by J. A. Huss
I sit there quietly for a moment, thinking about how…normal…this feels. Almost like she’s my girlfriend or whatever and I’m waiting on her to get ready so that we can go have Thanksgiving dinner with her family. All of which is, of course, what is happening.
Except that she’s not my girlfriend.
She’s… I’m not sure what. I mean I know who and what she is to the world, but I don’t know who and what she is to me. But I’ve been given the advice to back off and let her be by enough different people now that I’m gonna try to just shut up and not fuck it all up. (Good luck, bro.)
After a few moments of quiet (Which is nice, I’m realizing. As long as my brain plays along and doesn’t disrupt the peace) she steps back into view and leans against the doorway. She’s down to just her underwear again. Is she trying to do me in? Maybe so. Maybe her plan for getting back at me for everything is to sexy me to death. Fine. I’ll take it. About a trillion times better than the other ways people have tried to kill me.
“Can I ask you something?” she asks.
“Yes, we can do it again,” I say as I stand, start unbuckling my pants, and move toward her.
She puts her hand out to stop me. Shit. Well, worth a shot. I put my hand up in return and take my seat again.
“Yes. Please. Ask away,” I acquiesce.
“Why did you do this? All this, with my parents? Why?”
“Um…”
“Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate it. I really do. I think I just showed you that.”
“Yes, and I appreciate that.” I bounce my eyebrows at her. I’m so fuckin’ charming.
“But why did you do it? What made you? Was it just so I’d fuck you again?”
Jesus. Is she serious? I can feel myself starting to get hot. I tried to do a nice fucking thing and she thinks… She thinks…
Shit. It’s hard to focus with her standing there looking sexy as...a...um...shit, I got distracted again. Fuck. But, oh! What made me do the thing with her folks? Got it.“Was it so I’d fuck you?” I laugh a little. “Um, well, I guess… OK, So, lemme say a couple things. First I talked with Pete—”
“Yeah, he told me.”
“Did he? Well, yeah, I did. And he’s kinda awesome and he basically just said that if I really gave a shit about you that I’d think about what you need and, like, give you a gift and stuff. And I do really give a shit. I give several shits. I know you don’t believe me, but…” I pause to give her a chance to tell me that she does, in fact, believe me. But she doesn’t say anything, So I continue…
“So, yeah. So, I tried to think what I could give you. Give YOU. That would be something you would like and could…use, or… Fuck. I dunno. Whatever. Evan told me you came by the station and you said it’d been a couple years since you’d seen your folks, and Thanksgiving was coming up, and shit, I figured it was the right thing to do. If you won’t let me into your world, you should have somebody here. You don’t have to do fucking everything alone. That’s all.”
She doesn’t say anything. Fine. I’m not done anyway.
“So, second… You can think I’m a selfish prick or whatever you want to think, but I gave you a gift because I wanted to and because it seemed like the right thing to do. That’s it. So, no. I didn’t expect anything from it. I certainly didn’t do it so that you’d fuck me. Hey, fucking you is a nice treat, but it’s not what I was looking for, and besides, I haven’t needed to do anything to get you to fuck me before now, so why would I start?”
She gets a steely look in her eye and kind of chews at the inside of her cheek and simmers a little while she assesses whether or not I’m full of shit.
“Believe me or don’t. Up to you. I did what I did from a sincere place. You made the choice to let me fuck you. So that’s on you. If you didn’t want to you didn’t have to. ‘Thank you’ would’ve been just fine. So as far as me getting your parents here goes, y’know… you’re welcome.”
Funny how easy it is not to give a fuck whether or not somebody believes you when you’re telling the truth.
She breathes in and out of her nose while still chewing the inside of her mouth, her tits rising and falling with the breath, causing me to imagine my cock sliding back and forth between them. Which is, in my opinion, an unfair advantage in an argument.
After a moment she says, “Do you think it makes me hot when you get pissed?”
That is so totally not anything I was expecting her to say.
“I—Uh. I don’t… Um. Why? Does it?” There’s probably a little hope in the question.
She smirks. “A little.”
Holy shit! This day is getting dysfunctionally better by the second!
“Fuck,” she says, hanging her head. “What the fuck are we doing?”
I stand and approach her. Carefully. “We are figuring it out. I guess.”
“Figuring what out?”
I reach her and lift her chin with my finger. Her eyes are wide and seeking. “It. All of it. This shit. Why it’s happening. What it all means.”
She laughs a tiny, mirthless sniffle.
“What?” I ask.
“I have this shrink, who’s fucking terrible, by the way.”
“Oh, you should see mine,” I tell her. “She’s the balls.”
She ignores me, and keeps talking. “—and this shitty shrink told me something that has kind of stuck with me.”
“Which is?”
“Basically, that things have no meaning. Good things. Bad things. They just… happen. And if that’s true, I don’t know what the point is in trying.”
“Wow, somebody said something like that to me too,” I say.
“Yeah? Who?”
“Um… James Franco.” (Oh, boy. Here we go.)
“You know James Franco?”
“Uh, a little,” I say. “Not the point. Point is that maybe… Maybe, yeah, things just happen. Maybe that’s true. And maybe they don’t objectively mean anything. But we can give them meaning. If we want. It’s up to us to decide what something means.”
Her eyes squint slightly, like she’s deciding how full of shit I am.
“Look, I don’t know why all of this is happening either. Why this is you and me, and why it’s happening now, and what’s gonna happen in the future. I’ve definitely learned I suck at predicting the future. But I do know that I’m fucking tired, Maddie. I’m tired of fighting. I’m tired of fighting everyone and everything all the goddamn time. So… So, I’m choosing to see that you and me… Here… Now. That… That it means I can stop. For a little while, at least. Because I’m not all alone. There’s somebody out there who… understands. And that, if we choose to, we can help hold each other up. That’s the meaning I’m deciding to assign to all this.”
Her breathing speeds up again a little.
“That’s it. That’s all I’ve got. And not only was that a good fucking speech, it has the added benefit of also being true. So fuck it. I’m gonna stop while I’m ahead.”
She laughs a bit, which makes me realize I’ve been holding my breath, and now I let it out on a long sigh.
She smiles with her lips but not her eyes. “I’m tired too,” she says.
“I know.”
“You hurt me real bad.”
“I know.” I want to tell her I’m sorry. But it feels small. And besides… She knows.
Then she says, “Pete said something to me too.”
“Yeah? What?”
“He said when you’re young and haven’t fucked your life up so bad it can’t be fixed yet, you think there’s always a next time. And that there isn’t always a next time.”
“Jesus, Pete’s like Santa Claus meets the Buddha meets Rambo,” I say with astonishment, and she laughs. So do I. And fuck, it feels good. But not as good as her taking my hand in hers, which she does now.
“Tyler?”
“That IS my name.”
“I don’t know if I can do this right now.”
Fuck.
But, yeah, I get i
t.
“I know. I do. I know. We don’t have to…y’know. But maybe we can just… There’s a lot we need to catch up on. Maybe we can just hang out and at least… Do that?”
She closes her eyes and says, “...Yeah. Yeah. We can…do that. I mean, fuck, dude, that story you told about living in Rio HAS to have more to it.”
“Oh, hell yeah, it does. But I’m not gonna say that shit in front of your parents.”
She gets an impish grin and says, “Yeah, well, I wouldn’t worry about that. C’mere.” She grabs my hand and pulls me into the closet with her, opens a dresser drawer and pulls out something that looks like a woman’s fur stole with a piece of metal attached to one end.
“What is that?” I ask. “A…? Like, a boa, or…?”
She laughs loudly. I love her fucking laugh. “You don’t know what this is?” she asks. I shake my head. “It’s a fox tail!” she says in a whisper for some reason, even though nobody else is here.
“Well, yeah, I get that. I mean it kinda looks like a—”
“No. A fox. Tail.” Now she says it like putting extra emphasis on the words will help me understand better.
“I don’t—” I start.
“It’s a sex toy! This”—she holds up the metal part—“is a butt plug. And then this part”—the furry part, she means—“just hangs out the back and kinda makes a woman look like a…y’know…fox. Or kitten. Or whatever.”
“Uh, OK, well, first, that’s the hottest thing I’ve ever heard of. How do you know about it?”
“I work in a strip club.”
“Right. Copy that. But then second, that means that…your—”
“—MY prim and proper MOM is rocking some freaky fox tail action in the sack!”
“Holy. Shit.” I can’t stop the grin from spreading. “I don’t know how I’m gonna look at her the same way now.”
“Oh, please. You were already flirting with her downstairs, this just reinforces that she probably wants you to.”
“Hey! I’m pretty sure she was flirting with me. Which isn’t my fault. I’m mad flirt-worthy. Everybody says so.”
She grins, grabs my shirt, and pulls me in for a kiss. A long, sweet, hot, perfect, almost too perfect kiss. Then she pulls back and says, “We better get downstairs. They did fly all the way here for dinner.”
She smiles. And I’m fucking happy.
“Cool.” I smile back. And then, as I push her hair out of her face, I take the fox tail from her, hold it up, grin, and offer…
“And your mom did say you could wear anything of hers you wanted…”
Chapter Fourteen - Maddie
As we exit the elevator, I’m terrified. Because this feels…not at all terrifying.
Tyler next to me, heading to have Thanksgiving dinner with my family, feels as familiar and normal as anything in the world. Because, in a way, it is. It’s not the first time Tyler and I have had dinner with my folks. But it is the first time we’ve done it since Scotty died. And it’s obviously the first time we’ve done it since we’ve become… whatever the hell we are.
And that’s what’s scary. Because with all the unknowns, there’s no way to predict what’s going to happen. And I know there’s never any way to predict what’s going to happen in life. I know that. But the good thing about everything being shitty and broken is that then you can believe that whatever’s waiting to happen will be a good thing. Will lift you up. When everything’s going OK, the uncertainty of the future tends to come in the form of the good things being burned to the ground.
It takes a really long, hard time to build something up. And almost no time at all to tear it down. Just ask the guys who built the World Trade Center.
This is a pretty morose thought to be having right now, but I’ve got to protect myself. This day will end, my parents will leave again, and who the hell knows what will happen with Tyler. He’s still totally Tyler. Which means unstable. And unpredictable. And as uncertain as an uncertain future can be. And I have to guard my heart. I don’t want to. But I have to. Because I won’t be broken again. I won’t let it happen. I’ve had enough tragedy and heartbreak for this lifetime.
And then, of course, there’s Carlos. Which is its own special brand of anxiety. Yeah, the climb continues. No resting yet. I’m nowhere near the top.
Mom and Dad are sitting in the lobby, near the restaurant, waiting. As we approach, Dad says, “We were getting worried maybe you got lost in that suite!” He and Mom and Tyler all give a hearty laugh. I give a half-hearted one. I still just don’t wanna risk having to talk about me and Tyler.
Mom sees what I’m wearing—one of her wrap dresses; a black one with pretty flowers on it—and gushes, “Oh, honey. That looks fabulous on you. You should keep that. It looks better on you than it does on me! Why don’t you go through and see if there’s anything else that would look good on you?”
“Yeah. I mean, I saw a couple of things…” Tyler says, with a shit-eating grin on his face. I swear to God, I will punch him in the dick.
“Nonsense!” Dad says. “George, you look amazing in that dress. Why don’t we just take Maddie shopping tomorrow and get her some stuff? Black Friday!”
I feel like I’m gonna cry, and it’s totally unexpected. But my folks wanna take me shopping. For clothes and shit. Which I don’t really care about in and of itself, but they want to take care of me. And suddenly I start thinking…what’s wrong with that? Why not let them? Why not just tell them what’s going on (or at least as much of it as I think they can stomach) and get their help? They’re my family after all. They love me. They want to help me. What’s all this pride about anyway? It hasn’t done shit but jam me up.
That’s right, Maddie.
Fuck. What is that?
It’s me. The angel.
Oh, Jesus. Are you still here?
Yep, bitch, and I am too. You can’t get rid of us that easy.
Fucking hell. Why now?
Maddie, the angel says, Yes. Let them help you. There’s no shame in it.
Sure, you fucking quitter. Let somebody else bail you out, says the devil.
This is confusing. I figured the devil would be all like, ‘Yeah, fuck them, get what you can, take what’s yours, etc.’
That’s not my job. My job is to argue with the angel. Point-counterpoint. Basically, I’m just here to make sure you don’t turn into a total fucking dishrag. And if you take shit from people, you owe them. You wanna be indebted to your mommy and daddy? You’re twenty-five, bitch! Fuck is wrong with you?
They are family. Family is there for each other, says the angel.
Yeah? Satan and God were family once too, and look how that turned out.
That doesn’t even—
Fuck you! It makes sense!
I don’t need this shit right now.
“Everybody ready to eat?” Mom says, jolting me back into the present.
We all nod a ‘yes’ and are just about to head into the restaurant when from behind us, I hear…
“Georgina? Simon?” We all turn to see a man approaching from across the lobby. He’s wearing a kind of ill-fitting suit with a Mandalay Bay nametag on it that says “Jack.” The Four Seasons doesn’t have a casino in it, but it connects to Mandalay, which most certainly does. Jack is one of the pit bosses there. I know because I know him. Or used to anyway.
Jack Morgan.
Tyler’s dad.
He reaches the four of us, walks right past me and Tyler and straight up to Mom and Dad. I look at Tyler to see if I can get any read off him at all.
Nothing. His eyes are dead. All the light is gone.
“What’s up you guys?” Jack wheezes, wrapping them in a hug. Mom, in particular, cringes. “Whatcha doing in town? You’re not still in Monaco?”
“Oh, yeah, we are,” Dad says. He kind of steps in between Jack and Mom. Jack Morgan was well known to have tried lots of inappropriate things in inappropriate ways with many women. Oftentimes the mothers of his sons’ friends. To the best of
my knowledge, nothing ever happened with Jack and my mom, but there were some whispered stories that maybe something almost did. A couple of times. “But,” Dad continues, “we’re just in for a few days for Thanksgiving to see, uh—” He nods in my direction.
Again, I look at Tyler. Again, nothing.
“To see…?” Jack echoes as he turns and sees me and Tyler standing there. And suddenly, there is recognition in his eyes. “Oh. My. God. Is that Maddie?”
He grabs me in a hug and I can smell the cigarette smoke on his clothes. Not new cigarette smoke. Years of cigarette smoke. I gag a little. Which is entirely to do with the hug and not at all to do with the smoke.
“Jesus, look at you,” he says, backing up to take me in. “Wow. I ain’t seen you in, hell, must be, what? Ten? Years?”
“Um, probably more like twelve,” I say. “At least.”
“Ho-ly cow. Ain’t that something. Look. At. You. Look just like your mother, which is a compliment! Believe me!”
The light in the usually sunny lobby seems to have almost all but disappeared.
“So you’re all staying at the Four Seasons? Well, ain’t you in high cotton?”
I don’t even really know what that means.
It is notable to everyone present that he hasn’t yet acknowledged Tyler.
And then… He does.
Kind of.
“Hey, I’m sorry, man,” he says to Tyler. “Jack Morgan. How ya doing?”
He sticks his hand out to Tyler for a shake.
Time stops.
Jack’s hand just hangs there in the space between him and Tyler. Tyler stares down at it, still not moving, his eyes still dead. I can see Mom fading further and further back from the scene. She’s almost at the wall. And Dad is fidgeting, clearly debating whether he should turn on his politician smile and make a joke, or just let this play out on its own.
For my part, I don’t know what to do. Part of me wants to take Tyler’s hand, tell Jack that this is Ford Aston, a guy I’m dating, and make it go away like that, so we can (maybe) joke about it later. But not only is that stupid, if I do that Mom may remember the phone call we had a few weeks back when I told her a story about a soldier that I was seeing whose name I refused to give her, and start putting two and two together.
