Little Squirrels Can Climb Tall Trees

by Michael Murphy

  I made my way into the bathroom and turned on the shower, taking care to adjust the temperature to avoid scalding myself before climbing under the water. One burn that morning was enough. When I finished my shower, I checked the coffee that I had left on the counter and found it substantially cooled off. In one long swallow, I downed the strong but cold liquid before heading off to get dressed for work.

  If the day before had been one that wasn’t my most productive, then this one had promise to do that one better. Today not only would I be distracted, sore, and pissed but also sleepy. Okay. Combine, shake well, and stand back so no one got hurt. And may the Lord take pity on anyone who wandered into my way or pissed me off—it wouldn’t be a pretty picture. It wouldn’t take a lot of imagination to find images of carnage and mayhem—there would be fresh memories from up-close-and-personal experience.

  On the walk to work, I must have exuded hostility and anger, because people stepped around me and steered clear all the way to the office. The same effect continued at the office, partly, I supposed, from simple word of mouth after I yelled at someone first thing in the morning.

  The next casualty of my mood was the computer keyboard. Apparently I was typing a little aggressively, almost pounding the keys, and one of the letters popped off the keyboard and went flying to the floor. Rather than be mad—okay, more mad—I simply sat back and closed my eyes, muttering, “You fucking blond-haired pond scum fucking freak of nature!” as the image of Kyle flashed into my mind.

  As if on cue, a moment after the image of Kyle appeared in my head, my cell phone rang. Since I didn’t recognize the number, I was half-tempted to just ignore the thing. It had gotten bad now that telemarketers had started calling cell phone numbers. It used to be that one’s cell phone was sacrosanct—you knew that if someone had your cell number, it was someone you wanted to talk with. No longer. Now there was no place that was safe from telemarketers, people conducting surveys, and people that had the latest and greatest thing to sell to you.

  “Yeah,” I said by way of greeting the unsuspecting caller.

  “Joseph?” I heard Kyle’s voice, a little more hesitant than I remembered.

  “Yes.”

  “Still mad, I see. I can’t blame you one bit. I apologize for last night. I’m so, so very sorry.”

  “Kyle, this is not a good time,” I lied. “I’m in a meeting, and I can’t talk now.”

  “Sorry. Call me, please, Joseph. Bye.”

  Punching the Off button, I disconnected the call and tossed the poor unsuspecting phone onto the desk. There was no reason to take out my anger on the little piece of electronic wizardry. It wasn’t the phone’s fault that I had let down my guard and allowed a total stranger to stomp on my dignity and kick me in the emotional equivalent of the gonads.

  “Yeah, Kyle,” I muttered. “I’ll be sure to do that.”

  By lunchtime I had accomplished nothing other than scaring several people. One of my office friends appeared at my door at about noon and—having no fear whatsoever—said, “Dude! I don’t know what bug crawled up your butt last night, but do everyone a favor and get the hell out of here before someone is forced to do you bodily harm.”

  There were not many people in the world who could—or would—say such a thing to a coworker. His words made me involuntarily smile a tiny bit. “So people noticed? I thought I was keeping my head down and staying out of the way.”

  “Noticed? Um, give me a minute to think about this. Um, yes! And I would advise you to get out now while the coast is clear. You should know that there’s a pool underway to see who gets to come kick the shit out of you first. Now, personally I’m thinking that fat Gladys from Accounting could do quite a number on you with those great big ole platform shoes of hers. She’s got a bit of arthritis, which some people think should take her out of the running, but I still think she’s a good candidate. She’s also holding all of the money in the pool. Willie in the mailroom tossed in an extra twenty dollars so that he could put his name in twice and double his chances of getting picked.”

  I looked down and sighed. “I’m sorry. I had a rough night.”

  “Really? I never would have guessed.”

  “I used to like you.”

  “You worship the ground I walk on. I am, after all, the person who saved you from an ugly death at the hands of a coworker. Some of those folks have got more aggression built up than you’ve had this morning. Remember, Gladys is pissed off from a forty-year marriage to a bum and three of the most ungrateful children any woman ever bore since the beginning of time. She also commutes something like an hour each way on a train where no one ever gives her a seat. She’s got a little aggression saved up.”

  “Okay. I’m sorry. Please tell everyone I’m sorry. Maybe I should get out of here and try to get some sleep.”

  “Oh, you thought leaving was only a suggestion? No, my friend. It’s an order. Your weaselly boss just didn’t have the balls to come in and tell you himself.”

  “Good thing you don’t have a shortage of balls.”

  “Hey. I got some great big ole low hangers in my pants between my legs. Now get out of here before I’m forced to haul ’em out and show you!”

  “Okay! Okay! Not the sagging testicles!”

  “Hey! They don’t sag. They hang majestically! It’s their size that makes them a bit… heavy. Ponderous.”

  “Ponderous?”

  “Hey! Work with me! I’m making this shit up as I go,” he yelled.

  “Good. I’d hate to think that this is what you came up with after mulling it over ahead of time.”

  “Okay, bite me, bitch!”

  “Careful,” I half-jokingly warned. “Aren’t you afraid I’d actually do it today?”

  “And aren’t you afraid that I might just bite back.” The man said it as a statement, not a question. If nothing else, that alone made me grab my jacket and head for the door.

  “Okay. Okay. No biting.”

  My office buddy walked me to the elevator to make sure I actually left. As the elevator doors closed, I heard the man as he shouted, “Okay, you chickenshits! He’s gone. You’re welcome!” Nope. No shortage of testosterone in him!

  Chapter 7

  OUT on the street busy with lunchtime office workers scurrying hither and yon, I thrust my hands in my pockets and walked slowly toward home. I didn’t know if I had anything in the refrigerator appropriate for lunch, so I stopped at a deli near my building and ordered a sandwich to take back with me.

  After eating I sat on the couch, kicked off my shoes, and put my feet up. The next thing I knew, it was two hours later. I had apparently fallen asleep in an incredibly awkward position, which left me with a pain in my neck. Great! One more woe to add to the list. Broken heart. Burned mouth. Sore neck.

  My cell phone rang—that must have been what had woken me up. After stumbling around for a minute in search of the offending instrument, I found it and noticed that it was Kyle calling again. I had to give the guy extra points for persistence. No matter how persistent he was, I just wasn’t awake enough to talk with him at the moment, so I let the call roll over to voice mail.

  I stripped off my work clothes, took a quick shower, and fell onto the bed. I was once again asleep in under sixty seconds. Sometime later my sleep was disturbed by the ringing of the damned cell phone once again. By reflex mostly, I grabbed the little instrument and sluggishly said, “What?”

  “Joseph?”

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s me—Kyle. You okay?”

  “What day is it?”

  “Tuesday. You okay?”

  “Um… I guess. Who’s this?”

  “Kyle.”

  “Oh, right. Sorry. I was asleep.”

  “They let you sleep at your office? Sounds like a nice place to work.”

  “Not at my office. I got sent home for being hazardous to the health of my coworkers. They said I should leave before someone won the pool and got to come kick the shit out of me. I told them it wa
s too late—someone had already taken care of that.” Okay, that was a low blow. Even I had to admit that, but I was waking up enough now to catch up with where I was and what was going on.

  There was silence at the other end of the line for a moment before Kyle said, “I’m so very sorry. Please believe me, Joe.”

  “Sure. Okay. I gotta pee.”

  “Okay. Want me to hold?”

  “Nah. I really gotta pee.”

  “Please call me,” Kyle practically begged.

  “Bye, Kyle.”

  “Bye.”

  It wasn’t a total lie—I really did need to pee. But I also had no intention of returning the call. Not bothering with clothes when I was finished, I made my way into the kitchen, scratching the hair on my belly as I stood in the middle of the room, trying to figure out what I was doing there.

  Before I could reach any conclusion about why I was in the kitchen, there was a knock at the door. “Oh, fuck! I don’t believe this! Just give it a rest, Kyle!” I was so convinced that it was Kyle at my door that I threw it open without putting on any clothes. The small Latino man who stood there was a bit startled but said nothing, simply handing over a large bouquet of absolutely gorgeous red roses. Without waiting for a tip, the man took off at nearly the speed of sound. I guess he didn’t want to stick around to see what the naked man would offer as a tip.

  Admiring the roses, I closed the door to the apartment. I set them down on the dining room table and searched for the card. Predictably, the flowers were from Kyle, and the card simply said, Please forgive me. Let me make it up to you. Kyle.

  “Well, big guy, I gotta give you points for persistence.”

  For about the 400th time, I wondered if perhaps I was being a bit hard on the other man, but then I thought, no, it really was bad form to leave your date with a big ole hard-on after he’d blown you to the stars and back. I waffled back and forth on the issue throughout the evening, half expecting Kyle to appear at the door every time I heard a sound in the hallway. Fortunately, though, there were no other calls or visits.

  The next morning I felt more rested and didn’t dread going to work—well, except for the image of the old accountant who wanted to kick me in my compound interest. Secretly I wondered if the woman might have been a Nazi storm trooper before taking up accounting.

  When I opened my apartment door to head off to work, I noticed something fall to the floor in the hallway. What the….

  I leaned over and picked up a small envelope that had my name written on the front. Truly mystified, I opened the envelope.

  Joseph,

  As I mentioned, I’m off work Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday (4 days on, 4 days off). You would make me the happiest man alive if you would do me the honor of having dinner with me on Saturday evening—and fucking me senseless on Friday evening.

  Kyle

  As I looked at the card, I couldn’t help but smile. “Okay, big guy, two more points.”

  And then I nearly jumped out of my skin when I heard “Only two?”

  “Jesus, Kyle! You nearly gave me heart failure! You trying to kill me?”

  “Nope. Got other plans for you first. Seriously, dude, only two points?”

  “I gave you four but deducted two for potential stalker risk. Why aren’t you at the hospital?”

  “I dashed out to grab a coffee—plus a buddy of mine told me to go fix whatever I’d fucked up. He said I was making the patients feel depressed because of how gloomy I was acting.”

  “Why were you feeling depressed?”

  Kyle reached out and smacked me on the back of my head.

  “Oww! What was that for?” I said as I rubbed the back of my head.

  “Just returning the favor. Duh, dude! I was down because I hurt you!” Kyle looked down for a moment before shyly looking at me once again. “So, what do you say?”

  I looked at the card once again, considering my words carefully. “About the fuck or about the dinner?”

  “Preferably both, but a sinking man will grab any help he can get.”

  “So now you’re grabbing my erect dick?” I half-jokingly complained.

  Kyle looked at me and said, “Watch it! Don’t make me slap your head again.”

  The threat seemed so real that I took a step back and bumped into the wall. Kyle didn’t let me escape, though, invading my personal space, leaning down, and locking his lips onto mine before I could object. I think I whimpered when I felt the man’s hand grasp my rapidly rising dick through the pants of my suit.

  “So what do you say?” Kyle asked. “Toss a drowning man a… life preserver?”

  “Okay,” I said with a look of lust, my brain once again almost completely addled by the testosterone being pumped into my system.

  “Yes!” Kyle said, jumping and pumping one fist into the air in excitement.

  “Did I say the right thing?” I asked with a smile.

  “You bet your sweet ass you did!”

  “Well, my friend, it’s actually your ass that is in danger,” I clarified.

  Apparently feeling a bit more confident and frisky, Kyle got a purely evil look on his face and said, “Oh, didn’t I tell you? I’m a top.”

  Before he could move, I reached up and smacked the back of his head.

  “Ow!”

  “Get used to it because we’re gonna be banging your head on the headboard of my bed before long.”

  Kyle smiled, stepped back in, and planted another kiss on me. “Okay,” he said. “But at the moment, we both need to get to work to keep the wolf away from the door. Dinner tonight at seven thirty?”

  “You won’t be too tired? And wait! I distinctly remember the card saying fuck first, dinner second.”

  “Okay. I’ll bring carryout that we can eat after you fuck me bowlegged.”

  “Deal. And you bring the lube.”

  “Until tonight.” Kyle took my hand in his, placed a gentle kiss on my knuckles, and led me downstairs and out of the building. Work took us in opposite directions, but I was welcomed back to my workplace because I was in a significantly better mood—less gloomy and less bitchy.

  Chapter 8

  AT SEVEN thirty on the dot, I heard a knock at the door. I couldn’t help but smile from ear to ear when I opened the door to find a positively delicious-looking Kyle standing there holding up a bag of something.

  “That’ll be twenty-four fifty, sir. And I expect a good tip too. Do you know how far I had to climb to get here?”

  Without a word I pulled Kyle inside the door to my apartment, gave him a chaste little kiss and my own version of a killer smile. “Oh, have no fear. I’ll be tipping you.”

  “Is that a promise?”

  “No. It’s a guarantee.”

  “Thank God!” Kyle said, falling to his knees. “Finally I’m gonna get laid.”

  “Like you have any right to complain!” I said.

  “Hey!” Kyle said, returning to his feet. “I haven’t had a lot of sex in my life, and the last time was more than two years!”

  “Why the fuck would you do that, so to speak?”

  “Well, let’s see. Combine the utter lack of self-esteem because I don’t find myself attractive or worthy of love with working one hundred hours a week in residency, with being $250,000 in debt from medical school, with being raised by strict ultraconservative Southern fundamentalist parents… want me to go on?”

  “No. I think I’ve got the picture. So, are you a virgin?”

  “Not quite.”

  “Not quite? You either are or you’re not. Which is it? You’ve had sex with a man?”

  “I’ve had sex with you, haven’t I? You are a man, aren’t you? I remember that much from my anatomy classes.”

  “Very funny. Now answer my question. Have you ever had sex with a man?”

  “Kind of.”

  “What does ‘kind of’ mean?”

  Kyle tipped his head back slightly, sniffed the air, furrowed his brow, and said, “Hey! Is something burning? Trust me�
��I’m tall.”

  “Bullshit! There is nothing cooking. And what does being tall have to do with anything?”

  “Being tall has given me phenomenal abilities.”

  “Oh, yeah? I need proof.”

  “Here,” he said, thrusting the bag of carryout at me. “Can I use your bathroom? I really need to pee.”

  “Is that one of your exceptional abilities? Got news for ya, babe—all men pee.” I couldn’t help but smile as I said, “Sure. You know where it is?”

  “I’ll find it. Thanks.”

  Curious about what Kyle had brought for dinner, I carried the bag into the kitchen and started checking out the contents. Sampling the smorgasbord of smells coming from the bag, I found a variety of Thai dishes inside. The smell of one of them was so intoxicating that I couldn’t resist taking a quick bite from that container, moaning in delight at the exquisite taste. “Oh my God, that’s so good!” I called out. “These look wonderful! Where did you get them?”

  Silence.

  “Kyle?”

  Silence.

  “Kyle?” I tried again. Oh, crap! Don’t tell me he bolted again! Not a second time! No! Please, no!

  But as I stepped around the corner into the bedroom to see what had become of my guest, I received a shock.

  “What the…?”

  It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why the man hadn’t returned to the dining room: he was now totally naked and lying on the bed, looking all gorgeous and sultry. No, definitely not a virgin, I thought in answer to my earlier question.

  Kyle played his part to the max. “Oh me, oh my. Here I am all alone in this big ole bed, all by myself, scared, lonely.” Really, how did he put that many syllables into the simple word by? “What is a poor country boy like me to do here in this big, bad, scary ole city. Maybe I can find some kind city boy to hold me close and make it all feel better. Now, where could I go to find someone like that?”