A Place Where Nothing Ever Happens: Short Story
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Trying to get over his anxiety, Kyle said, “Hey! Get this. There were these two guys — ”
Lauren interrupted him. “You know, when I say you’re funny, I don’t mean that your jokes are funny, so you should stop trying so hard to make jokes.”
“Oh.” Kyle was confused. Was this some kind of roundabout way of breaking up with him? And he thought things were going so well. Shit.
“It’s how you are, who you are, that’s so funny. Just relax and be yourself. You amuse me in so many little ways. The look of panic in your face every time someone addresses you. The way you always spit exactly three times after you brush your teeth. How you constantly rub your nose. How you tend to lose yourself inside your own head. How you overreact to everything.”
“So it’s who I am that’s a joke?” Instead of breaking up with him, she’ll laugh at him for the rest of their lives? Kyle tried to balance the damage to his ego with the sex and all the other ways she made him feel good.
“No, silly. You’re charming! Everything about you is charming! You’re so transparent and honest. Real and direct. I love that.”
“Oh. Alright, then.” He grinned.
Lauren sat him down, dropped on his lap, squeezed his hand between her thighs, and kissed him.
And Kyle looked into those bright brown, almost orange eyes of hers and lost himself in the love he saw in there.
Lauren jumped off Kyle’s lap when the doorbell rang. Kyle savoured the lingering taste of her lips on his own.
Lauren walked back into the kitchen with her brother in tow, and Kyle looked up into his big, light-brown eyes, so bright they were almost orange. And Kyle thought, Shit, he’s really cute.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Claude Lalumière (lostpages.net) is the editor of eight anthologies, including Island Dreams: Montreal Writers of the Fantastic and the Aurora Award-nominated Tesseracts Twelve: New Novellas of Canadian Fantastic Fiction. He writes the Fantastic Fiction column for The Montreal Gazette. Claude is the co-creator, with artist Rupert Bottenberg, of Lost Myths (lostmyths.net).
PUBLICATION HISTORY
“A Place Where Nothing Ever Happens” first appeared in Interzone #182 (November 2002).