Story Sketch: Less Than Three
A short piece that I sat down and hammered out in a little less than three hours after listening to a segment on WHYY's Fresh Air. It somewhat just came out, all in one go, without any sort of planning, and I decided to just run with it. Because of that, I felt it should be left rather raw and unedited, as some of it's appeal, at least to me, is how ... I suppose "alive" is a good word for it -- how alive it feels. But that might just be writerly musing.
Dinner with Marcus had been more than enjoyable, just as it had been the last two times we'd met up. He'd been a perfect gentleman, following all those same rules every other guy I've ever been with seems to know and stick to doggedly, as if everyone had read and was working out of the same instruction manual (a manual, I might add, that I was never handed, mind you). He offered to pick me up for the first date; I didn't want him knowing where I lived, and I knew where the restaurant was well enough, so I said I'd drive myself. He met me outside with a bouquet of roses - gaudy things, I thought, but I hadn't the heart to tell him that - a shy smile, and a nervous twitch in his tiny little otter ears that was so textbook it was painful, and I actually found it annoying, so when he offered to pay I didn't put up any fight. But he'd been fun company throughout the meal, so when he asked me for a second date, the next Friday, my choice of restaurant, I said: why not? He didn't show up with flowers or twitches for the second date, but in a nice olive shirt that accented his fur well with a big grin plastered all over his cute little face. We talked, we ate, we laughed. When the check came after an hour of us sharing a private little table in the corner of the dimly lit Italian restaurant (I got to choose, after all; who doesn't love stuffed manicotti?) We split the check that time. Dutch-style.
So when he asked me to a third date while he walked me to my car, that night, I didn't have to think long before accepting. He asked where. I said it was his turn to choose. He just happened to choose a little sandwich shop less than three miles from my house. An easy walk, and one I'd made plenty of times before. How could I refuse?
So we met, the next Friday - today - and at one of the outside tables while the sun set behind the distant cityscape. We bought our own sandwiches, splitting the bill like we had before. There were no fancy cloth napkins, no multiple sets of forks, no waiters to dote on us and refill our drinks whether we wanted them to or not every few minutes - it was simple, plain, casual. We ate our tin-foil wrapped subs on plastic chairs and drank our sodas out of wax-paper cups. Neither of us bothered to dress up. I had on jeans and a nice T-shirt, and he wore cargo shorts and a minty button-down. The top few buttons had been left undone, and I could see the gap between his collar bones and tufts of creamy fur poking out from beneath the shirt. Damn him, I say, because no matter how hard I tried - and, in fact, the harder I tried the harder I failed - my eyes kept gravitating back to the low opening in his shirt. It was all I could do to not reach over his half-eaten sandwich and just ... pop one more button. Maybe two. Three?
But we were in public, and I'm a grown adult. So I just oggled his chest and pretended to undress him while we ate and chatted and joked the night away like the uncouth pre-teen I really am on the inside. What's the fun of being a grown-up, working a boring professional job, if you can't be a little childish every once in a while, right?
The meal ended, the shop closed, and night had closed in, and he offered to walk me to my car.
"I walked," I said. I nodded down the road going east, away from the city. "It's maybe a forty-five minute walk if I keep up a good pace, and the weather was nice enough, so I figured I'd just walk, ya know?"
He nodded. "Bit late to be walking home, don't you think?"
I shrugged. "You offering to drive?"
He shook his head. "Nah, I walked, too. It's not even a half-hour walk from my house, that's why I suggested it." He looked down at his paws as he walked beside me and rubbed the back of his head. "I, uh, I had to put it in the shop for repairs, and couldn't afford a rental."
"Ah," I grunted. I stuffed my paws in my pockets and stopped at the road. "What was wrong with it?"
"My car?" Marcus stopped next to me and looked off to the west, where I guessed his house was. "Some kid was texting and driving and didn't notice the light had turned red. T-boned me in the middle of the intersection." He choose to illustrate by holding his left arm out and jabbing his right paw into his forearm at a ninety degree angle. When he looked up at me, he must have seen the concern on my face, because he quickly added, "They got me on the passenger side, don't worry. And I was the only one in the car, so nobody was hurt. Just bashed my car in real good, s'all."
"Well, good," I said dumbly. "About not getting hurt, not the car."
Marcus nodded. "Yeah. It's all on his insurance, thankfully, and my car wasn't totaled, but it just sucks that now my insurance will go up because he ran the light and hit me." He kicked at the ground in frustration. It was rather juvenile and cute.
I saw headlights approach from the west and felt painfully aware of how closely we were standing, the back of my paw brushing up against his arm. I took a half-step away from him, hoping I was being subtle, but the way his shoulders sagged and his head tilted down, I knew I hadn't been.
In hindsight, I'm glad I did, because had I not then I wouldn't have felt that pang of guilt start in my heart and run through my body in a painful jolt. It hurt. But it didn't hurt me as much as it seemed to hurt him.
"Anyways," he said. "I should get going. I have work in the morning and a bus to catch at six." He glanced up at me, gave me a half-smile, and then turned away. "Thanks for dinner," he said. He began to walk away. It was the first time he didn't ask for a follow-up date.
"Wait," I said. I took a step towards him and reached out to touch his arm. We hadn't really been all that touchy thus far, so when my fingers brushed the soft, smooth fur along his arm it surprised both of us. And so I held onto him, bringing up my other paw to clasp around his upper arm and hold him still. He turned and looked at me. We looked each other right in the eyes. I saw pain and anger behind his, tinged with the regret and embarrassment of wasted time.
He set his jaw, narrowed his eyes, and drew a breath to speak, and I knew the words he was readying to say. "I don't want to be with somebody who doesn't want to be seen with me," or something along those lines. I'd heard them so, so many times. On most occasions, my dating life lasted less than three dates in total. I usually miss-stepped, fucked up, and blew it by the first or second. With all the other guys, I let them say it. I let them walk away. "Well," I'd always shoot back. "I don't want to be with somebody who needs to broadcast all the time." And then it would just degrade from there.
But Marcus was different. We'd made it to three. The thought of him saying that to me, it didn't evoke the usual hot-headedness it normally did, didn't spur indignation and defensiveness. It just hurt. It left me panicked. I felt my heart pound in my chest as I realized I didn't want him to say it to me.
And so I didn't let him. He opened his mouth to speak, but before he did I blurted out: "Why don't you walk me home."
Marcus blinked. He snapped his mouth closed and pulled his head back as if I'd punched him in the nose. "What?"
"I mean, it's a bit late to be walking home alone, you said so yourself," I said. "It could be dangerous."
"Dangerous?" He snorted. It was the rudest thing I'd seen him do yet. "What, for you? As if anyone's going to bother a bear walking home at night. Sounds more dangerous for them than you."
"You never know," I shrugged. I rubbed my thumbs along his arm, squeezing gently at the muscle beneath. There wasn't much there, all told.
"I have work in the morning," he said, but the edge in his voice and face had faded. "You said yourself it's about an hour's walk to your place from here. It'd be almost two and a half hours of walking for me if I walked you home."
"You could stay the night," I said. By this point, my brain was no longer telling me what to say, and so I didn't bother thinking about what came out of my mouth before it tumbled out like a graceless gymnast. "My bed's big enough to share, or I have a couch if that's too forward. You'd take the bed, I'd sleep on the couch, of course." I saw the next protest in his face before he actually managed to say it. "And I could drive you to work. No waiting for buses!"
His expression hardened, which made mine melt all the more. Still ignoring my brain and listening to my heart (and another choice place) and moved my right paw to his chest, where his shirt was partially open, and pressed my palm against his sternum. Fingers spread, my paw almost encompassed his entire, lithe chest. "Please?" I said. I sounded pitiful. "What do you say?"
He thought for a moment. "How far's the walk?"
"Less than three miles," I said.
"Less than three?" He nodded, keeping his eyes on mine. "That's a bit of a walk."
"It's not so bad," I said. "It can get boring, but I've got good company to keep me entertained."
"Yeah?" Marcus grinned, then. My heart rose. "And who would that be, huh? Meeting up with somebody on the way?"
And then my heart sank. "I was hoping to leave with somebody, actually," I said.
He nodded again. "That's a hell of a walk."
"I guess," I sighed. I let my eyes drift down to the pavement between my feet.
"Probably going to need to go to bed as soon as we get to your place," he said.
And then I looked back up at him. Damn him and the roller-coaster ride he made me feel. "Probably," I agreed.
"And it's probably a big bed, too," he went on. "Way bigger than I could fill."
"Much bigger," I said.
"Probably should share it," he said.
My heart pounded in my ears. "Probably."
"Should probably do it naked, too," he said with a shrug. The nonchalance with which he said it just killed me, right then and there. "After all, I'll need something to wear tomorrow, right?"
I couldn't help it. I popped the topmost button on his shirt. I had already signed off on the vestigial reminders of the fact I was not only in public, but a grown adult half a conversation ago. "Right," I said. It came out as a low growl.
"And a shower in the morning," he said. He brought his muzzle close to mine. I could taste the sandwich he'd eaten with me, not a few minutes before, on his breath.
"Yeah," I agreed. I lowered my nose to touch his. "Might need to share it to save time." I leaned in, closing my eyes, expecting my lips to meet his.
But the damned otter skipped back a half-step and grinned a grin of a man who knew he had me wrapped around his finger. It was all mischief and levity. The fucker. "And breakfast," he said. "I know this great waffle joint right next to my office. Decent coffee, and they make their eggs edible, at least. But their waffles are to _die_for, I tell you."
I was still reeling from how quickly he'd stepped back, and was now painfully aware of how tight my pants felt. And how obvious it was, too, to anyone who bothered to glance down beneath my gut. "You had me at 'decent coffee'," I said. I half coughed, half cleared my throat, and tried to casually adjust my jeans. It didn't look very casual at all.
"Then it's a date," he said. He stepped back up to me, but kept a respectable distance from me. Not too close, but just close enough. Not touching, but not not-touching. It was a comfortable distance that wouldn't draw the attention of any who happened to drive by going sixty. It was a distance that left our paws a little less than three inches apart from each other, if we swung them just right.
"One last thing," he said. I looked down at him. "You're buying." He looked up at me. "It's only fair."
"I would love to," I said. I wondered, idly, if I should somehow get him roses, too.