#greenjudy also writes original fiction

[greenjudy]

and now for something completely different

Under the cut is a long (long), rough-draft excerpt from The Orchid Keeper, one of my Belltower novels-in-progress. For some unknown reason I feel moved to post this today.

It’s the future. 

The narrator is Nathan Findzeit, fabulist, Operator, and dirty-tricks-facilitator for the global conglomerate, Belltower Industries. Eric Rehm (the orchid keeper referenced in the title) comes from Belltower’s Ethics Division. Three years ago, he was assigned to conduct an internal audit of Nathan’s division--an almost unprecedented occurrence, considering how much of Belltower’s dirty laundry is sitting in that hamper. 

Over time, Eric and Nathan have gradually come to appreciate one another. At the same time, they’ve learned that they are both pawns in an unimaginably complex power-play by the shadowy Arthur Cheergathers, Eric’s unofficial  supervisor in Ethics. 

See what you think of this. Heads up, it’s not explicit, but it’s a little on the steamy side. 

[author’s note: Findzeit is out of sorts in this excerpt; an unknown party, for an unknown reason, has given him a low dose of Teluno, a drug that will figure prominently later in the story.]

Eric’s apartment

[I’m thinking 2412 Webster St kind of on the border between Pacific Heights and Cow Hollow, right next to Bromley Place. This area is awfully affluent, but Eric is a Belltower minion.]

It’s a short walk from wherever the train let us off to Eric’s place. We take a shortcut, a flight of stairs that passes beside, and at one point through, a sequence of tiny and smartly landscaped backyards full of topiary and herb knots and bird baths. 

I steady myself on Eric as we walk. 

“I can’t believe you can afford to live here,” I complain.

“It’s not mine,” Eric says. “It’s Belltower’s. It came with the job.” I stare at him.

“OK, you are rent-free in Pacific Heights? That is extra unfair.” 

“It’s a place to live,” he says, shrugging. “If I were paying, I could never afford this.”

“If you were paying, where would you live?” 

“SOMA,” Eric says promptly. “Studio walkup with no street parking.”

“Keeping it real,” I say, eyebrows up. 

Eric unlocks his door with a jingle of keys.

I have never been here before; not when I was awake. I find myself touching the doorjamb, brushing my fingers against the stucco’ed wall, and when I take my coat off and put it on the hook in the hallway, I have to lean against it and breathe for a second, just to remind myself that I am really there.

“You okay? Still feeling loopy?” 

I guess I am. I guess I am still feeling loopy. 

Eric gets an arm around my shoulders and eases me into an armchair. It’s a soft dusty dark green; the nubby texture stands out against my fingers. 

“Just sit here,” he says. “Idrik said it would wear off soon.”

“It’s warm in here,” I say, surprised. 

“Space heater,” Eric answers. I see it, finally, bars glowing orange, leaving tracers when I turn my head. 

“I hope you didn’t give up on the fireplace. Were you finally able to get a chimney sweep to clean out your flue?” 

“You want…you want a fire?” Eric says, hands full with a tray that he sets on the coffee table. “I could make a fire.” 

“Is that tea?”

“It’s tea. Nothing in it, though. It’s just lemongrass. I don’t know what this is, Idrik doesn’t really know what this is, just—“ 

“No, it’s okay, you’re right, I’m stoned out of my mind on something and we don’t know what it is. It’s the right time for lemongrass. It’s a wise choice.”

Eric pours tea into chunky white mugs. They look like they belong in a men’s boarding house from the early twentieth century, or like they should contain shaving cream.  

“Let me know about that fire.”

“If you want to make a fire,” I say, “I won’t stop you. Won’t help you, either…sorry about that.”

I turn my head to gaze at Eric—my head weighs a thousand pounds—and I see a smile at the corner of his mouth.

“You’re an Operator,” he says. “You’re not supposed to get nailed by unknown substances in your drink.” I open my eyes wide.

“Did…did you just roofie me, Eric? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”

“No,” he says, stretching a mug out to me, “but looks like Idrik might’ve. He have a thing for paralyzed Operators?” 

“I have no idea,” I tell him, taking the mug very, very carefully. “If he does, that opens up a whole new dimension of Idrik’s personality for me.” 

Eric steps around the coffee table, slides open the mesh curtain in front of his fireplace, and stacks pine logs in an irregular pyramid. He’s got little bundles of rolled-up offprints for kindling in a basket on the hearth; he pushes them between the logs.

I hear the snap of the match and smell the sulfur before I see the flame it starts. He crouches, his back to me, poker in his hand, until he’s satisfied the fire’s taken hold. 

“I have to say, I’m not crazy about the idea of you and Idrik,” he says then, stunning me. 

“No?” 

“No, he’s not who I’d pick for you.” 

“What’s wrong with Idrik? Nice, upstanding young man…”

Eric shakes his head and sets the poker back in its stand. 

“Nah, wrong guy. Entirely wrong.” 

“Tell me who you’d pick,” I whisper.

“Don’t be silly,” he says. “I don’t give up my intel so easily.” 

I tip my head back against the chair, looking at him steadily. 

“Eric,” I say, my voice wondrously even, “if this stuff doesn’t wear off right away, can I stay?” 

He stands over me, cradling his mug in both hands, head tilted a little bit to one side. 

“I could stick you in the office with my orchids,” he says, considering. “Kind of push you under the desk and fold you up. You look like you’d fold up okay.” 

“I travel really well, too. I can fit in the overhead compartment.”

“But you won’t like my bathroom. The bathtub is full of plants.” 

“Why?” 

“Because the light is nice. There’s a south-facing window and a skylight.” I close my eyes, visualizing a bathtub full of brave orchids.

“I dreamed of being here,” I tell Eric. I don’t open my eyes, so I have no idea what his face is doing, but I hear him make a perplexed sound.

“You dreamed of being here. In a company-owned one-bedroom in Pacific Heights?” 

“I dreamed of your apartment. Many times.” 

I hear him slurp his tea, and curse softly. 

“Too hot?” I ask.

“Burned my mouth.” 

“Ouch,” I say. “Don’t do that. Your mouth deserves better.”

Eric doesn’t answer this, and we drink tea quietly together for a while. 

“Did it look like this?” 

“Did what look like this?” 

“You said you dreamed about my apartment.” 

“No,” I say, “it was…it was a dream apartment. Everything was…oh, but you know, the fireplace was in the same place. But you had this white drawing table and it backed up against a window and you could see bricks out the window…” Some quality of Eric’s silence has changed. I open my eyes. He’s staring at me, mug inches from his lips. 

“There was blue paint on the desk,” I said. “You know, big, flat white surface, full of plants—but it had a smear of cobalt blue paint on it, kind of impasto? You could feel it with your fingers.” 

“What was the kitchen like?” he asks. 

“I don’t know that I went in there, really. Seemed kind of—“ 

“Dark and cavelike,” Eric says. “Actually all the windows looked out on brick buildings. But they faced south, so I—“

“—you kept the orchids on the drawing table, where they could get a little light—“

“—because sometimes it would bounce off the buildings on that side, in the morning…”

“I watered those orchids. When you were traveling. Not too much,” I add hastily. “I know about root rot. I promise I paid attention to the drainage. It just seemed like you were never there, you know? I assumed you were traveling or something.” 

Eric reaches out and brushes my cheekbone with his fingers. His hand is shaking almost imperceptibly. 

“That was my apartment in Chicago you were dreaming of,” he says. “You should have left a note.”

“I dream about that place every couple of weeks, Eric.”

“That often?”

“Maybe more often.”

“Why?”

Moving like a cargo ship trying to navigate a tiny lock, I set my mug down on the coffee table, and sit back, watching Eric, utterly at a loss for words.

“Nathan,” he asks, his voice gaining urgency, “why are you dreaming about me?” 

“I don’t know,” I say. “Pretty much since you arrived, though. I think…I think I wanted to talk to you. At first, remember, you never stuck around—you’d grill the snot out of me and you’d snap your briefcase closed and put on that mind-blowing leather jacket and head out into the fog, and I wanted—I wanted to know where you were going.”

“It should have been easy enough to find out. Belltower put me in this apartment,” Eric says, “all the details must be in my file. Haven’t you looked at my file?”

I just hold his gaze as best I can.

“No,” I say. “They gave me—they gave me a dossier.”

Eric perches on the arm of the chair.

“And you never looked at it? Are you insane? I know you’re supposed to be spying on me.”

“I knew stuff,” I say. “You know the Division is a gossip cesspool. I heard stuff I couldn’t un-hear. Eckbo…Eckbo probably knows a lot.” 

“You’re supposed to be spying on me,” Eric says again, bewildered. “Nathan, I read your file.” 

“That’s your job, to read my file,” I say. “It’s okay. I don’t mind. I have lots of files Belltower probably doesn’t even have. You could read those if you want. Should I get them? They’re in a storage locker out in Fremont.”

“You never even tailed me?” 

“I tailed you,” I say, “I tailed you plenty, just never here. Never home.” 

“What kind of Operator are you?” Eric asks, his voice cracking a little. 

“I don’t know,” I say. “Honestly. I don’t know. I dream…Eric, I dream a lot. I dreamed stuff about Moontown before it happened. I dreamed about the Specials. And you. I really, really wanted to talk to you.” 

Eric bows his head. I feel his hip and thigh against the side of my body. 

“Are you still feeling woozy?” he says in a low voice.

“Weak as a kitten,” I say, mouth dry.

“I think you’d better stay,” Eric says, “and talk to me, since you want it so badly.”

—

We’re sitting side by side on Eric’s couch. I have no idea what time it is anymore. Eric keeps making green tea, but I notice that he’s started drinking scotch. 

“It’s not fair,” he explained. “You’re not in your right mind, why should I be sober?”

I lift and study the bottle. 

“This looks good,” I tell him. 

“It is good.”

“So you’re one of those guys,” I say, “who eats macaroni and cheese from a box and drinks twenty-year-old single malt scotch?” 

“I eat all kinds of things,” Eric says. “I just don’t cook much. Never really learned.” 

“You mentioned that before. Living in Chicago on, what? Chewing gum or something?” He smiles into his glass. 

“Let’s see. There were only a few basic things. Instant oatmeal—“

“What flavor?” 

“Maple,” he says.

“That’s good,” I say seriously. “I’ve never held with fruit-flavored oatmeal.”

“I’d eat any flavor they had, honestly, but I got maple when they had maple. I tried to stay away from the cranberries. But the yuzu one was all right.” 

“The Pan-Asian Confederacy,” I decide, “has done interesting things to oatmeal.”

“Frozen burritos,” Eric resumes, musing. “Bad ones, the kind that comes in packs of two dozen. Instant ramen.” 

“It’s a wonder you’re still here today.”

“Instant ramen’s not that bad for you,” Eric says. I lift an eyebrow.

“You don’t read labels, do you? It’s not that good for you, either. No vegetables? Nothing green?” 

“I’d buy salad greens sometimes,” Eric says, turning his glass around in his hands. “Chicago’s not a great place for greens.” 

“It’s a major world city,” I object, “with amazing shipping. Eric, where on earth do you come from?” 

“What…what do you mean?” 

“Where did you grow up? You didn’t just fall off a tree.” 

Eric swallows scotch, looks down at his hands. 

“Madison, Wisconsin,” he says. 

“Jesus, so that’s what that vowel sound is.” 

“What?”

“Something about the way you say ‘about.’” Eric gives me a prickly look. “It’s not—I notice accents,” I say, shrugging. “It’s a work thing. It’s not an especially noticeable accent, I kind of located you in the Midwest but you’re missing a lot of markers…”

“That’s on purpose,” he says shortly.

The fire crackles. 

“Why did you work on your accent?” 

“Why’d you work on yours?” he retorts. 

“That’s an easy one,” I tell him. “I spent years learning how to talk like other people. I worked on getting rid of my regionalisms, then I went and got them back. I try to practice different leans, different inflections. It’s kind of like Tresca going to the gym or like Eckbo keeping his hand in by hacking San Francisco’s water board or something.” 

“So you used to sound like a kid from New Jersey, and now,” he mutters, “you don’t sound like you come from anywhere. You don’t have a way of talking that’s natural to you.”

“You…” I say cautiously, “want to know what I’d sound like if I let my guard down, don’t you, Eric.” 

“You’re very good,” he says, “at sounding like your guard is already down.” 

I meet his eyes. 

“I’m not a virgin, either,” I tell him. “I don’t have any virtue left to offer you. I’m--” I’m laughing a little-- “actually, I’m kind of sorry about that.” 

Eric draws back from me, straightens up for a second.

“Can you not--that’s--don’t be ridiculous.” 

I give him a grin, but I don’t feel it inside. 

“Eric? Ridiculous is all I have left. I don’t get to be serious anymore. The truth is, I’m good with accents; it got weaponized. Anything we do well gets weaponized. I can’t bust out an authentic Nathan Findzeit accent for you anymore, Eric. All I can do is tell you the truth about that.” 

I rub my face, and shake my head. Eric is watching me intently.

“I realize that I’ve erased a lot of markers that would let you know whether or not I’m being honest. You can’t even be sure I’m telling you the truth about whether or not I looked in your file.” I reach over and capture his hand in mine. “The worst part is that you and I both know I have instructions to be friendly, because friendly is one of my talents. It’s the number one finest way to extract intel: it produces the best results and the fewest unforeseen consequences. You have every right to wonder why I’ve become friends with you.”

I lift his hand to eye level. 

“I admire you so much,” I tell him. “And I’ve given you a hell of a conundrum and now you’re obliged to make a determination based only on what I present to you. I’m a bullshit artist because it is my trade. But all you have to go on as to whether I can be trusted beyond my trade is your sense of me, Eric. Do…do you have a sense of me?”

“No,” he says, pulling his hand free and standing up. “I’m going to make more tea.” He sways a little on his feet, and I realize he’s killed almost a quarter of his bottle of scotch. 

“Eric? Careful,” I say, “careful there.”

“I’m always careful,” he says, collecting the teapot. 

“No,” I say, rising with him, “you’re not.” Gently I take the teapot from his hands. “I’ll take it in. Don’t think I can handle any more tea, at this point.” I’m wobbly, but I orient myself in space and successfully navigate the distance between the couch and the kitchen counter. 

I lean there, for a second, watching him run his hands through his hair. 

“Jesus,” he mutters. 

“Sit down,” I tell him. 

“What the hell are we doing?” 

“We’re talking,” I say. “Talk to me. Come on. You promised.” I take his hand and walk him back to the couch. The fire’s gotten low. Eric twitches away from me again, skirts the coffee table, puts another log on. Crouched by the hearth, he says: 

“We’re just going to talk forever?”

“Why not?” I ask.  

His head drops for a second, and he looks up at me from under his brows. 

“Where’ll it end, Nathan?” he says. 

I arrange myself on the couch. I hope I look as harmless as I feel. 

“I don’t know,” I tell him. 

Amazingly, this answer seems to satisfy him. Slowly he gets to his feet, and when he sits back down, he’s put himself right beside me. I feel him along my entire right flank. He leans back into the cushions and closes his eyes. I put an experimental arm across the top of the couch, and he lets his head roll over onto my shoulder. 

“That’s good,” I tell him. 

“You feel good,” he says softly. 

“Bless your heart, Eric,” I whisper. 

“What else do you want to know?” 

“Everything,” I tell him. 

“Everything,” he says, “is a lot of stuff.”

“Tell me what happened in Chicago.”

Eric’s silent for a while. Then he says:

“It’s actually a pretty short story. I did my job, and then I was buried alive.” 

“You broke up the Sinaloa Cartel.”

“Not quite,” Eric says wryly. “I dismantled their Belltower access. I didn’t kill them. I gave them heartburn.”

“Belltower should have pinned a medal on you.” 

“Nathan,” Eric says, suddenly sounding very sober, “you have a fairly weird idea about our company.” 

“What’s that?” 

“You seem to think that outside the Division, Belltower Industries is a legitimate enterprise,” he says. I turn my head to look at him. He keeps talking. “You have this idea that wrongdoing is happening—in your division, where the spies are. In Queries, maybe. You’re wrong about that. Belltower is the Workflow Division, Nathan. It is its spies. The fact that Belltower employs you to do what you do means that Belltower is a corrupt entity. There is no clearer expression of this than me, and what I do for Ethics. I’m the fig-leaf. I’m not giving you cover, I’m giving them cover.”

“Eric,” I whisper. 

“It’s all right,” he says. “You’d think I would have gotten hold of that after five years cooling my heels in the Evanston Regional Office with no one to talk to but my plants. But I had to audit you before I figured it out. Ethics is supposed to give Belltower a conduct parameter. Does it? You tell me.” His face is inches from mine. 

“You do,” I say to him. 

“I can’t,” he says. “That was the lesson I learned from Arthur this year.” 

“You scare me, sometimes,” I say. “What are you going to do, and how do I keep you safe from harm while you do it?” 

He looks startled. His grey eyes are widely dilated, scotch and low light, and who knows, maybe I have something to do with it. The idea makes my head spin. 

“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” he says. “I don’t care who runs Belltower, but if Arthur takes over, it could do things, take actions in the world…Belltower’s just a power structure, Nathan. It’s only pretending to have an ethos, a culture, a reason for being besides its own survival.”

“Sort of like me?” I whisper, for this is the heart of the matter.  “Just pretending to feel things, to be human?”

His eyes study me for a long time. 

“I don’t know,” he says at last. “I don’t think so.” 

I close my eyes and drop my face against his hair. 

—

“Has it worn off?” Eric whispers. 

“I…I’m so tired, I can’t tell anymore…” 

“Come on.” 

Eric’s bed is all dark colors and flannel sheets. It’s unmade, a tumble of muted plaids.

“Not…not what I expected,” I tell him. 

“What were you expecting? White sheets? Hospital corners?”  

“No, it makes sense, the flannel. Gets really cold here.” I reach out to touch his sheets, and find myself caressing the blanket. “So glad you have a warm place to sleep.”

“You make me sound like a hobo.” 

Eric has gone to his chest of drawers. I see him pluck out a t-shirt and a pair of sweats and toss them behind him, onto the bed. “Put those on.” 

“What?” 

“We’re just sleeping, don’t panic,” Eric says. “You enjoy sleeping in blue jeans? You can leave them on, I don’t care.” He’s already undressing, briskly, his back to me. 

“We’re sleeping?” I say in wonder.

“I could have been mean,” Eric says, drawing his white undershirt over his head. He chucks it into the open closet; it misses the hamper, just, and slithers onto the carpet. “I could have left you out there, made you crash on the hardwood floor, let you wake up with your neck in knots.” 

Moving like a guy in a dream, I unbutton my oyster-colored shirt. Eric, in underpants, holds a hand out to me impatiently. 

“Shirt,” he says, so I give it to him, and he puts it on a wooden hanger. I peel off my jeans; he sets them on a hook on the closet door. 

We stand there in our underwear until Eric says, “This is ridiculous,” and we both climb into bed, leaving t-shirt and sweats on top of the blanket. 

“What,” I say, my teeth beginning to chatter, “what are we doing?” 

“We’re sleeping, I just explained that,” Eric says. 

“You’re almost naked,” I whisper. 

“Yeah,” Eric says, “what does that make you?” 

He pushes a pillow under my head. 

“I’m very serious,” he says in a low voice. “Go to sleep now. We’ll talk more in the morning. Are you warm enough? Do I have to put sweatpants on you?” 

I cannot, cannot answer anymore. I can’t accidentally touch his hand or lean beside him, casually absorbing his body heat; there’s no room here for that illusion. I am so exhausted that I can barely see, but I reach out one hand, let it rest on his upper arm. 

Eric sighs. 

“Come here,” he says at last.

“We’re sleeping,” I mumble. “We’re sleeping now.” 

“Come and sleep here,” he answers.

Why not? It’s only been three years since he started auditing me and I started dreaming about him. It’s only been three years, my poor Operator’s heart in harness, doing my best to seduce him, doing my best not to seduce him. Three years in the wilderness, horribly and hopelessly in love.

He folds me against him. 

“I thought your arms would get all over the place,” he whispers.

“No, I said this before, I’m quite packable.” I wedge my head in under his chin, and he sighs again. “We’re really going to sleep?” 

“If I don’t,” he says, sounding apologetic, “I can’t answer for what I’ll be like tomorrow.” 

“Fair cop,” I tell him. Then, because really, I’m just about certain this is a dream, I brush his collarbone with my lips. “Good night, then, Eric,” I whisper. 

“Go to sleep.” 

“I’m going to sleep.” 

“Go to sleep,” he says again, his hand in my hair.

“You’re talking to me, I can’t go to sleep.” 

“Sleep,” he whispers. “We’ll talk in the morning.” 

And somehow, in the cloud of flannel, with Eric’s arms around me and his lips against my ear, I do, finally, gradually, succumb to sleep. 

--

When I wake up, I realize that somewhere in the night we had pulled apart with the instinctive wisdom of the exhausted; I have vague memories of hearing Eric snoring faintly and feeling his fingertips brush the small of my back as I turned over. Now I’m gazing into the deep blue-hued darkness of his bedroom, blankets pulled up to my chin, and as I remember where I am, I turn onto my side. 

Eric, wide awake, propped on his elbow, like every guy in every story who’s ever virtuously refrained from having it on with his companion, is watching me, his grey eyes shadowy. 

“Your bed rocks,” I say.

“Thank you.”

“Did you actually sleep?” 

“Some.”

“I slept,” I say, feeling foolish. 

“I know.”

“What time is it?”

“About ten-thirty.”

“It’s dark,” I say, puzzled. 

“Look,” Eric says, and gestures at his window. He’s got blackout curtains. 

“Ah,” I say, “I solved that problem at home by cleverly having a bedroom with no windows at all.” 

“I know. It’s like a space capsule in there.” 

I stare at him. 

“You haven’t been in there,” I say, “in three years. You remember that?” 

The look on his face is almost painfully amused. 

“You think I’d forget sleeping in your bed?” 

“You say stuff like that to me,” I tell him, my poor heart pounding, “and whatever prudent reserve we’re hanging onto here is going to go right out the window.”

“Oh god,” Eric murmurs, “we can’t have that.”

“No, we can’t. We’ll compose ourselves and have breakfast or something.” 

Neither of us moves. I can’t get myself to stop looking at his face. 

“We could get cronuts,” he says finally. 

“We could. That sounds exactly right. As long as we don’t lose it and start feeding each other, we should be fine.”

“Good point, I’ve been wanting to feed you,” he mutters. 

“Really?”

“Ever since I watched Eckbo stick that muffin in your mouth—“ he says, and his cheeks suddenly go bright red.

“That was—you just said that? That was incredible.” 

--

We get cronuts.

As it turns out, there is a bakery only about a dozen blocks from Eric’s place. I’m still feeling a little shaky on my feet, but not distressingly so. I borrow a clean shirt, splash water on my face, fetch my jacket, and wait for Eric in the living room while he pulls himself together. He looks worn out when he emerges from the bathroom, but he’s missing his signature frown lines. I inwardly high-five myself. 

“I love that blue on you,” I tell him. 

“I can’t—“ Eric throws his trench on with, perhaps, more force than necessary. “You have to stop saying stuff like that.” 

He holds the door for me, and we step into the corridor. 

“Why?” I ask. 

“I don’t know what to say when you say things like that.” 

“You said thank you when I complimented your bed,” I point out. 

“That is clearly different,” he says. “That’s my bed. This is me.” 

“I hate to break it to you, Eric, but your bed is you, too. In synecdoche.” 

“In—in what?” We step into the street. 

“Your bed says things about you, semiotically,” I explain. 

“It says I sleep, like a human being. It says I get cold at night.” 

“That too. But the dark colors, the plaids—“ 

“You’re psychoanalyzing my bed,” Eric says. 

“Well, I could psychoanalyze your shirt,” I say, “but I don’t want to make you nervous.” 

Eric stops on the corner and turns all the way around to look at me.

“You don’t want to make me nervous,” he chokes out.

We stare at each other, and the light changes while we stand there. 

“I don’t, Eric,” I say. “I mean, I know that I do.” The wind, a little damp, picks up, blowing Eric’s hair across his forehead. Moving slowly, as if I were reaching out to defuse a bomb, I brush his hair back off his face. 

“I can’t,” he whispers, “I need to eat.”

“Where are these cronuts, then?” I say, querulously. “You promised cronuts.”

“Nathan, Nathan—“ he turns away from me abruptly and crosses the street. I have long legs, though, and I catch up with him. 

“What? Eric, what is it?”

“I don’t know if I can bear this.”

I rest my hand on the small of his back as we walk. 

“You can do it,” I tell him. “I promise I’ll keep myself on the leash. I swear to God, Eric.” 

“You’re so—“ 

We’ve reached the bakery. He holds the door for me again. I want to press him up against the glass, get my teeth into his lips. 

“So what makes these cronuts special?” I ask, instead. 

“The first in the City,” Eric replies. “They’ve been making cronuts here for a hundred years.” He’s not quite composed, but he orders for both of us, and gets us espresso shots to drink with our cronuts. 

“I know what you’re thinking,” he growls, as we take our booty to a little white table in the corner that gets the best sun. “You’re thinking you need some kind of very sweet latte. Six sugars, right?” 

“You remember that?”

“I remember everything. You’re not getting a latte. You’re getting a shot. The cronut’s sweet enough. The shot will help you wake up and you won’t crash as hard later.” 

“A medicinal espresso shot,” I murmur. “Look, for you, I’ll drink it straight. I’ll do pretty much anything you tell me to, actually, Eric.”

“Shut up,” he says. “Eat your cronut. Drink your espresso.” 

“As you wish,” I say. I bring the cup to my lips. It’s terrific espresso. I haven’t had it straight since I was in my twenties. Eric is tearing into his cronut. We lock eyes. 

“You see?” I whisper. “You can tell me to do things, and I’ll do them. I’m good, Eric.” 

“You are not good.”

“What am I, then?” 

Eric downs his shot. 

“Ridiculous. Terrifying. Everything I ever wanted.” 

This reduces me to stunned silence. We eat our cronuts without saying much of anything else for a while. Eric really looks tired; his words seem to have drained the blood out of his cheeks. I can’t imagine what my face looks like. 

“Is it good?” Eric asks finally. 

“I can’t taste it,” I confess. “I have no idea what it tastes like.” 

“Finish up,” he says. “Let’s go home.” 

Mutely, I eat my cronut; meekly, I follow him to the door.

--

We are sitting on the bed. The couch, at this point, seems like a formality we’ve dispensed with. I’m still wearing his shirt. 

“Eric,” I say. He shakes his head. 

“For the longest time,” he says quietly, “I was sure I couldn’t trust you. I was sure you were lying whenever you opened your mouth. You were Findzeit, professional liar; you were a fabulist. You said you were, and you were. You remember when you explained it to me that day? What you do?” 

“I remember,” I say. 

“How could I trust you? You were a friendly, gentle, tender, seductive liar. And how you treated me was part of your job. And then I kept working with you, and I started forgetting—“

“Eric—“

“Shut up,” he says fiercely. He puts his hands on my chest. “Shut up.” I can feel the slight tremor in his hands as he starts to unbutton my shirt. 

“And then, after Moontown – I started to wonder if maybe you could lie and tell me the truth at the same time. You gave me access to everything. You put your life in my hands. I wondered if you—if you knew how much I wanted you. And the things you said—I couldn’t get you to shut up—“ he slides the shirt down my shoulders. 

I don’t move a muscle. I don’t dare. I just look into his eyes and let him touch me.

He pushes the sleeves down to my wrists and lets his hands slip back up my naked arms. 

“You kept saying things to me. You tell me you’re dreaming about my life. You say… you say these things about my shirts. Are they true? I have no way of knowing, Nathan. I want them to be true.” He rests one hand against my neck, pulling me towards him. “I decided to trust you. I’m trusting you, all right?” 

I can’t speak. I slip my arms the rest of the way out of the shirt, and let him draw me in. 

His mouth’s on mine. It’s never happened before. This is the first kiss. 

His arms have gone around me and I can feel his tongue in my mouth and I’m holding on, as best I can, to my resolve not to push, not to overwhelm him, to let him, to allow him, to be there for whatever he wants or needs or cares to have. 

“Kiss me back,” he whispers. “Stop fucking with my head and kiss me back, Nathan.”

I hear a sound like a sob—oh, that’s me, I’m almost crying—and I push him back into his pillows. 

--