LOVE ME LIKE ART

7

일곱
Zachary A. Choi

"RAY'S PIZZA PARLOUR, Newham."

A man's twang introduces itself to me as I bring the phone to my ear, amidst the loud clamour of where his voice pours from. My lips collapse into a grin, taking jabs at my own disappointment.

Right, so you're definitely not Imani.

I absentmindedly chew on my bottom lip, as I unwrap the contents of his parcel of truth like a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed kid on Christmas Day. Except, I don't feel spry joy like any kid would but a flood of quiet disappointment pooling around the cords of my chest.

I thought that she wanted to talk.

I thought it was a flirty spar between two strangers, instead it was strained small talk under the canopy of alcohol and smoke.

I don't know why I believed, in some little nook in my chest, that this might be a new dawn after too many false ones. Instead, it is that familiar, stale tide that sweeps over my head and I have to try and make sense of it.

It feels like when you think you recognise someone's silhouette on the other side of the street so you ring their name, only to realise that it isn't who you think it is.

The man's voice cuts through, "What can I get you, geez?" He runs me through a brief list of the food that he has on offer that sound tempting for my bruised ego. 

"Sorry." I catch myself saying, "I think I've called the wrong number. I was after someone else."

"Happens, geez. You have a good night."

"And you, mate." I claw out with a tiny wisp of breath. My phone fumbles out of my hand and I rest my back against the stool, back in that perturbed silence.

I think about the what ifs.

Even if she had answered in that rasping voice of hers, I hadn't really thought through what I was going to say. And even if it was her in that elusive high tower and I was her Rider     Flynn, I'd have no scope, no end goal. I could pretend and posture like I am seeking her friendship but it would only unravel at the root. Friendship would merely be a lissom stairway to her and I don't want to be disingenuous.

Our cursory conversation made me want to get to know her, to know the things she likes to do outside of being an escort.

And there is that too.

She is an escort.

It isn't meant to be disparaging but it is true. If a relationship or something casual happened to bloom, I'd have no right to reconcile or demand that whatever she is doing behind those inconspicuous doors, she stops. It would be unconscionable to even ask that, unfathomable to even platform it.

Tobenna's silhouette appears out of his gust of shisha smoke as his hands are stitched to the centre of his suit trousers. He pulls up his zipper. "G, you call who you need to?" He asks me and I offer up a crimson smile.

"Yeah, yeah." I lie.

* * *

I'm in the balmy, country spring air just a few miles short from where I grew up. It is where there are endless green grass fields to lose yourself in and where it is so quiet you can almost hear yourself think. 

My car mounts the sanded path as I approach the white, imposing gates of my parents' house.

I decided to make the drive up to the Cheshire plains because I feel like I've slightly lost my compass.