I. You were the worst negotiation partner I’ve ever had.”
“Excuse me?” I replied, incensed. “You were the worst. You were needlessly hostile. You attacked my negotiation style instead of actually negotiating.”
“No, you were the one being hostile,” he shot back. “You gave in to everything I asked for immediately. And if I changed my mind and asked for something else, you folded again.”
“How is it hostile to be too agreeable?”
“You were passive-aggressive. You knew I wanted to have a real back-and-forth with you. I was supposed to be teaching you. And then your only goal became ending the conversation so it couldn’t happen. When you know the other party’s underlying motivation and you deny it to them out of spite, that’s called a hostile negotiation.”
Throughout this exchange the volume of our voices kept getting higher. Our faces kept getting closer together. Ronan had his arms braced tensely against the counter, and I thought I saw a vein twitch in his neck. I definitely saw the muscles of his chest get tense. I have to say, seeing him get so worked up while wearing hardly any clothes was...quite an experience.
It almost made up for how annoying it was that he sort of, kind of, had a point.
“Yeah, well, maybe I thought there wasn’t any point in pushing back at you. Maybe I didn’t think there was any way I could win.”
The tension eased out of his body, and the sternness faded from his eyes.
“Norah, I’m not trying to beat you.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know, ‘A negotiation is supposed to create an agreeable outcome for both parties.’ Fine. Let’s start over. We’ll have a real negotiation this time. Make your opening offer.”
“Be my girlfriend,” he repeated, with just as much certainty as the first time.
I thought about it for a second.
“No.”
His face fell, and he pulled back, crossing his arms.
“What, I thought you didn’t want me to give in right away? I’m being difficult. Use your tactics on me.”
“Fine,” he clenched his jaw in frustration, and I had to admit this amused me greatly. “What will it take for the prospect of dating me to become appealing to you?”
I placed my hand to my chin and made a show of thinking very deeply.
“Come on Norah. Ask for anything that you want.”
I felt uncomfortably like I was being bribed. And I felt bad that I was putting him in a position of having to convince me. In reality, we weren’t on opposite sides. I wasn’t exactly opposed to the idea of dating him, of having him all to myself. But I still couldn’t help thinking that letting myself feel that way felt dangerous. I tried out the thought, “I want to be Ronan Baylor’s girlfriend,” and I got the urge to burst out laughing.
There was some sort of catch waiting for me. I could sense it. Maybe this was all part of how Ronan operated: rush into relationships, heap on the charm, then make a quick exit. He might not be the one-night-stand-with-supermodels type. Maybe I had misjudged him about that. But he was still a playboy. I remembered the way he traded in his girlfriends every few months back in college.
He was probably one of those guys who liked “the thrill of the chase” more than the actual relationship. He probably went after the girls who “played hard to get.” Which I guess is what I’m doing right now, I realized with some embarrassment.
And then, once he got them, he probably lost interest.
My mind spun out images of all those doomed past relationships. Like the stacks of bodies in Bluebeard’s closet. Yes, he was acting nice now, but who knew what dark, assholey deeds lurked in Ronan Baylor’s past?
It occurred to me that I didn’t need to wonder. Ask for anything you want.
“Okay, here’s a thought: I need to do some fact finding. Before an acquisition or a merger you’d do some background research on a company, right? Get a sense of their history, what’s motivating them?”
“Sure.”
“So, why do all of your relationships end so quickly?”
The smile that he’d been wearing faltered a fraction. That’s right Ronan, we’re deep into it now. If you want a real, meaty conversation, that’s what I’ll give you.
“What do you mean?” he asked. He kept smiling. Playing dumb, I thought. Evading the question.
“Well, back in school, you sort of had a reputation as a serial dater. And I want to know why. If you really want me to date you, I want to know what dating Ronan Baylor is usually like. The good, the bad, and the ugly. And if you really like me ‘being challenging’ so much then you can’t complain, because this is exactly the sort of thing you’re asking for.”
He mulled this over for a moment.
“Alright then.”
He came around to the end of the counter and took a seat at a barstool. He took a moment to think before he spoke, resting his elbows on a pile of my old mail. I imagined the carousel of past girlfriends spinning through his mind.
In my own imagination every one of them was supermodel beautiful, sophisticated and poised. This was the type of girl he’d been known to date back in school. Yet each one of those lovely ladies had been lacking somehow.
“I don’t really mean to be a ‘serial dater,’” he began, finally. “I know it sounds cliché, but I think I just haven’t been with the right person. In every relationship I’ve ever had, it became clear to one or both of us very quickly that we didn’t make sense together long-term.”
“Why not?”
“Well…” He hesitated. “I have a bit of theory. You see, people have a certain image of me. Rich. Smart. Stunningly handsome. Successful. Responsible.”
“Modest? Grounded? Down to earth?” I offered.
He laughed.
“Some of the women I’ve dated—not all of them, but a lot of them...they see me as some kind of prize. Even if they’re smart and successful in their own right. Or, they expect that being with me will somehow solve all their problems. I don’t know.”
“Aaaaah,” I said. “That explains it.”
“Explains what?”
“I can’t be a gold digger if you’re the one who has to win me over.”
I said it with a laugh, but I was pretty sure I was being serious. I’d been trying to figure out what exactly Ronan saw in me, how it could be true that he liked me so much. I doubted that he was really entranced by my special, magical personality, or whatever. It made sense to me that he would like me for what I wasn’t, more than for what for what I was.
He frowned.
“I never said they were gold diggers. I mean, maybe a few of them were. But even with wealthy women...I just...got this feeling…” he trailed off.
He started playing with the bottle of syrup sitting on the counter. Watching the thick liquid slide back and forth. He looked at it intently, like it was a science experiment.
“I got the feeling they wanted something specific from me, but I didn’t know what it was. I was suppo
sed to have all the answers. I had my life together. I ran a company. So with me everything was supposed to just work out, somehow. I don’t know.”
“Well, you do act like a bit of a know-it-all,” I said. I gave him a patronizing pat on the shoulder, before I realized what a comfortable, familiar-feeling gesture it was. I snatched my hand away.
“Yes. Well. So I might bring it on myself. But in any case, most women have eventually realized that I don’t know everything. And then it’s like the perfect facade had cracked. They lose interest and break it off. And then there were a few people who never saw through the glamour of the ‘dating a billionaire’ thing. They kept on treating me like I was larger than life, and that quickly got exhausting. So, in those cases, I broke up with them.”
He set the bottle down, and looked over at me, clearly searching for some kind of response. I wasn’t really sure what to say.
“I thought you were a multi-millionaire, not a billionaire,” I said, lamely.
“Oh. I’m a billionaire now.”
“Right.”
“What about you?” he asked. “How did your past relationships end?”
“Tired of the scrutiny already?” I asked. “Trying to turn it back around on me? And here I thought you were already sold on me.”
“Maybe I’m not trying to ‘vet’ you, like you’re trying to do with me. Maybe I’m just curious, and trying to get to know you.”
I resented the bitter way he said the word “vet.” If he was going to encourage me to go hard on him he shouldn't get all offended about it.
“Well,” I said, “My relationships have barely existed. Aside from about eighty bad Tinder dates, my only sort-of relationship in the past few years lasted about six months. And it was pretty nothing.”
“‘Nothing’ how?”
I shrugged, and took another bite of pancake. The syrup was soaked in just the right amount now, and I wasn’t about to let that go to waste.
“We got along fine, but there wasn’t really much of a spark, I guess.”
I thought about what it had been like to have sex with that guy—Alex, that had been his name. It had been...fine. He hadn’t acted like he’d wanted to torture me. Or like he’d wanted to consume my flesh.
“And how did it end?”
“He broke up with me.”
“Why?”
“He didn’t say.”
This was technically true. He hadn’t given me a reason directly. But for weeks he’d been saying things that implied that he found me...a little messy. A little flighty. Slightly nuts.
“Maybe he was an idiot,” Ronan theorized.
I chewed my pancake thoughtfully. I’d just remembered that when Alex had broken up with me, it had been right around the time I’d taken him to meet my family for the first time. At the time I thought it had gone okay. But I probably should have known that “okay” with my family could be sort of, well...off-putting, let’s say, to normal people.
Maybe that had been part of it. Crazy girl, crazy family.
“You say that now,” I said. “Maybe he dodged a bullet.”
Ronan didn’t reply to that. Just folded his arms, like he wasn’t going to take that kind of bate.
“Okay,” I said. “I have a proposition for you. I’m not prepared to offer you the title of ‘boyfriend’ just yet. But what I can offer is a trial run. Sort of like...an internship. Yeah. We’ll do a trial run at dating, before we decide if we want to do it for real. And if we decide we don’t want to, we forget the whole thing, and go our separate ways. Easy peasy.”
Ronan looked pretty unimpressed by this proposal.
“What exactly would a ‘trial run’ entail?” he asked. “Would we go out together, on dates?”
“I mean, yeah, I guess.”
“Then how would that be different from just...dating?”
I hesitated. I wasn’t sure how to explain it any better than I already had.
“Because it would be a trial,” I repeated. “It wouldn’t be real. We could call the whole thing off any time we wanted.”
“You do know you can already stop dating someone any time you want, right? Breakups aren’t punishable by law.”
Clearly the brilliance of this idea was not getting through to him.
“Look, let me put this more concretely for you.” I thought for a moment, and then decided to go ahead and say the thing that I’d been turning over in the back of my mind. “Here’s a slightly different proposition. My parents are hosting a family reunion soon. I’ll bring you. As a friend. We’ll see how you all get along together. And then we’ll decide. Could that work for you?”
He opened his mouth to answer, but before he could I jumped in again.
“By the way, this is the best offer you’re going to get. So your choices are: take it, or leave it.”
PART(Y) IV
NORAH’S FAMILY REUNION
Ronan
Meeting the parents. No, not just the parents. The whole family. This felt like a test. The type of test you’d usually go through after several months in a serious relationship. But instead this was going to be our first “date.” Potentially our only date.
Norah made it clear that she didn’t want us to see each other again until the day of the family reunion—about three weeks after the one and only night we’d spent together. I did breach the agreement by trying to ask her out on a real date one more time. I was curious whether a nice meal at a gourmet restaurant would tempt her.
I predicted that she would turn me down, but I couldn’t help it. After all this time thinking about her, a forced separation after just one night was aggravating. Like getting a small taste of something and then being denied. I wanted her again and again.
And not just for sex. Though I did want that. A lot. But I also missed the easy banter between us after just a few days away from her. And the way it felt to hold her close to me. Our bodies just made sense with each other, like two magnets clicking together.
Norah stuck firmly to our agreement, and was not open to re-negotiation. She just texted me, “Remember our deal,” with a smiley-face emoji.
Usually at this stage in a relationship I was spoiling my dates with lavish dinners. I enjoyed making people feel special and well-treated, and if there was anyone who was practically begging to be treated that way, it was Norah.
Norah, who had a strange aversion to admitting that she was special. Instead she sold herself short, and seemed to almost take pride in “not living up to her potential.” It was perverse, and I wanted to put a stop to it. I had a strong urge to romance her into submission.
But fine. If she was taking dates off the table, there were other ways.
I started with a dozen red roses, sent to her apartment. Classic. Timeless.
Boring, according to the text she sent me just after she got them.
“It’s a decent concept, Ronan, but it’s been done. I want to see you pitch me something more original. What’s your unfair advantage?”
She may or not may not have been quoting critiques that I’d given to undergraduate pitch presentations in back business school.
I laughed when I saw that. And then I thought, “I’ll take that challenge.”
I remembered the way she’d looked carefully at the craftsman tiles that lined my patio. I went to an antiques dealer to find similar ones, and sent her a box full. That got a slightly better response.
“Okay,” her text read. “You have my attention.”
My next move was a curveball.
I texted her: “I’m thinking about how delicious your hair smells.”
She took ages to reply, which I hoped meant I had caught her off guard. When she finally texted back she said, “Are you looking for shampoo recommendations?”
“Only if you can be bottled,” I replied.
A few hours later she texted back: “6/10 for effort. Cute but boarding on cheesy.”
The next day I wrote: “Now I’m thinking of rubbing my head against your neck and
nibbling on your earlobe.”
She replied: “Sounds like you need some breakfast. Remember, cannibalism is a last resort.”
Me: “Unless the other person tastes really, really good.”
Another long silence. Finally she came back with: “You know, I’ve heard that once someone has a taste of human flesh they start craving it uncontrollably.”
Me: That is a disgusting and disturbing fact. And yet, I feel I can relate.
Norah: Are you saying you’re addicted to my flesh?
Me: The cravings are intense.
The day before the family reunion, I texted her one final, simple thing:
Me: I crave the taste of your cunt the most.
It was a risk. She might accuse me of being vulgar. She took a very long time to respond to that one.
I saw her reply come in just before I got into bed. I smiled. It was just a blushing-face emoji with bright red cheeks.
Norah’s parents lived in a well-groomed ranch-style house out in the suburbs: attractive, but fairly bland. Or, it would have been bland, if not for the strange additions to the front door.
Taped to the door were about five or six handmade paper signs of various sizes. They looked like they’d been printed on a home computer. Each sign had a different warning or instruction typed onto it. Instructions for mailmen about where to leave packages. A reminder about the correct way to close the front door. A reminder to stay off the grass. Each one ended in several exclamation marks.
“My mom,” Norah said, as if that was all the explanation that was required.
She reached out for the doorbell, but stopped short.
“Oh,” she said, offhandedly. “I have a rule for you, for today. Don’t mention who you are.”
This surprised me a little.
“Why not, exactly?” I asked.
They’ll have to learn who I am at some point, I thought. Hopefully.
“It’s just...I’m not sure how they’ll react. I don’t know if I want to throw another variable into the mix. Me showing up with a guy is going to be enough of a curveball on its own.”
It must have been a while since Norah’s six-month-long boyfriend, then.