by Edie Danford
Have to laugh again. I can never predict what he’s going to say.
“But I’d starve if dancing were on the menu. Because you never dance.” I set the kettle back on the range.
His eyes—they’re blue, but much nicer than mine because they’re an unusual and awesome combo of slate and turquoise—get twinkly.
“You will teach me,” he pronounces. “And then I will feed you many courses of my fierce dance moves.”
Whoa. Cheeky. I raise a brow.
“No, I will not teach you. I will make you dinner.”
His mouth scrunches on one side. “Glag,” he says. Then he shrugs and heads for the fridge.
“What?”
“Glag,” he repeats, opening the fridge and staring into it.
Marek’s native language is Czech. I’m pretty sure “glag” is not a Czech word, though. “Okay. I give. What does that word even mean?”
“It’s a combo.” He pulls a Bud from the door and offers it up.
I shake my head. He knows I hate beer, even the big-brew lager he likes with meals—very un-Czech-like of him according to a few of his friends—but he always politely offers.
“A combo of what?”
“Goddamn, lit, and dag.” He pops the cap and takes a long drink.
I glance away before I can see the way his throat moves as he swallows. Marek has a nice neck. “Elegant” my friend Adrian, who’d been a professional dancer, would call it. It’s muscular but graceful-looking, with a pronounced Adam’s apple.
“Those words seem contradictory,” I comment.
“Contradictory works for many cursing occasions.”
I smile. “Have you been hanging out with Zoe again?”
“Of course.”
Zoe is seventeen and precocious and has an after-school job in Marek’s lab. She has a crush on Marek—but it’s more like a brain crush than a body crush. She knows he’s gay, but claims that only makes him “more fascinatabulous.” Marek takes it in stride.
Zoe and her dad—who is an English professor at the university—live a few blocks away. They hang out here at the townhouse sometimes on weekends. Marek and Zoe’s new thing is to try to invent unique curse words to replace ones that are “old and boring.” It’s cute—in a nerdy way, of course—but I try to stay out of it. Cuteness doesn’t pay my bills anymore.
With this in mind, I scoot the step stool over to the big island in the center of the kitchen and climb onto it. As I reach for a skillet, Marek approaches. I tense for a second, a reflexive action I’d developed at my old job, where, if I’d found myself in a vulnerable position, I’d often been goosed, tickled, or worse.
But Marek doesn’t touch me. He does what he usually does, and asks, “Which one do you want?”
I say what I usually say, “I’ve got it.” After grabbing the medium-sized skillet, I step off the stool.
“Hmm.” He stares down at the stool, scowling as if it’s sprouted a tongue and is now waggling it at him, before sliding it back to its spot in the corner.
“What?” I put the skillet on a front burner.
He turns his stare to the large, ceiling-mounted pot rack. It’s heavy wrought iron with fussy scrollwork. I guess it’s supposed to offset the stark white-marble lines of the island?
“Why do we have this thing?” he asks.
“I don’t know,” I answer. He’s looking way too serious, glaring at the pots. “It was here when I started working for you. So I guess the question is…why do you have it?” I retrieve a selection of vegetables from a bowl on the island. Red pepper, onion, zucchini.
“You do all the cooking. And all the taking down and the putting away.” He says this in an accusing sort of way as he watches me begin to chop. Accusatory because he’s always trying to help me with the cooking and the putting away, and I’m always telling him to let me do my job. “And you are short,” he adds. “So we should have the pots somewhere else.”
“We should, huh?” I splash some oil into the pan and turned on the heat.
His English is usually perfect—learning figures of speech and wonky grammar rules is a hobby of his—but he has certain ways of putting things that are definitely not American. The “we” isn’t a quirk, though.
I secretly love the idea that he thinks of us as roommates. Friends. Two dudes on equal footing living together. But it’s his house, and I can’t exactly order him to rip a three-thousand-pound pot rack from the ceiling just because I’m vertically challenged.
“Marek—”
“And so,” he says, “I will be calling Frank the handyman tomorrow to tell him to take the unit down.” He picks up his beer, takes a drink. “And you, as housekeeper, will help him decide on where to install another more handy unit.”
If Marek were one of my old friends, I’d make a crack about Frank—who has beefy arms and a very impressive seventies-style pornstache riding his upper lip—and his ability to install a “handy unit.”
But even though Marek would likely enjoy the joke immensely (after I explained it to him), I make myself say only, “Okay, that would be fine.”
“Good.” He nods, looking pleased with himself. “And I will beat some eggs.”
As he heads for the fridge and bends down to retrieve the eggs, I sigh. His ass is ogle-worthy even in horrible flannel-lined, wrinkle-free khakis. So wrong.
If he insists on beating the eggs and keeping me company while I cook, that means he isn’t planning on going back to work, and he’ll want to keep me company while I eat and clean up.
That will be too much time together—the friend-employee balance will be off. So I’ll have to pretend to be tired and go to bed early, forego cards, movie-watching, or book-listening with Marek.
I pick up the chef’s knife and take out my disappointment on a zucchini.
Marek
After my shower, I come downstairs for a fresh glass of water. Pete has placed a clean glass in the holder by my bathroom sink—as he does every day—but I want the water to be icy. So I’m making a special trip to get it from the pitcher of filtered water he keeps in the fridge.
This is the small bedtime story I’m telling myself.
Really, I’m going down to the kitchen in hopes of finding the door to Pete’s room open. An open door means he might be amenable to a chat. Maybe even a movie or a book chapter in his room (that I like much better than my own). But the odds are excellent that his door will be closed, and so the glass in my hand will give me something to do other than turning around and heading back up the stairs.
The tall clock in the hallway chimes as I walk by, and I make a face at myself in the shiny glass. Midnight. I’m very predictable. The way my fingertips are slightly sweaty as they press against the water glass, the way my heart begins to beat like I’ve zapped it with the ionizer at the lab. The way my cock twitches under the thin cotton of my sleeping pants, shifty against my balls.
Before I get to the kitchen, I pause and take a deep breath. The scent of the new soap and shampoo Pete purchased for me fills my nostrils. “It’s my fave for myself,” he’d said. “You’ll love it. I get it at a discount from my friend, Ro. I don’t go to his salon anymore, but he still loves me.” His smile had been proud. Pete was pleased that this person Ro loved him. Me, I wasn’t so pleased.
The shampoo’s scent reminds me of the tea Pete likes to drink—orange and spice. Buying fancy products for me and expecting me to use them is a very Pete thing to do. I’m fully capable of ordering my own personal items and having them delivered.
I have…issues with shopping at brick-and-mortar stores. Shopping makes me feel as though the devil has used my guts for harp strings and is playing a fucking minuet. But Pete likes to do an “excellent job” of taking care of me, not a “half-assed one.” And so he goes to local stores and seeks local products that are produced, when possible, organically, artisanally, and, as Pete says, “fabulously.”
What he never stops to realize, of course—he’s very energetic and rarely st
ops for anything—is that taking excellent care of me makes it hard to follow his rules.
Example: Rule One is that I am not supposed to think of him as anything other than a “casual” friend and employee. He likes to say, “I am your housekeeper and a guy who you can hang out with if you’re super-bored. Nothing else.”
And yet he’s purchased products for me to rub all over my skin and my hair in the shower, and these products smell like him. As if I don’t think about him enough when I’m naked and handling myself.
I shake my head. Pete. What can I do?
What can I do…
I let the breath silently escape my lungs and step into the kitchen.
It’s dark. The pale glow of the outdoor safety lights outlines the window shades. I glance beyond the butler’s pantry where Pete’s suite is located. The door is closed. A faint band of light gleams between the floor and the door. He’s probably still awake. Reading in bed, maybe.
After setting my glass on the counter—a little too forcefully—I walk to the fridge and open the door with a jerk. It doesn’t bang or rattle like I hope. The kitchen had been renovated before I moved in last year, and all the appliances are built like big, new American SUVs. My uncle, who had worked with the university’s real estate office to find this place, had called it a “chef’s dream.” Perhaps. If the chef were a large person who loved to wrestle Cadillac-sized appliances and whose dreams never included color.
My uncle is often disconnected from practical reality in this way—if things cost a lot, then, for him, that means they are better.
The only practical and realistic thing he’d done when he’d acquired this large household for me had been to hire someone to manage it. Of course, he’d used “the best placement agency,” had requested “their best person,” and had insisted on “the most iron-clad employment contract.”
I don’t believe in things like luck or fate or manipulative deities, but the best random event that has ever happened in my life is that the agency selected Peter Schulz to be my housekeeping professional. I hadn’t particularly wanted, or thought I’d needed, a housekeeping professional. But once I’d met Pete, I became okay with the idea. Very okay.
I eye the plastic-wrapped plate of kolache on the fridge’s top shelf—he’d made them perfectly, of course—but decide to stick with water. I fill my glass and then turn to put the pitcher back in the fridge. The pitcher’s bottom edge catches the top edge of the glass. Law of physics—ha—the glass falls off the counter, crashes to the floor, and shatters.
I stand there with the pitcher in my hand—the fridge’s open-door warning chiming loudly—looking down at the broken glass and feeling chilled water pool around my bare toes.
Glag.
Pete’s door flies open, banging as it hits the cabinets. “Are you okay?” He switches on the overhead lights.
I blink in the sudden brightness. “Um. Yes.” I take a step away from the mess at my feet.
“Don’t move. You’ll cut yourself.” He rushes back into his room, saying, “I’ll get the broom. Back in a sec.”
The broom is in the closet by the back door. But he’ll remember that in a second.
I wait. More than a second. My toes have become quite frozen. This has been a bad idea. I am not going to get a chat or a “hang-out sesh” with Pete. I’m not going to be able to see his smile or hear his laughter. Instead, I’ll get a scowl and a lecture.
When he comes back into the kitchen he’s wearing…cowboy boots? Yes. Cowboy boots and short flannel boxers and nothing else.
Glag, glag, glag.
“My other boots are in the mudroom,” he mutters.
As he hustles to the closet for the broom, I watch him with only a little bit of shame. The cowboy boots are red and decorated with green cacti. What else can I do but look? I scan his body—which I’ve only seen naked once and then only for a second—
“You couldn’t get a drink upstairs?”
Here comes the scowl and the lecture.
“I wanted cold water.”
He makes a fuss with the drawer that holds rags. Or what he calls rags. They’re slightly aged bath towels that have been cut into precisely shaped rectangles and then folded neatly. I know the drawer well because I make lots of messes.
He tosses a rag to me. “For your feet.”
He keeps another rag for himself and walks toward me, holding the broom like a spear. Over the last several months I’ve noticed that he faces each cleaning task like he’s entering battle. He lines up weapons, supplies, puts on a warrior face, and attacks.
I might look defensive as I clench the rag.
Propping the broom against the counter, he bends to pick up the biggest chunks of glass. I take a breath. He must’ve recently bathed too. He smells like me. Or him.
He walks over to the trash—his boots make interesting sounds on the tiles—and deposits the chunks.
“What?” he asks as he comes toward me again. “Why are you standing there like an automaton?”
“I am holding still.”
He smiles. “You’re a doof.”
I nod. The smile and the doof mention are good things. Maybe the scowl and the lecture part of the evening are over.
“Wipe your feet,” he commands.
I wipe while I watch him sweep with efficient strokes of the broom. When I approach to help, he hands me the broom and then kneels to scoop up the puddle of water and glass bits with the rag.
He glances up at me.
I raise my brows. His gaze zooms up my body, lingering for an extra moment on my crotch. I’ve been semi-erect since my shower and his scrutiny feels like skin-to-skin touching. My cock twitches, the motion creating a gap in the fly of the loose-fitting pants.
He exhales—a soft humming sound. It might be approval or disapproval, I can’t tell. My cock, of course, decides the sound is sexual. The thickening shaft twitches again, determined to make its way into the cool air where it can be admired by the man at my feet.
I hold my breath as Pete stands. He carries the water-soaked rag carefully to the bin and tosses the whole thing.
After retrieving the dustpan from the cabinet, he takes the broom from me. I stand there—totally erect now—as he bends again to sweep up the remaining glass. I let my breath go.
“I’ll do the whole floor in the morning,” he says, apparently deciding to ignore the way my body is begging for attention. The contents of the dustpan get dumped in the bin, the broom and dustpan get put away.
“I can do it,” I tell him. I try to be polite with my eyes. But, glag, when he wipes his hands on the boxers and the fabric pulls against his crotch, I can’t help staring.
Pete is so beautiful. His body is compact and muscular. His eyes are a mix of clear sky and clouds, and his smile is the sunshine. The color of his hair shifts from gold to brown, depending on the light and how much he’s messed it up with his hands. It’s very short, so it has a nap to it, like an animal’s pelt.
In conversations we’ve had since he began working here—usually when we sit down together to eat—I’ve discovered that he doesn’t seem to see any beauty in himself. “I’ve let myself go,” he tends to say.
I don’t understand this idea, and when I ask him to explain, he tells me various things. He doesn’t work out anymore except for yoga and jogging. He’s stopped going to a salon, no more tanning and bleaching and waxing. He eats carbs and sugar—which is apparently a very bad thing.
His explanations leave me even more confused. I’m an observant person, and I don’t see any evidence that Pete has let himself go. But when I ask for more detail, he says the topic of his looks is off limits. Unless I want to negotiate. His offer? If I let him give me a wardrobe makeover and let his friend Ro give me a haircut—things that he says will “give me more confidence to go out and have fun”—then he’ll answer three more questions.
I’d laughed at him. Because even I knew that was a lousy deal. I like my hair and my clothes. They’re comfortable. An
d I don’t want to go out. I have fun staying home with Pete.
He seems to have fun at home too. If he doesn’t care about fashion or going out, I don’t understand why he thinks these things are important for me.
He wears the same thing every day—a fleece sweater over a T-shirt with a Domesticated, Inc logo on it and workout pants. He says these clothes allow him to be flexible for his only activities outside the house—running errands and going to class (yoga three times a week and courses toward his bachelor’s degree twice a week).
“Yeah, I know you can clean it up if given several hours,” he’s telling me. “But it’s my job. Tomorrow morning your job is to go teach a class. You’ll sleep until eight, eat a good breakfast, and then be off.”
I raise my eyebrows. “That is how it will happen, eh?”
“I’ll make sure of it.”
“What if I want to negotiate?”
“Negotiate?”
“Yes. Things can be negotiated in a democratic household, yes?”
“Democratic?”
I smile. “We have no dictators here. Or kings or queens.”
He snorts. “Well. There is that matter of your uncle signing my paycheck. But I get what you’re saying, I guess. What were you interested in negotiating?”
“Tonight I feel…antsy? Unable to relax.” I move my shoulders up and down to show him all this tension I’m experiencing. “I’ll go upstairs and sleep, but first I would like company.”
His mouth droops as he folds his arms across his bare chest and stares at me. “So you’re saying you’ll let me do my job. But only if I give up my free time for you?”
“Um.” It’s cool in the kitchen, but my face suddenly becomes steam-burn hot.
Damn. I’m incredibly bad at talking to him—or any guy—I find attractive. Doesn’t matter where I am—Prague, Pasadena, Chicago. My language barrier isn’t about Czech versus English. It’s about my head versus my tongue.
What I want with Pete is complicated, not simple. But, as usual, I’ve said words that could be construed as—
God, I don’t even know what.
