by
Trisky
“Thank God. No offense.” He pours the last drop of my milk from the container into his bowl, a pasta bowl, if I’m not mistaken. The cornflakes and six hundred tablespoons of sugar form a precarious model of something vaguely resembling Mt. Everest. I watch the sugar begin to coat my counter with a dusting of white as the milk makes the mountain rise up even further, and shed some of its snow. It’s a miracle of modern science that he manages to keep every flake in the bowl once his spoon digs in. “I didn’t want to say anything, but I think between the stairs and these stools, there’s a permanent crease forming on my ass,” he wisecracks, between massacring big, sloppy heaps of increasingly soggy flakes with his spoon.
“Oh, I’m so sorry you’re uncomfortable. Make sure to remind me to rub some sandpaper on it later to smooth it out for you.” I grind out the remainder of my cigarette in the ashtray and chug down two big gulps of my glass of milk. Milk! The milk he had to pour for me, since he’s totally convinced that I’m letting myself wilt away to nothing. He may not be that far off. I’m too lazy to walk the ten feet required to reach anything stronger.
“I think my mom has a spare couch in storage from the old house. I’m sure she’d let you use it.” He’s too chipper and too resourceful, always the happy fucking helper. It’s especially agitating at this hour. He’s like a wind-up doll that just keeps thinking out loud. No one should be that up at 2:00 in the morning.
“Just what I want, a couch full of dried up cum stains from you jerking off to God knows what.”
“Why not? You should be used to it. I’m sure I left a few on your precious Italian leather.” He slides a slick tongue under his spoon and I lift a suspicious eyebrow. I’m disgusted! “What? Like you never did. Please! I don’t even want to think about whose bodily fluids were left on that thing.”
“Stop chewing and talking at the same time. It’s rude.” I fiddle with the cap of my pen, bending the plastic back and forth, letting my chin nearly touch the counter to be eye level with my hand.
“You just want me to be quiet.”
“Apparently, it’s not working.” I’m not sure I even have the energy required to be sarcastic because it comes out a hell of a lot quieter than I expected. I lean my head against my arm and watch him inhale spoonfuls of froth. “How you can possibly eat that at this hour? Or any other for that matter?”
“Why shouldn’t I? You get one full meal, one nutritious bowl of Vitamin D, a sugar high to keep you awake and there’s no talent required to prepare it. Cereal may just be the nectar of the gods. You don’t know what you’re missing out on,” he deadpans.
“It’s 2:00 in the morning.” If my head wasn’t laying sideways, I’m convinced my chin might be touching the floor in dumbfounded horror. I search the back of his neck for the screw to undo the panel that surely must exist and is holding the batteries that never seem to die. He just keeps going and going and going...
“Want some?” He shoves his spoonful of half chewed mulch near my mouth, no doubt trying to entice me into opening it with some nefarious plan meant to coax me into a natural gagging response.
I sit up straight, backing away before there can be a head on collision of his silver and my enamel. “I’m not eating anything off of your spoon. That’s revolting!” I slap his hand away, beaning a soggy lump onto the counter.
“You have to be kidding me! Please tell me you’re kidding me?” He scoops the lump off the counter between his fingertips. I watch his every movement, like it’s in slow motion as he brings his fingers to his mouth, deposits the cereal there and then drops them down to wipe them clean on the ends of his t-shirt. I officially refuse to watch him eat ever again. “After the parts of me you’ve had in your mouth, you can’t put up with a little saliva?”
“That’s totally different.” Not to mention totally gross.
“How is that different?” he asks, baffled.
“I don’t fucking know! It just is.”
“You’re so weird,” he smiles a crooked smile, leaning over to either wipe his mouth on my face or kiss the underside of my jaw. Who can be sure with him? He settles for the kiss. “And cranky. Did you eat anything at all today? You need to keep your energy up.”
“So that I can keep getting back up, over and over, after I’m shot down yet again?” He rubs the top of my ear between his sticky fingers. For some reason I don’t mind it all that much. I feel my head begin to lean towards him, as my body slumps further down the stool. He read an article about relieving stress in some magazine once, while waiting for me to get dressed, that said rubbing the top of your ears releases a certain chemical in the brain that’s supposed to help you relax. He’s been doing it ever since and I’ve let him, since I’m mostly to blame for his discovery of that little known fact in the first place. I guess it does feel sort of okay. It feels kind of nice actually.
“How many rejections... I’m sorry ‘opportunities those son of a bitches don’t know that they’re fucking missing out on’ today?”
“Let’s just say I’m beginning to feel sympathy for Ted.” I rub circles around my temple with an open palm in a steady tempo with his fingers massaging my ear.
“Ouch! That bad?” At least his empathetic side doesn’t have quite the same appetite as the rest of him. He circles the cereal with his spoon, his desire to console barely overcoming his desire to consume. Not that I’m one to talk or anything.
“It’s like one monotonous chant ‘I heard what happened, so sorry we can’t take you on.’ ‘It’s a shame you wasted your talents.’ ‘I’d love to, but...’ I don’t even blame them, I wouldn’t hire me either.”
“Have you thought about what you want to do,” he hesitates, briefly “if you can’t find another job?”
“No, hasn’t really crossed my mind.” I flip him off, verbally, my bad behavior earning me enough demerits to warrant immediate revocation of ear stroking privileges. I scowl involuntarily at the bowl of cornflakes that takes my place as number one priority.
“Have you thought about opening up your own agency?” Chip, chip, chippy chipper.
“And let me guess, you’d draw up all the concepts and we’d pack matching lunchboxes to take to the office. Only we wouldn’t have to actually leave the house because we’d produce everything right here with our bare hands.” I sit up straight, regaining some sensation along my spine. He’s right, spending hours in these stools is beginning to feel like it’s causing some permanent bodily damage.
“I didn’t say I wanted any part of it! Besides, we’d fucking kill each other,” he laughs and I allow myself a grin, despite my better judgment. “I just thought that maybe it was something you were thinking about.”
“Too predictable, everyone would expect me to do something like that. Maybe I should look at this as an opportunity to do something different.” An unexpected swell of mild excitement rises in my chest.
“Really, what would you do?” He chews with an earnest, wide eyed stare.
“Find a really rich sugar daddy?” I wipe my finger across the dirty counter, showing him the white residue.
“Too bad George kicked the bucket.” I do a double take at his inscrutable reaction as he collects the remaining crystals spread next to his bowl and sprinkles them back onto the flakes. Yuck. Just yuck.
“Yeah, can’t you just see Emmett and me clawing each other’s eyes out on some trashy daytime talk show?”
“Now there’s a catfight that would sell tickets,” he snarks. “Something tells me he could get vicious.”
“He could wrap one of his feather boas around my neck and choke me to death.” I feel a rumble starting in the pit of my stomach, from laughter or hunger, I’m not sure.
“Here lies Brian Kinney, death by pink ostrich feather induced asphyxiation.” I laugh, a clear, loud sound. I knew there was a reason I dragged him out of his apartment. I didn’t even have to get nude to get him to come. I size up his frame, watching the way it moves when he laughs, free of concern, unrestricted by anything. Nothing on him needs to be rubbed in order to relax. It’s just pure amusement and that makes me smile underneath the cloak of laughter. “Hey, maybe that’s something you can consider. Something to do with fashion.”
“I like to buy it, not produce it. What else ya got?” I slosh the milk around its glass, willing it to turn into something I can actually eat. I refuse to acknowledge my hunger.
“You did a pretty good job organizing Melanie and Lindsay’s wedding. Maybe you could be a wedding planner?” I knew I should have taken that sugar away from him.
“Only if I get to plan the divorce or burial that goes along with it. Whichever comes first.” He looks around the empty room. I look at his half full bowl and hear the first sounds of obvious growling. Thankfully he’s oblivious.
“Interior design? You have good taste.”
“What the fuck is this? Stereotypes 101: A Lesson in Emmett’s Rejected Life Plans?”
“He’s got more happening than either of us do, at the moment. At least he has a job.” He had to remind me... “What are you good at, besides advertising?” I half consider kissing him, to show him, or to suck the cereal out of his mouth. I’m not sure.
“You should be able to answer that better than I can.”
“Last time I checked, Hunter didn’t need the competition.” Talk about ouch.
“That’s so wrong,” I snicker ruefully, attempting to mask my face with my hand. I shouldn’t encourage these things. I laugh harder.
“How about you run off to Vegas and become a lounge singer?” He pushes the bowl, with spoon included, towards my arm. I feel it touch my elbow.
“Too Swingers.” I stir the noxious confection with the spoon, reluctant to give in.
“Oh I know,” he says it a little too excitedly, more for show than anything, keeping a close eye on my movements. I dig into my first spoonful, while he distracts himself. Or maybe me. “You could open your own club.”
“That’d kind of be like loving food and becoming a chef.” I nearly suction the next bite, letting my hunger consume me. I don’t even care what I’m eating, just as long as I am. I can’t remember the last time I felt this empty. “It’d lose its appeal after you spend day after day making it for everyone else. Give me something good and butch.”
His hand travels to my lower back, his fingertips gently knead the knots forming there. “Garbage man?”
“Dig through other people’s shit for a living? No thanks.”
“I’m sure you’ve touched worse in the backroom.” I nod a couple of times. He has a point. My back relaxes in his hand. “Construction?”
“Too much sweat, not enough pleasure.”
He leans back, leaving me with the bowl and whatever dignity I have left. His hand drifts mindlessly up and down my back. “You could... go back to school.”
I don’t mean to snort, but I do, and I can almost feel the tension grip his fingers. “You could go back to school.” I turn my head to make sure my words have sunk in.
He looks a little tired, mouth curled in the most expressionless smile I’ve ever seen on him. “Actually, I’m considering it.” One fingertip travels the length of my neck, until it reaches my hair and weaves its way towards my earlobe.
“Good. I’m glad you finally regained some of your common sense. Work the system, don’t let it work you.”
“It’s not really like that,” his thumb grazes the skin of my ear. “I’m considering my options.”
This is news to me. “Another school? Carnegie Mellon?” I put the spoon down, despite the protests from my stomach.
“No, maybe something out of state. I’ve been doing some research and there are a lot of really great programs.”
“Uh-huh.” I can’t think of anything else to say. Not a single, solitary, coherent word. I can feel my stomach turning again. I’m just not very hungry anymore. I knew I shouldn’t have eaten that shit, now I’ll be up all night, unable to sleep.
“I just need to get accepted and of course, find a way to pay for it.” Oh, is that all?
“Sorry about... reneging?” It winds up sounding more like a question than an apology because words fail me and dead silence is not what he needs to hear. This is good for him. He needs to do this.
“I have some irons in the fire.” His hand falls away from my head. I close my eyes tightly for a few seconds, picturing a string of words composing themselves into sentences.
“Really? Mind telling me what they are?” Composing, but not apparently compelling.
He shifts uncomfortably and odds are it’s not because of the stool. “Nothing you want to hear about.”
“Humor me.”
“I might be able to get the tuition from my father, with a little left over.” And the truth shall set you free.
“Your big plan to save me?” He barely blinks. “No thanks. Besides, since when is he so willing to help you out?” I don’t know what to react to first, or how. I just feel every part of me tighten.
“I have to work on him a little, but he did call. And my mother says there are some things, bonds, funds, some shit, I’m not sure, that he might have. Things she thought he sold when they were buying the house, but turns out he didn’t and my name is on them as a beneficiary. So I guess he intended to give them to me, at some point.” He never did have a head for business, we’d make shitty partners.
“And you think he will now?” I push away the sopping mess in front of me and put the glass of milk out of my reach, afraid that my instinct to throw it at the wall will overwhelm me.
“I don’t know, but I could try. I don’t really have a lot of options.” For once, I can’t even offer him another one and that... just gets to me. I lean my elbows on the counter, to hold my shoulders up.
“Don’t let him back you into a corner.” He leans forward, listening intently. “Be smart and don’t let him see how much you need him. Make him think he needs you more, even if it’s just to answer his own fucking conscience.” If he’s going to do this, then fuck all, he’s going to do it right. “Don’t sacrifice your pride for him. Or me.”
“I told you, you’re more important to me than stupid pride that gets me nowhere.” His voice is steady, his focus is uncanny.
“No, I’m not.”
“Yes. You are.” He leans towards me, his sugar stained mouth covering my own. I feel drained. “Sorry about the saliva,” he jokes against my mouth. “C’mon. Let’s make use of the one piece of comfortable furniture left in this place.”
I smile, exhaustion taking over my body. He leads me with both hands to the bed. I watch him climb in first. I was wrong. I don’t need a couch. I just need a soft place to fall back on and cushion the blow.
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Screencap courtesy of Princess of Babylon