And so did my day wend to this moment: the Calpurnia Cafe, Cupid's
vial at hand, beauteous Carlisle briefly away from the table.
The
personal trainer winks at me and turns away, wrapping her anacondan
arms around the vainly struggling waiter. At the table next to me,
the detective rises, tenderly kisses his former employer good-bye,
and throws a few bills on the table. "This one's on me, kiddo," he
says, and exits, although he gets trapped by the revolving door for
two orbits before breaking free.
I carefully balance the little plastic bottle on top of a
malachite salt shaker. My gaze narrows to Carlisle's wine glass, and
I raise first one eyebrow, then the other. I shake the table with
slight but increasing vibrations until the plastic bottle tumbles
onto the tablecloth.
Now would be the right time to put it in.
Now, while Carlisle is still turning heads in the
head, wielding his magic wand like a Hamelin symphony conductor.
Now, before the afternoon introduces him to someone
he foolishly deems more congenial company than me—a handsome
long-fingered swimmer, perhaps—and the phone rings to tell me,
sorry, "something terribly urgent has come up at work." (Carlisle is
currently employed as a hand model at the downtown Mosaics-N-More.)
Now, as Rosey Pearlnipple the Waiter approaches our
table from across the room, bearing two orders of Calpurnia's Goat
Cheese Moussaka, a creamy, salty dish that will surely set Carlisle
to gulping his wine for relief.
Now.
And Carlisle will down his wine, and look up at my patient eyes,
and his smile will ignite like the Hindenburg, flattening this
restaurant with shock waves of adoration, the adoration that Armand
had and threw away.
He will pack up his tank tops and tuxedo and books of
pornographic stamps, and transfer them from his sister's tawdry
abode to my humble but exquisite split-level, where we will proceed
to devour each other in every room of the house: the library, the
confessional half-bath in the basement, my darkroom (where the
morbid crimson glow will accentuate the highlights of his teeth,
fingernails, toenails), let's not neglect all three bedrooms, the
cozy den, in the kitchen arched against the free-standing woodblock
chopping table (can Carlisle cook, I wonder?), at the base of the
stairs, the middle, the top, both landings.
Afterwards we will stand naked on the balcony, side by side and
marinating in each other's juices, uplifting the spirits of
passers-by with the sacred vision of just how good we look together.
Foolish Armand! I didn't dislike him, really, but I did spend
many playful hours fantasizing various ways he might die.
For a while car crashes dominated, with their blazing heat and
gratifying finality. I had him smash head-on into the sinewy old oak
that stands sentinel near the entrance to Entmoot Plaza. Then, he
went off the side of the road up on Route 668, near the statue of
the Laughing Nun (a missionary to our valley almost two hundred
years ago).
A truck hauling diesel fuel overturned on him, followed by an
armored Brink's (the guards were unhurt), a mobile home, and a
stealth bomber from which the pilot had ejected moments before.
Childish, wasn't it? Next he tripped and fell into the crusty
crater of Mt. St. Helens, breaking through to the roiling orange
magma beneath. Vesuvius. Krakatau. Chokai. Then an aneurysm; cardiac
arrest; fatal complications from St. Vitus' dance.
I almost asked Hela about it, once, at Edmund's memorial service.
Not to do anything, of course; I just wanted some
advance delph so I could, as it were, set my expectations.
But I didn't. I learned at my granma's knee that it is unwise to
ask them favors. They do as they will.
I resented Armand because he was a horizonless sponge soaking up
the exhilarating waters of Carlisle's affections. Parched outsiders
such as myself could barely score a dram. But his true sin was that,
ultimately, he didn't appreciate it. Even as I benefit from his
drear wages, I know it is a sin for which he can never be forgiven.
But I am not Armand. Even armed with the lovesprite's gift, I
understand that I will not own Carlisle seven & twenty-four. Nor
will his occasional, inevitable, insignificant adventure with some
bathhouse beauty or another disturb my contentment. I
know how to amuse myself in the off hours. And frankly, I feel
certain that the fruit of Eden is even more of a paradisiac when you
can get a few hours to yourself now and then, outside the Garden.
Now.
The glass-walled grapefruit sections of the revolving door propel
us into February's watery sun. Squinting like a spinach addict, I
feel Carlisle's fingers clasp my shoulders. He is softly drumming
the tune to YMCA.
Carlisle knows all my secret dreams. Perhaps tonight I'll bring
the jockstraps and the tennis racket.
He kisses the fortunate air on either side of my head and says,
his goat cheese breath muskily enticing, "Til eight, then. You
haven't forgotten the way?"
"To my home away from home? Unmöglich!" Carlisle has
lived there for seven weeks, ever since the tinglingly melodramatic
episode that ended with him and Armand dividing up the stamp
collection. I've been there precisely once.
"Bon! Give my best to Jaime."
It does not suit me that they be too chummy, so I say,
"Certainly. He's making dinner for Bartholomew tonight. Since
they're both alone on Valentine's Day."
Carlisle purses his lips like a woman preparing to kiss a fish,
and stamps his foot in exasperation. "I do not understand how a
decent boy like Jaime"—he pauses for air—"could trust someone who
has so little integrity"—pause—"that he tells people who he runs
into in a bathhouse!"
"Til eight, then."
I watch Carlisle sail away, deftly flowing around diurnal
hookers, schoolchildren fieldtripping to the Leary Museum & Oddity
Shoppe, construction workers who mutter curses at his passing, newly
aware of their own inadequacies. Even under his clothes every muscle
seems distinct but cooperative, firm but accommodating. Even his
shoes ripple.
Once, at a costume party, I saw a walk that held my gaze more
tightly. An alley cat, wearing black tights with white and tawny
spots (and nothing underneath), a black leather vest, body paint
continuing the feline pattern, a painted papier-mâché mask with
cunning ears. Walking across the room, picking up a drink, bending
over to purr at a pirate.
My chest warmed and swelled beneath my Sir Walter Raleigh
doublet, and my codpiece bobbed precariously.
It turned out it was Carlisle in a cat suit.
So why didn't I give it to him at lunch?
I had several reasons, qualms that bound my hands like chains.
First, we didn't have the restaurant to ourselves. It was
possible that, upon drinking his wine, Carlisle would look up and
see somebody else's eyes, and find himself forever in
thrall to, say, Zorba the Manager, or the waiter in the personal
trainer's arms, or the chunky tomato-haired teenager by the door
being cruelly stood up on his first date. This threat seemed greater
than the threat of the late-afternoon long-fingered swimmer. Better
to wait for tonight, when our only company will be Dorwinda,
Juliana's dour, flat-faced Manx, who to the best of my knowledge
does not match Carlisle's psychosexual matrix.
Second, as I sat across the table from his empty, still-warm
chair, rotating the plastic bottle between my fingers, I felt my
curiosity and my vanity rear up together in a double helix,
manifesting a question hardwired in the mind of man-the-hunter since
mastodon days: Do you really need magic to bring him to
ground? The possibility tugged at me that, under the right
circumstances, I might be able to snare Carlisle's enduring ardor
with the lasso of my natural charms: wit, good looks, erotic
expertise, and a welcoming, comfortable home with an original
Picasso. (Match that, casa de Juliana!)
Once I feed him Cupid's Patented Conquers-All Joy Drops, however,
I'd never be able to test the hypothesis.
Third, re: "enduring" and "[f]or the rest of his life." Falling
across my intentions like an entropic shadow was the fear that,
after some span of years—not five or ten, certainly, but perhaps
twenty or thirty—my darling Carlisle might lose some of his
stunning, storied attractiveness. Some of his muscle tone. Body
parts might begin to dribble southward. The depths of his eyes
obscured by corneal clouds, his once-smooth skin netted by veins and
creases, only the endless fire of his love for me undiminished.
And if that happens, and my sympathetic nature impels me to look
away, to seek my pleasures elsewhere, lest he see the hint of
disappointment in my brow, well, won't I feel a wee bit, let us say,
responsible for him, having utterly usurped his free
will one distant Valentine's Day?
That would be a three-headed bitch. Of course, Carlisle is the
archetype of the "live fast, die young, leave a pretty corpse"
school. But it's not the kind of thing you can count on.
But these are all mere trivialities, paper-clip manacles,
mosquitoes buzzing around my head as I sink into the swamp of my
real dilemma:
What am I going to do about Jaime?
I can't just throw him out.
Oh, I could, I suppose. And he would go:
droopy-headed as a Regency streetlamp, carrying his beige corduroy
valise with the teddy bear decal in one hand and Bourbaki's shrouded
cage in the other, his brown bovine eyes becoming little murky
kiddie pools in which someone has left the hose running, his lips
decently, unreproachfully silent.
A click of the dead bolt, and Carlisle could come up the back
stairs. We would start in the library.
But no. My friends would never forgive me. Even now I can hear
their voices, wafting down the hallways of time from potential,
unrealized futures. "How could you treat him that way? The
sweet man!"
That's what they call him, "the sweet man." I imagine him in a
gray uniform, canvas bag full of marzipan and chocolate truffles,
delivering door to door. "He's so sweet," Iduna said to
me over decaf and apple tarts at Dessert Storm just last week. And
he is. But I prefer meat.
My friends, cousin Ada, Mama and Granma—I would never hear the
end of it. And Jaime himself, trying to understand, never an unkind
word; but always there: at dinner parties, brunches,
opening night at the Opera, hanging out at San Godiva Beach, sipping
ice tea on Jockey Shorts Night at the Moon Beat. . . . Barring an
unfortunate accident or an unlikely career move to Phoenix, there
would be no avoiding him. Ultimately his silence would seem the most
shrill accusation.
My crime against Jaime (justified by extenuating circumstances,
but try that in the court of public opinion) would
blight my life with Carlisle, sending aphids of gossip and
disapproval to suck the sap of our relationship, leaching the soil
of our deserved happiness, preventing our tree of bliss from ever
coming to its fullest fruition. And all because I acted, quite
rightly, on the perfectly obvious fact that Jaime—due to certain
personal traits that, truly, are not his fault—is not the right man
for me.
Jaime is absurdly tall. Six-seven or six-nine. I
never remember which, but it's an odd number. When we walk down
Goldpupp Street together, his arm draped over my shoulder and across
my body in a fashion that romantics would see as companionable but
realists recognize as possessive, I feel like a Munchkin.
It's not clear how I originally missed this. Admittedly, I was
drinking heavily when we met. (Discovering the truth about Martin
Landau had been a devastating blow, and I was coping as best I
could.) Perhaps, in my scotched blur, I thought he was standing on
stepladders or crates most of the time. Platform shoes. And of
course, horizontally it was less noticeable.
By the time we dried me out, he had settled in: a gentle giant,
towering in a blue caftan over my stove, frying eggs most weekend
mornings with onions, garlic, and just a touch of dill. Installing a
drip system for my fuchsia and lantana so we could cut down on Mr.
Ngan's noisy visits. Delighting my friends with his elephantine
hands and naïveté. Taking my nieces on the Dragon Whirl at Deegan's
World (after I refused due to a deep-set conviction that any
amusement ride that rotates you more than ninety degrees from your
accustomed orientation is, simply put, unnatural).
And I confess, I didn't object. It wasn't Heaven, but it wasn't
the Other Place either, at first. I enjoyed having someone around to
listen to the tales of my odyssey through the realms of art,
commerce, and society; someone who appreciated my efforts and
applauded my successes; someone who liked to make dinner. Jaime was
better than a faithful Labrador—he had thumbs and a sizable
vocabulary.
But that doesn't mean I should be consigned to an eternity of
listening to mannerless, ill-dressed strangers ask repetitive
questions—"how's the air up there?"; "play much basketball?"—or to
Jaime's consistently polite replies.
So large yet so passive. Were I at that altitude, I would rain my
contempt down upon them like the Flood. They would soak in irony,
drown in sarcasm, cower under my thunderous sneers. People like that
don't deserve an ark, Jaime!
Jaime is clumsy. Three times now he has collided
with the glass door to the balcony, thinking it open, or not
thinking at all. Three times! Lab rats flirting with electrodes
learn faster. Will I be obligated to put up silhouettes of falcons
and televangelists?
The bruises have led his fellow teachers at Mordor High to lurid
assumptions about our proclivities, and prompted insulting questions
from intimates who should know better. Last Christmas the chairman
of his department, who is chronically apologetic and regretful over
his own, conventional playlist, gifted us with a pair of
velvet-padded handcuffs. "For . . . you know," he said.
No, I don't know! Bunny police officers? Bank robbers with
eczema?
And what if Jaime lost the key down the garbage disposal? He's
done worse.
They were an awful color, too, a sort of brownish off-puce that
calls out to be flushed.
At my family's Christmas Party & Solstice Celebration, Jaime was
sporting a particularly vivid squidmark under his left eye. I'm sure
everyone noticed. My cousin Ada, who had been smooching with Baldur
under the mistletoe for twenty minutes (nothing romantic, just
desensitization therapy; I've done it for him myself), sidled over
to me almost the instant Mama spirited Jaime away to help with the
stuffed mushrooms. She hugged me, kissed my cheek, and whispered,
"Have you been hitting him?"
Even Ada, soulmate of my child years, who I thought could see
right through to the gray rigatoni of my mind! "Hitting
him? My dear cousin," I replied coolly, "I can't even reach him."
Jaime is unfocused in bed. An example:
Just a few months ago, on St. Swithin's Day, after a delightful
dinner at T'Pring's Thai Court and two hours of visual foreplay at
the Moon Beat, Jaime and I proceeded to my—our—largish redwood
four-poster.
Following the usual friendly preliminaries, I began to render
service unto his urgently upright staff. Let me not suggest that
this is an onerous task. Though Jaime's penis is not built precisely
to the scale of his height—something to do with the square-cube law,
I believe—and, admittedly, does not glow, it is still larger than
most, flatteringly sensitive, and nicely flared at its cherry-red
lollipop top. It's one of the many things I'll miss when he's gone.
My mouth gave extensive testimony on the delectability of his
balls and wended slowly and purposefully halfway up the steep slope
to the corona when, suddenly, Jaime began to tremble, then shake,
then writhe like a coiffure of snakes. He was also laughing, an
open-mouthed belly-quaking laugh as though Harpo Marx were behind me
doing his best bits.
Despite his undulations I stayed on center, so my lips were too
busy for me to ask what was so funny; but naturally I assumed the
train had arrived at the station, an iota earlier than expected, and
would be unloading its tadpolar passengers (probably guffawing as
well) posthaste.
Instead Jaime subsided, his body's Richter value dropping towards
zero, laughs giving way to chuckles, then to calm breaths. His pole
was still pointing straight up, and I could taste the tadpoles'
demands to disembark, luggage and all. But he said, "Let's stop for
a minute," and pulled me towards the headboard, gently but firmly
moving my head to his chest. He stroked my hair, one hand covering
nearly my entire crown, and sighed.
"Let's stop for a minute"?!? Why not rewind, fast-forward,
freeze-frame? There is an order to good sex, a rhythm
as patterned as a sonata, one that I have worked hard to master and
was working hard to achieve with Jaime that St. Swithin's Day. Would
you interrupt Aida for a catchpenny singing cuddlegram?
Explaining that to the gentle giant, however, is like talking to
the Great Wall.
Frequently, after we're all done, and all I want is a washup
followed by Glenlivet and steak tartare, he'll try to shift us into
that same position. Jaime's chest is a thick brown fleece, tapering
to fractal flows around his nipples and down his belly. Which is all
right, I suppose, if you're halfway to Nod and the goosedowns are in
the wash. But I've begun to notice that it captures every bodily
fluid, and by the late innings he smells like a wet aardvark.
Usually I tell him I have to move my bowels, or something else
that he won't take personally, and pop off to the gents to rinse in
peace and privacy.
So there you have it, not my fault and not his. Sometimes I wish
I appreciated him more—I seem to remember that I did, once—but facts
are facts.
Honestly, I am as concerned for Jaime as I am for myself. There
are many men who actively admire Esau's pelt, and he would be better
off with one of those. But despite my subtle encouragements, he's
developed no outside interests. Sometimes on Thursdays, if I'm
otherwise engaged, he'll go to Jack o' Hearts Night at the Wetworks.
He enjoys large groups of naked men with plenty of running hot
water—a hopeful sign. But anything more personal than that he
reserves for me, will I nill I.
Jaime deserves someone who finds that level of devotion more
endearing than inundating. Someone, perhaps, like Bartholomew, who
has for Jaime the same moo-eyed gaze that Jaime has for me, and I
have for no one. Not even Carlisle; it's not in my repertoire.
And Jaime, I am sure, could see the wisdom of change, if only he
would stop staring at me like a Cro-Magnon burning out his retinas
at the eclipse. Which, in a roundabout way, not to mention
circuitous, convoluted, and labyrinthine, leads me to the real
reason why I didn't give Carlisle the potion at lunch:
I'm going to give it to Jaime.
The idea was but an attractive stranger at the Calpurnia Cafe, to
be cruised and considered, but now, driving south on the Laceway, I
embrace it like a lover, opening myself to it, entering it, making
it one with my soul.
It's perfect. And practical. Jaime has a favorite drink, an
oolong, ginger, and brine ice sun tea he concocts, which he drinks
with almost every meal and no one else can stomach. He keeps it in
the refrigerator in an old orange juice bottle labeled OGB with
indelible lime magic marker.
I'll pop in early, while he's still at Mordor High handing out
tests rated with little stick-on stars—gold, silver, bronze, green,
red dwarfs for warning, black holes for failing—add the love potion
to his tea, stir, and light out like a bat.
Later in the evening, when Carlisle and I are rising to our
ecstatic ascension, Jaime and Bartholomew will sit down to sup.
Bartholomew will, as usual, drink my best Chardonnay, to which,
revoltingly, he adds a tablespoon of sugar. Jaime will have tea.
They will look upon each other. Even if there's a power failure, we
have strategically stored flashlights and candles.
And then he can be the villain, and I can be the victim; he
Sammael, and I Emmanuel. For once in my life. How long, I wonder,
will it take him to stammer out the crushing news? How long to move
into Bartholomew's studio walk-up?
Shall I beg him to stay? Or at least to leave Bourbaki, as a
token of what we once had together? I think not. After Jaime's gone,
there'll be no one to clean up after the bird.
Ada, Mama, Stewart and Stuart, Benjamin, Iduna—I can hear their
voices again, wafting down an alternate hallway of time, one that
leads to a staircase, which leads to a trap door, which opens to the
tar-shingled roof of time, where the air is brisk and clean and the
sky stretches out forever in all directions. "How could you treat
him that way?" they'll ask Jaime. "The interesting
man!"
No one calls me sweet, and I'd just as soon keep it
that way. But I'll let Jaime off the hook a lot sooner than he would
me. "No," I'll tell everyone, "he's entitled to the life he chooses.
It just wasn't . . . meant to be."
Jaime and Bartholomew can cuddle til the Kali Yuga, safe and warm
in each other's arms in their little poorly-heated love nest. It's
what I want for them. No guilt.
And who will fault me if, after an appropriate period of mourning
(egg timer, please), I turn to another for succor? With Jaime out of
the house, I can woo Carlisle right and proper. He'll love the feel
of the library's soft, grassy carpeting against his bare skin; and
perhaps I'll enlarge the tub in the master bath.
Storm clouds like black cows' udders dangle over the hills as I
trudge up to my front door. Inside, the house smells of garlic and
birdshit. Bourbaki greets me with a flourish of his red-feathered
tail. "I am not, awkk, a number, I am, awkk,
a free parrot."
Three weeks and two jars of peanut butter for that
accomplishment. I leave the cage locked.
My acupressurist complains that I overanalyze, leading to a
blockage of energy flow between the hypothalamus and the intestines.
He may be correct. For I have been staring compulsively down a
narrow, dismal path, littered with regret and old newspapers, a path
that cuts between the two clean, modern edifices I've constructed in
my thoughts this afternoon.
What if I dismiss Jaime, and I don't get Carlisle?
Yes it could. Carlisle is unpredictable, as is the world.
A man with sparkling blue eyes and an island villa off the coast
of Portugal might be passing through town, might crook his finger.
Carlisle would be gone by cock's crow.
Hollywood might come fishing in our pond, luring Carlisle with a
tied fly of great price. After that I'd only see him in seventy
millimeter.
Hustlers with access to interesting hallucinogens. A
gray-bearded, Tonied playwright exploring his bisexuality. The
ripe-thighed boy in the next stall. There are pitfalls at every
crossroads.
This house would seem terribly empty then, echoing only to the
feeble moans of my self-abuse. Jaime and Bartholomew's happiness
would sear my eyes, draw forth tears of bitterness to burn my face.
The pity of my friends would be bottomless and unbearable.
What would I do then? Who would I turn to? Carlisles are not a
dime a dozen, nor even to be had for a dollar-twenty per. Even
Jaimes aren't easily obtained.
The only protection against this lonely fate is to slip Carlisle
the magic Mickey. But then I'm back where I started, with Jaime
lingering like Banquo's ghost.
Oh, Cupid! Your gift is two-edged! As are all the gifts of your
kind. To Carlisle, or to Jaime? Two lovers, or none?
I might have been better off with a saffron bear claw. At least
my belly would not feel so hollow.
I wander through the house, avoiding the kitchen. The clouds
block what little sunlight remains, making shadow boxes out of the
unlit rooms.
I find myself in the little den, really my favorite room in the
house. A couch, a desk, two Greek wrestlers in alabaster. Cozy. A
large globe huddles on a polished wood frame in the corner.
Turquoise oceans, sepia lands. Jaime gave it to me for my birthday
years ago. He knew exactly what I wanted, then.
I spin it beneath my hand, forcing twilight and dawn at an unholy
pace. Finally it slows and stops. The Soviet borders are woefully
outdated.
The couch sags in exactly the right places, amiably accepting my
shoulder blades and buttocks. My head sinks into the
wool-and-foam-rubber pillow my niece made in shop class. I cross my
arms over my chest, corpse-like, the little plastic bottle resting
in my hands like a hyacinth.
In my dream I am a Tin Munchkin, supine on the tinsmith's
workbench. The tinsmith, played by Mark Spitz, is adjusting my knees
and elbows with various tools: screwdriver, socket wrench, awl. They
tickle. His seven Olympic medals swing past my eyes, to and fro like
a hypnotist's coins.
Just beyond my gray gleaming feet is a pedestal of scalloped
Etruscan marble, with a brown Food King grocery bag upside down on
top of it. From inside the bag comes a muffled squawk: "Erl King,
Erl—awkk—King."
The Tin Man, played by Buddy Ebsen, squirts something on my
cheeks and thighs. At first I think he's peeing on me, but then I
see the yellow-and-black Pennzoil can strapped to his wrist. I feel
empty and light, and I think: I can eat anything I want and
never get fat.
The Tin Man's chest swings open. A digital clock floats in the
empty space like a monolith, bright red numbers like blood. It
doesn't tickle. Tick.
A tiny terrier runs up the side of the pedestal and starts
ripping the grocery bag with its teeth, ferociously shaking its head
back and forth. Bourbaki, new-born from the bag, hops from foot to
foot. "Oh no, my child, I'm a very good parrot. I'm just a very bad
wizard. Awkk!" The dog, larger now, reduces the bag to
confetti.
I wake up to the same ripping sound, and Jaime's distant voice:
"Shit!" I hear something metallic hitting the hardwood floor,
followed by three citric thumps.
I wonder what Jaime's cooking for dinner. He makes a quite
passable Szechuan chicken with orange peel.
Darkness has fallen over me and my globe; the room is black.
Drops of rain tap imploringly at my window, seeking refuge from the
low thunder that chases them.
I sit up, scooting backwards to lean against the arm of the
couch. Only the LED digits of the desk clock are visible, neon
tetras in the aquarium of night. 7:34.
I can hear Jaime gathering up spilled groceries, and Bourbaki
singing. "It's my party, and I'll—awwk! Awwk!" More
canned goods hit the floor and roll, making a sound like bowling
pins picked off in an easy spare.
Working by touch, I unstop the bottle, position myself in a
classic Dr. Jekyll, and squeeze. Jelly-thick and warm from body
heat, the potion shimmies down my throat like a hula dancer, leaving
shallow footsteps of vanilla on my sand-rough tongue.
People use vanilla to mean ordinary, neutral,
boring—vanilla sex, vanilla geopolitics, vanilla Catholicism—but in
fact it has a lovely flavor all its own, just north of coconut and
redolent of fifth-grade art class: rainbows of construction paper,
snub-nosed scissors, Elmer's Glue.
"Honey? Are you still home?" Jaime's voice from the kitchen. No
doubt my Infiniti whispered to his Saturn, nestled side-by-side in
the carport. The refrigerator opens, closes.
In the hive that is my heart, bees taste fresh nectar. There is
buzzing; complex, information-rich dances (every movement has a
meaning); the call to take wing. I can feel them stinging in my
throat, my chest, my loins. Painful, but not entirely unpleasant.
Jaime's size-sixteen Rockports clomp down the darkened hallway to
my den. "Kell? I thought you had a business meeting."
I can feel his massive form fill the doorway. "Are you in there?
I can't see a thing."
"I'm here," I say, tilting my head up towards the source of his
voice. "Turn the light on."
Copyright © 2006 Bennet H. Marks
Bennet H. Marks has been published in
Christopher Street, Out, Dragon Magazine,
and Red Wheelbarrow. He has worked in Silicon Valley as
a mathematician, a software engineer, and (currently) a Google tech
writer. He spent 15 years at Apple, where he continues to run an RPG
started in 1982. He enjoys square dancing and inventing deities. To
contact him, send him email at
BHMarks@GardInk.com.