My Guys

by Tanya Chris

  Like he needs mascara, I thought. I could see his lashes from two mirrors away.

  Returning to my phone, I clicked ‘No Thanks’ on Grandpa’s profile. CoupleMe immediately brought up several other suggestions and there he was: Alex. Checking over my shoulder first, as though he might be able to see me, I clicked on him. Forty, male, athletic, six foot two. Mostly true. He was only six feet but Donna had told me that men added to their height the way women subtracted from their age.

  I recognized the picture. The woman, visible only as a shoulder overlapping his, was me. I couldn’t bring myself to read more—his likes and dislikes, his hobbies and turn-ons. Then I realized that he could be seeing my profile, reading those things about me. I went frantically through the motions of disabling my account. Of course he was online. Of course. He’d probably been online before—

  Nate was watching me. I didn’t know how I knew it, but I did. I raised my eyes to the mirror and found his. He crooked a finger at me, beckoning me to him. I walked around the door into the makeup room, over to his table. The other tables were empty, people having finished and moved on. I stood behind him—the only place there was room for me to stand in the crowded, jumbled room—and met his eyes in the mirror.

  “How did you know I was there?” I asked.

  “You’re always there.”

  “I didn’t know you knew that.”

  “I like being watched. More than I should.”

  His back wasn’t as muscular as Derek’s but I didn’t mind looking at it. He had a boyish torso—lean to the point of scrawny and completely hairless except for a thin trail of fuzz leading from his belly button down to the low slung jeans.

  I summoned the courage to put my hands on his shoulders and was immediately rewarded with his smile. My stomach settled. I traced a finger along the side of his neck where my mouth had been the night before.

  “No damage?”

  “Nothing I couldn’t cover up.”

  His makeup looked finished, the eyes being the last step. I knew he should be changing into his costume—that was the next stop on the Nate Stalking Tour—but I didn’t want him to move now that my hands were on him. I lowered my thumbs to his shoulder blades and rubbed his back, trying to make it seem casual.

  “Unfair,” Nate said. “You know I have to stand up now.”

  “Yeah.” I ran my hands up into his hair, fluffing the curls out to better frame his face, then leaned down to smell his scalp, a combination of baby’s head and evergreen.

  “You’re making that very hard to do.”

  I caught his eye and grinned.

  “That’s better.” He stood up, facing me. “What happened?”

  I shook my head, the grin leaving my face.

  He sighed. “OK. I don’t have time now anyway. If I’m not in costume in ten minutes, Rebekah will have my ass. After the show, though.”

  He was definitely behind schedule, I realized back in the green room. The couch from which I normally watched the door to the men’s dressing room while Nate changed was occupied. Wayne and Mary were there, sitting next to each other companionably like real life spouses, waiting for their cue to go on. Rebekah hovered over them doing a personal props check. When she’d finished with them, she raised her voice and called the ten minute warning loud enough for the whole backstage to hear.

  “Thank you, ten,” I called back in chorus with the rest of the cast and crew. I moved to my ten minute spot by Rebekah’s podium to put on my headset. The room was quieting in anticipation as people finished their pre-show chores and started to get into character in their own head spaces.

  Rebekah was calling for the house lights to be dimmed before Nate came out of the dressing room tugging on his baseball hat. She scowled at him, but her voice didn’t change. The smoothly-delivered patter of a practiced stage manager flowed even as she waved him over. I watched her run down her Nate checklist silently while the back-and-forth continued over the headsets, then she gave him a pat on the rump and pushed him towards the stage door where Wayne and Mary had already taken their places.

  “Break a leg,” I mouthed at him before Rebekah opened the door and ushered them through it into the dark auditorium.

  The green room was silent for a moment and then over the speakers we heard Nate whine, “But you know I don’t like it with the little marshmallows. Why does it always have to be Josh’s way?” and the show had begun.

  During the show, we never spoke. Nate was on stage almost the entire time and when he wasn’t, he was frantically applying makeup to represent the black eye his brother had given him.

  In between scenes, I was the one on stage. In the near dark I removed and added props to set the stage for the next scene. Nate and I passed each other silently in the blue-lighted, narrow walkways behind the set.

  After the show, my time wasn’t my own. While Nate and the other actors met their public or recapped the night’s performance, I had work to do: dishes, counters, floors, everything tidied and ready for the next performance. Rebekah was always the last one out, but I wasn’t far ahead of her.

  “Thanks, Lissie,” she called after me when I said good night.

  The theater was nearly deserted, only Rebekah and Carol conferring near the door to the auditorium and Deb shutting down equipment up in the light booth. I went to the coat rack to grab the light jacket I’d worn, taking a look around for Nate. I found him outside the stage door talking to Pete and Repeat.

  “Not even one, dude?” Repeat shook his head in disbelief.

  “Losing his shit,” Pete agreed.

  “Next weekend,” Nate said. “I gotta get some sleep tonight.”

  “Never thought I’d see the day,” Repeat said.

  “It’s gotta be a girl,” Pete told him. “No way Nate is blowing off drinks to get some sleep. He’s getting some wanh wanh tonight, that’s what he’s getting.” He made a ridiculous trombone noise accompanied by a worse gesture.

  “Never thought I’d see the day,” Repeat repeated, mournfully shaking his head. “Even for a girl.”

  “Come on, Lissie,” Nate said when he noticed me standing there. “I’ll walk you to your car.” He put his arm around me and steered me away from them.

  “Hey, give her one for me,” Pete yelled after him.

  “They’re not talking about you,” Nate said when we were far enough away that they couldn’t hear us.

  “I know that.”

  I did know that. It was painfully obvious that while they could believe—even hope—that Nate would be getting lucky tonight, it was beyond their imagination that he might be getting lucky with me. Because a) I was too old and ugly for anyone to wanh wanh with and b) Nate’s touching, flirting, attention was just Nate and didn’t mean a God damned thing to anyone except me.

  I shrugged his arm off. I unlocked my car and opened the door, willing myself to get into it without another word.

  “So who then?” I asked, turning on him. “Who do they think you’re going to make disgusting trombone noises with tonight?” I slammed the door, but I was still on the wrong side of it.

  “I don’t think they had anyone particular in mind.”

  They were coming towards us now, heading for Pete’s truck. I watched them get in and drive away, joking with each other the whole time, while the hurt simmered in my heart.

  “I should go,” I said, but I didn’t go. In the dim light of the parking lot I couldn’t see the blue in Nate’s eyes, but I could see the confusion on his face. We stood there, looking anywhere except at each other, until I realized that I was waiting for him to apologize or explain, to make me feel better about it, about all of it: Alex’s profile and Donna’s comments and Pete and Repeat’s sexist humor. And that he wasn’t going to do that.

  “Nate?”

  He looked at me then.

  “What are we doing? What is this?”

  “Fun?”

  “Is that it?”

  “I guess so.” He sighed. “It’s a little earl
y for this talk, isn’t it?”

  “Maybe for your generation. My generation doesn’t start with sex and move on to dating if the sex works out.”

  “Not such a bad way to do it,” he joked. When I didn’t respond he sighed again. “It’s not a generational thing. I have the same trouble with women my own age.”

  “What trouble is that?”

  “Exclusivity. Commitment. Relationship with a capital R. I don’t see the point.” He leaned his back against my car, tilting his head to look at the sky. “I can’t do it.”

  “You’ve tried?”

  “Not really, never had a desire.”

  We both looked at the sky for a bit.

  “I like women, Lissie. I like all women, and some women I like a lot. I want to be open to it, to possibility.”

  I felt like he was ripping into me. I realized only then that I really had thought, or expected, or maybe just wanted ... but shit.

  “It’s not like I fuck everything that moves,” he continued, “even if they’d let me. Some women you just talk to, and some you touch here and there, like a foreshadowing. Some are fantasies because the reality would suck. And then some ... some are like you. With you, I want more.”

  But not that much more, I thought.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I’m not sure I can do that.” All I could think was: Alex. All I could think was: it’s happening again. We hadn’t even had sex yet, and I was already not enough.

  Nate took my hand and laced his fingers through it, like an anchor, bringing me back to the here and now. Deb came out of the stage door and started walking across the parking lot towards us.

  “Goodnight, Melissa,” she said as she passed us on the way to her car. Nate got a head bob.

  “Why does she hate you?”

  “Would you believe me if I told you that I don’t know?”

  “Did you sleep with her?”

  “I don’t usually leave women I’ve slept with that angry at me.”

  “Would you sleep with her?”

  He turned his head towards where she’d been, as though he could still see her there. “She could have me in a minute. Something about frosty bitch face really gets me going.”

  I couldn’t tell if he was serious or not. I didn’t think he knew.

  “If not her, then who? That you’ve slept with here.”

  “A gentleman would never kiss and tell.”

  “Fine, I’ll ask Deb.”

  He snorted. “She’s probably got it catalogued, all right.”

  “Enough for a whole catalogue?”

  Nate turned towards me and ran his hand over my hair, pushing back my bangs. “Lissie, why do this?”

  “I want to know who my competition is. Younger women? Other women my age?”

  “I do like older women.”

  “Why?”

  “With the exception of you,” he laughed shortly, “they’re usually more amenable to an open relationship.”

  Desperate, I thought. With the exception of me, and not even with the exception of me, older women were usually more desperate.

  “And interesting,” he added. “I don’t want to push the stereotype, but women my age can be pretty self-absorbed.”

  “Not enough about you.”

  “Well,” he said, “that’s probably fair.”

  It wasn’t fair. He was an admitted attention-seeker, yes. He liked to be watched, yes. He was a born actor, yes. But he was also the most attentive, giving, considerate almost-lover I’d ever had.

  “No, that’s not fair.” I squeezed his hand to let him know I was sorry.

  “What about you?” he asked. “There was a word you used last night that stuck in my head.”

  I looked at him quizzically.

  “Husband. You said ‘my husband’ last night. Do you have a husband, Lissie?”

  I nodded. Asked outright, I couldn’t lie about it.

  “And that’s what you don’t want to talk about?”

  I nodded again. He was quiet, but he didn’t let go of my hand.

  “I guess I’m not in a position to complain,” he said after a minute. “But tell me he’s not going to show up with a shotgun.”

  “He’s not in a position to complain either. We’re separated.”

  “How long?”

  “A couple of months.”

  “How long were you married?”

  “Fourteen years.”

  “That must be tough.”

  The night was getting colder. I shivered. He pulled me into his arms. He wasn’t even wearing a coat, but he was warm the way men were warm. I let myself be warmed by him. It was comforting to stand like that with a man’s arms around me, feeling the warmth of a man. He kissed the top of my head.

  “Do you want to tell me what happened?”

  “To my marriage?”

  “I was thinking of earlier when you got upset at your phone, but I guess either.”

  It was easier to explain the phone so I did, my head tucked into his chest so I didn’t have to look at him. He didn’t say anything for a minute. I felt like I could imagine what he was thinking: my husband was on an online dating site, I was on an online dating site, and I’d just blown up at Nate for not being committed enough.

  “I’m sorry about before. I was mad at Alex, not you.”

  “It had to happen, him dating again. I understand why it hurts, but it had to happen sometime.”

  I buried my nose in his chest, smelling him—stage makeup, a little sweat, and spruce.

  “It’s not just now,” I said. “He ... before too.” I could feel the tears welling up.

  Nate wrapped his arms tighter around me. “He was cheating on you?”

  I nodded into his chest, trying to hold the tears back, but I couldn’t. It was the warmth that did me in, to be held, and to feel, if only a little, loved. He rocked me silently, his cheek resting on the top of my head, until I stopped crying. Then he tilted me back away from him and ran his thumb across my cheek.

  “Alex is an asshole.”

  I laughed.

  “No, really. Cheating is an asshole move. I’d never cheat on you. Maybe it seems like a fine line, but cheating is lying, and I won’t lie to you.”

  It did seem like a fine line. He wouldn’t cheat because he wouldn’t promise. Nothing promised, nothing reneged.

  “I’m tired,” I said.

  “Yeah, we were planning an early night, weren’t we?” He pulled me in close and kissed me until I could feel the press of his erection against my stomach.

  “I don’t know if I can like that,” I said, “just casually.”

  “It’s easier than you think.”

  For him, maybe.

  “If you decide you can—and I hope you do, but if you decide you can’t, then you can’t—but if you decide you can, then there’s something I’d like from you.”

  Something he’d like from me? Was he angling for bizarre sex acts already? We hadn’t even had sex the regular way yet.

  “Now you look scared. It’s not so scary, I hope.”

  “What?”

  “I’d like to be able to touch you in public without you flinching. It makes me feel like a secret you’re trying to keep.”

  “Oh.” I hadn’t considered that aspect at all.

  “You’re embarrassed.”

  “Not of you. You’re the hottest guy in the show.”

  “That’s saying very little.”

  “You’re my dreamboat,” I said, taking his face in my hands. “Be careful what you wish for. If I stop being shy in public you’ll have me pawing at you all the time.”

  “That sounds incredibly good.” He bent down and kissed me some more until we were both breathing heavily. “It’s just shyness?”

  “Shyness and not wanting to be ‘that woman,’” I said, thinking of Donna’s cougar impersonation but refusing to say the word out loud.

  “That woman who seduces the innocent boy and initiates him into the depraved joys of the flesh?”


  I had to laugh. “You’re not a very innocent boy, are you?”

  “I’m sure there are still some things I could learn.”

  I doubted it.

  “And maybe a few things I could teach you,” he added.

  Now that, I believed. My repertoire was limited. Uninteresting, you could even say.

  “Hey,” Nate said. “You know I like attention?”

  “Yes,” I agreed, not sure where he was going.

  “So when you’re with me, think of me. You just got that Alex look on your face again.”

  “Sorry.” I was sorry too. I would much rather think about Nate. “You were telling me how much you could teach me,” I said, trying to get back into the spirit of it.

  “Maybe it’s more like an exploration. Things we learn together.”

  “I like that.” I turned my face up to his and he kissed me some more, pressing me back against the car so that his erection ground into me, turning my mind to mush. He broke the kiss and took a step back.

  “I hope you decide you can,” he said, “but maybe you’d better decide with a clear head, and if I stick around much longer I’m not going to have the strength to let you do that. Good night, Lissie.”

  I got in my car and drove home, more confused than I’d been the night before and a lot less satisfied.

  Chapter 6

  While waiting for the customer in front of me to finish checking in, I examined Climb Time’s pricing structure. So far I’d been paying the daily fee, but if I climbed more than once a week, the monthly membership was cheaper. The week before I hadn’t climbed at all due to stupid Tech Week, but the week before that I’d climbed twice, three times if you counted the belay class.

  Most of my classmates had come with their own partner, so I was automatically paired up with the other solo woman. Katrina was about fifty with short hair she’d allowed to grey naturally. She was intimidatingly muscular. She told me she was a fitness competitor. I’d never even known fitness was a contest.

  Gary taught the class. He was the gym manager, the guy who’d signed me up to take the class, and the guy who checked people in at the front desk. It was a small shop. Perhaps Gary had been a climber when he was younger, but now he was middle-aged and round around the middle. He wore wire glasses that reminded me of John Lennon and had facial hair that hadn’t been popular since the seventies. For class, he was assisted by a scrawny, pimply kid of no more than fifteen named Kyle.