Thinking of You

by Rachel Kane

  I had nothing else to do. So I sat in the office and waited.

  This is why, in the end, he won’t like you. Because you have nothing else to do. Because while your virginity may have been an interesting fact for him, that’s gone now.

  Maybe I should have called him. Interrupted him at work. Begged for reassurance. That would be attractive, wouldn’t it? No surer way to draw someone to you, than show how weak and empty you truly are.

  “Good news, it’s negative,” said the nurse, smiling. “Hopefully that will take a weight off your mind. You do look a little sad and worried there.”

  I glanced up at her. Did it show? I didn’t care about the test. I cared about… I cared about the future.

  She gave me a card with my appointment in two weeks. She gave me a brochure about safe sex, another card that had a hotline number. I think she was very concerned about me. I couldn’t concentrate on what she was saying. Thank you, see you soon, yes I’ll be here in two weeks, thank you. Yes. An automaton.

  It seemed a logical step from the doctor’s office to the pharmacy. I’d been reading the brochure about safety in the car. When you don’t expect to ever sleep with anyone your entire life, you don’t really put a lot of thought into things, but there’s a whole vast range of safety equipment.

  The main thing is the condom. There was a diagram in the brochure that made me blush, of how to roll it down onto your partner. I could imagine Charlie doing that to me. Or me doing it to Charlie. I hadn’t really touched him last night. He’d been so insistent on paying attention to me, there had been no chance to return the favor. Assuming he didn’t hate me now, I needed to rectify that.

  I wandered the aisles of the pharmacy, wondering where condoms would be. They covered things up, so it seemed like they should be in the bandage section, but they were not. Then I thought, they’re something people use on dates, so maybe they’re with the makeup and colognes? But they were not there either.

  This is why I need a personal shopper, I thought, not for the first time. I’m no good at this.

  I’m pretty sure we never owned a pharmacy, but if we ever had, I’d hope it was better laid out than this one. At least the music was quieter here, than at the mall.

  I passed the potato chip aisle (in a pharmacy!) and the walkers and canes and braces, and a section devoted to scented candles, before finally finding The Family Planning section.

  I wouldn’t have thought to look there. I wasn’t planning on using these with family; in fact, I think any normal person would be a little disgusted by the idea. And yet here they were, in all their vast constellation of variety:

  Condoms and creams and ointments and suppositories and pregnancy tests (Oh: family planning like you’re planning to have a family, I thought). Colorful liquids in bottles advertising their viscosity, their warmth, their ability to stimulate the nerve endings.

  Even if I were limiting my search to condoms, there were just so many: Condoms for large men; condoms for men who ejaculated too quickly (did I? Charlie hadn’t mentioned it…should I time myself?); sheepskin and latex and silicone; fruit-flavored and, I assumed, most without any added flavoring. Some were Ribbed For Her Pleasure, some featured an Extra-Large Reservoir Tip.

  The variations were beyond calculation. To be safe—after all, the whole point of this trip was safety—I got all of them. The brochure had pointed out the importance of proper lubrication, but had failed to give brand recommendations, so I got one bottle or tube of each kind of them as well, from the inexpensive clear water-based to one that advertised itself as a High-Performance Polymer.

  I thought about buying a pregnancy test as a joke. But what if Charlie thought I had seriously misunderstood the nature of our anatomy? That would take some awkward explaining. So I left that aside, and steered my cart to the cash register.

  There was a display of bottles of liquid soap near the counter. Liquid soap was on my list. While I was feeling adventurous, while I was trying new things, shouldn’t I try one of these? I was not even going to bother to think about choosing; I swept twenty bottles into the cart.

  The cashier wore reindeer antlers on a red strap on her head. She had been idly reading a tabloid and chewing gum, but when she saw my cart, her eyes went wide. “Um…okay,” she said. “Do you have a savings card?”

  Now that I was completely prepared for whatever would happen, it was time to go home and wait for Charlie’s call. I could only hope he would call quickly. I was eager to try out these new products.

  I sat on the couch and watch infomercials, looking down at my phone every few moments, in case he called while my attention was elsewhere.

  14

  Charlie

  To Charlie’s great surprise, Rumson isn’t waiting by the door to give him a hard time this morning. In fact he doesn’t appear at all, while Charlie rushes to the men’s room, tugging on his costume as quickly as he can without ripping the stitches, not even taking time to get the bell on his hat just so. He wishes there’d been time for a shower this morning. He wishes he had a shower. Normally he just washes off in the sink here at work, but there’s no time for that this morning.

  He’s in such a rush that he nearly collides with Wendy when he comes out of the bathroom.

  “Well now,” she says. “Look what the cat dragged in.”

  “Sorry, is it horribly busy?”

  “Not yet. I guess you made it home after all.”

  So much has happened since he discovered his bike was stolen, that he can barely comprehend it. Can you be on top of the world and at your wit’s end at the same time? That’s how he feels his morning, walking quickly to his spot in the line, thanking the elf who had been standing there for him.

  “Yeah, Val gave me a ride,” he says, and he winces right after, because he knows exactly what she’s going to say.

  “I bet he did.” Yup. Not hard to predict that one.

  “C’mon, Wendy.”

  “It’s just, Emily said she saw you pull up today in a limo.”

  “It’s not a limo.”

  “She said a driver got out and opened the door for you.”

  “Are you really going to give me a hard time about this?”

  “Who, me?” she asks, batting her eyelashes innocently. Her dark eyes probe him. “No, I’m happy you found yourself a sugar daddy. I wish we all could.”

  “Would you stop calling him that?”

  “Fine, you found a benefactor. A patron. I’m saying, it’s all good. I respect your financial decision-making.”

  There were parents here. He couldn’t talk about this, not now, not with this language. There were kids to greet, bells to ring and candy-canes to hand out. But he leans out of line and whispers to her, “You’ve got it all wrong. You really do.”

  “Do I? Because the alternative is that you’re throwing yourself at an absolute freak, Charlie. Maybe you don’t have the instincts I do, but there’s something wrong with him.”

  Why did this defensiveness have to flare up right now? Why did he feel like he had to give Wendy a dressing-down for daring to talk about Val like that? He was mad.

  Charlie doesn’t like being mad. It’s not an emotion he enjoys, it’s one of those he practices letting go of, letting the anger evaporate off into the ether. Where is his peace? Where is the tranquility he has tried to cultivate?

  Even after she goes back to her spot in the line, he’s mad. Worse, he can’t work it through, he can’t let go of it.

  There’s nothing wrong with Val. Val’s the only one in his whole life who really understands. He grasps the whole point of the bus, when nobody else does. Even Taggart doesn’t really get it, not deep down.

  But maybe Charlie’s reading a little too much into that. Because what if Wendy’s right? Not about Val being a freak, forget all the insults she’s hurled in his direction, that’s not what Charlie means.

  What he’s wondering is this: Is Val as safe as he feels?

  Because this is where things could easily go wro
ng. If Val starts trying to control things now, when Charlie’s feeling emotionally vulnerable, when he’s feeling a little shaky, when his hard-won tranquility seems so far away…what would Charlie do then?

  You’re worrying over nothing. You’re just tired. You spent the night giving every variation of blow-job you could think of, then only got a couple hours’ of sleep, and so your jaw’s a little sore and you’re a little sleepy and it’s natural to feel emotional.

  Once he gets back together with Val today, he’ll be able to take the temperature of the situation. He’ll have a better grasp on where they stand. The danger signals, if there are any, should be obvious.

  Or should he not get back together with Val today?

  Should he make Val wait?

  There’s a plausibility to that idea. Keep Val on the hook, let him know Charlie’s in control. Maybe that’s stupid. Maybe it’s just a power game. But…maybe it makes sense. Set the boundaries early. And maybe even give himself a day to cool down. Because here’s the other thing: He wants Val, badly. There’s a whole world of things they haven’t done together yet, and Charlie’s body wants them all at once. He hasn’t felt this way in forever. This excitement, the anticipation, the delicate agony of having to wait.

  You’ve got to be careful when you feel things like that. It can make you miss the signals.

  If he thought he was getting away with something by getting here late, his lunch break cured him of that idea. Of course he hadn’t had time this morning to make himself anything, so was thinking of going up to the food court to get nachos, but no, there was Rumson, standing at the door of the break room.

  At least Rumson didn’t make Charlie go down to his office. He wasn’t sure he could have handled that, not this morning, the heat and stale air of that tiny room, Rumson sitting so that Charlie’s torso and hips were eye-level with him, his hand creeping under his desk…gross.

  But the look in Rumson’s eye tells Charlie that this is going to be just as bad.

  “How many strikes do I have to give you, before you’re out, Charlie?”

  “Look, Mr. Rumson, I can explain—”

  “I don’t need explanations, Charlie. I need someone here, on the line, when shoppers get here in the morning.”

  “My bike was stolen.”

  “Then buy a new one. This is a real job, Charlie. Just because it’s Christmas, just because you’re dressed as a damn elf, doesn’t mean you can’t take it seriously.”

  That hurts, it actually hurts, because Charlie thinks he does a great job. He guides parents, answers their questions, upsells them on bigger packages when he thinks they can easily afford it; the kids love him, too.

  Regardless of what his parents might think, he’s not lazy, not at all. When he finds a job that needs doing, he does it well. He takes it seriously, thinks about how best to keep the line moving.

  He thinks of himself a little bit like a leader. Not that Wendy and Emily and the gang would necessarily agree, but he’s the head of the line.

  “I understand,” he tells Rumson. “I promise it won’t happen again.”

  He doesn’t like the way Rumson’s eyes travel down his body. He halfway wonders if the only reason he hasn’t been fired yet, is so the mall manager can keep getting an eyeful of him.

  As though he can read Charlie’s thoughts, Rumson leans closer. Charlie’s nostrils fill with the scent of vinegar, peppers, salami. If Rumson was wrapped in wax paper, it’d be stained and translucent with grease.

  “Every day there’s a new thing you promise not to do again,” says Rumson. “You’re a bad boy, aren’t you?”

  Oh shit.

  “I’m going to miss lunch if I don’t head out now,” he says.

  “I see you, you know.” Rumson’s voice is a low purr, but not a sexy one. It’s more like an old tomcat growling at you from a trashcan in the alley. “You think I don’t watch you? Gotta keep an eye on boys like you. Think you’re so pretty, think you’re better than everybody else.”

  Somehow Rumson’s hand is on the wall behind Charlie, his arm against Charlie’s shoulder, and if that other hand comes up, Charlie’s going to be pinned to the wall. He thinks about butterfly collectors. Thinks about fluttering wings and killing jars.

  Look, this isn’t the first time this has happened. He’s trying to talk to himself, trying to calm himself down. You know what happens if you’re a hot pool boy in the summer, if you’re pulling leaves and branches out after a storm, your shirt’s off, your muscles flexing as you stretch out, trying to reach the leaves in the middle of the pool with your net? The minute you do that, the minute you feel the sweat rolling down, there’s the homeowner, leaning in the doorway, and he or she is staring at you, giving you that hopeful smile. It doesn’t matter if nothing happens. They’re memorizing you, they’re keeping you in mind for later.

  Everybody wants Charlie, and this isn’t a surprise, it isn’t new, so why does it catch him so off-guard that Mr. Rumson is getting in his face, half-angry and half-hungry, like he’s either going to yell or try for a kiss?

  Charlie slips away with a quick turn. “All right, I gotta get lunch, I’ll be back in a few.” Don’t even answer Rumson, don’t continue the conversation on his terms, none of this oh you bad little boy bullshit. Just dance away and forget about lunch, find the upstairs men’s room and lock yourself in and breathe for a while, just try to center yourself, eyes closed.

  Picture the sky, the cold winter sky with its ice-chip stars, and you’re lying on the roof of the bus, the roof gently curving like you’re lying on a hill. Above you is the vast cold unfeeling infinity, and you feel pulled to it, you feel part of it, because the sky doesn’t ask anything of you, it doesn’t need you, doesn’t leer or lust or hunger.

  After a while, his pulse slows down. His eyes move beneath his closed eyelids. He looks asleep, but he’s wide awake, he’s just unfocused, mind blurred, body relaxed. Thoughts and feelings are all emptied out. He is letting go.

  When he opens his eyes again, he realizes something. It’s nothing to do with Rumson or the mall or jobs or anything, it’s simpler than that. It’s not something he expected to find as the first thing on his mind after spending a few minutes meditating.

  It’s this:

  He misses Val.

  Not that he wants Val to defend him from Rumson. He’s not interested in a big scene that way. And not that he wants to be rescued from his job, or from his bikelessness, or anything like that.

  He just misses Val, and wants to spend more time with him. Wants to watch as Val discovers something new, the way his eyes are so wary at first, and then light up.

  From that point forward, all he can do is count down the minutes until he’s off work and can see Val again. And the minutes drag, as he tries to stay out of Rumson’s way, as he tries to stay away from anybody’s conversation, Gino, Wendy, anybody. Nothing’s resolved, nothing’s settled, and there’s still anxiety in his heart over Rumson, but at least he can get away.

  There are even fewer letters in the mailbox this time. He could wait a few days before emptying the box, but he doesn’t. They all go into his backpack.

  * * *

  “Well, Mister, I don’t know what you had in mind, but unless you’re inviting a couple of football teams over, I’m not sure we can use all of these…”

  He collapses in laughter, because it’s the best thing he’s seen all day. It’s such a fucking relief, honestly, to be at Val’s, to fall on this couch that feels like a cloud when you land on it, staring at the huge, huge pile of condom and lube boxes on the center table, Val standing next to it with his uncertain grin.

  He’s not going to mention Rumson to Val. He doesn’t want to spoil the moment, not when it’s his first time visiting Val’s place. There’s not even time for a tour, before he sees that pile of prophylaxis.

  “I wasn’t sure what to get—”

  “So you got everything! I see!” His eyes are watering. It has been a hell of a day. He picks up a pack
of peppermint-flavored rubbers. Perfect for your North Pole claims the box, and he can’t survive, he’s laughing so hard.

  Val is holding up two bottles. “It’s a very confusing thing. This lubricant claims to really heat things up, as it says on the package. But this one offers a brisk cooling sensation. Do people really have to consider the temperature they want before buying one? If you use them both at the same time, do they cancel out?”

  Charlie drags Val down to the couch and puts his arms around him. It’s funny because there’s this split-second of stiffness, you know it’s coming, as Val responds to being touched. He doesn’t have to say a word, Charlie knows he doesn’t like being touched by just anybody, but within that split second, Val’s body realizes who it is, and softens against him.

  “I hope there’s something in there we can use,” says Val.

  “I know there is.”

  “Oh!” says Val, sitting up suddenly. “I’m an awkward host. I should give you the tour of the apartment. Isn’t that what one does? You’re my first guest since I moved to Corinth. You can see my brother’s taste in furniture and decor.”

  “Sure, in a second,” says Charlie. He’s not willing to get up yet. He doesn’t want to let go of Val.

  But then he realizes that he has been noticing something out of the corner of his eye. Something odd, that his mind hadn’t really focused on when he first came in and was drawn over to the condoms.

  “What are all the boxes?” he asks. “You haven’t unpacked yet?”

  They’re everywhere. Under the table, beside the couch, lined up down the hall. All these white boxes, all uniform in size.

  Val groans. “I don’t even want to tell you.”

  “Is it books? Clothes?”

  “Worse.”

  “Ratty old newspapers?”

  “Spaghetti.”

  Charlie cranes his neck to look around. “Spaghetti?”

  “In a can. Two thousand, three hundred and eighty-nine cans, to be precise. I made a mistake with ordering. Now I have more than I could ever eat…more than I would ever want to eat.”