Thomas liked to spot the fakers.
He spent his nights in bars matching hair colors to fears – and he divided up the dance floor into 3 spaces – the first was ruled by the blonde…yeah, she was trying too hard to be THE BLONDE – she faked it. And the dark haired one owned the corner and she bumped into too many strangers not to fake it…and the dancing redhead in the center, she definitely faked it but –
Something about the redhead ringed into his imagination – she was all he could see – and he noticed how her hair was actually just touched by red – it was also light with tasteful streaks and lavished upon with lowlights and good breeding. It was thick hair piled onto a thick body, not heavy mind you – just full – an impression making, large cupped chest and huge curves that pushed eyes downward and activated the breed response in men. With a little more food, those curves could turn into unwanted spread flesh. But now, at the world initiating age of eighteen, those curves moved to the rhythms with the confidence that they were built to last. But in that confidence, they were scared that maybe…well – the fear of youth, Thomas once wrote, is seeing you’ll have to learn that nothing is built to last. Especially, he would have added had he known this girl, those curves….
But she was here now, and even though the bar was mostly dark he could see all of her, because his mind lit her from memory rather than light – another girl’s face aiming his recognition with the fragments of what remained between them…what he and life hadn’t accidentally killed for good…and he saw his past float over this bar-girl and then outline her, shape itself to her curves and then into her soul with cold accuracy. There she danced – so young, so there, and so planned.
Thomas was so covered in his lost past he couldn't move – he wanted to yell to this girl: No…don’t fake it…don’t settle…don’t hate guys like me because….
Because we love you, he thought. Yes…he held his emotion high for a moment – and then he smiled. He whispered, maybe to himself, maybe as an argument to God: We’re the only ones that can love you…. He then took a long, long sip before he walked over and shouted into the red hair, “You fake it!”
He felt her enormous hair toss against his face, and then he saw the smile – bright and curious – the smile didn’t run, slap, yell, dance away – and her sudden stillness allowed Thomas more introduction and he took advantage of it…he used all his desperation to find confidence, all his arresting oddness to gain her interest, promising a lot without promising, and promising to let her know what she faked. To grab her curiosity, he acted like it didn’t have anything to do with sex – and then he listened to her name, Denise, ripple through his head. It was at least, he thought, a new name.
Thomas told Denise they should sit down and talk about the story, the one she’d just inspired by being here. He promised her she’d like it. And then he told himself she needed these lies.
And now, weeks later, Thomas still hadn’t told Denise what she faked. But he hadn’t told her what he faked, either. He kept critical parts of his imagination pretty by hoping she could handle it.
___
Thomas’ place had the desperation and simplicity any sanctuary carries, but it failed miserably as a sanctuary because of its size – it was too small, so small it barely contained what little was left of him. There was a camping bed he bought so he wouldn’t have to think about buying a real bed, and the pump he used to inflate it. There was a desk, long and grey and erratically broken off at the end; on it sat a sleek, silver laptop and nothing else. A black leather chair sat directly in sight of the laptop – and that was it as far as what he brought to the place. A tall bar stool sat to the right of the desk and chair – but it was there when he moved in; he would never have bought it. Yet, it served a nice purpose for him: It theatrically elevated Denise into a heightened subject. And she needed that elevation. Denise was built on being a heightened subject. And problem one for her, Thomas told her, was that she was going to learn that adoration was a helluva drug to lose.
Her black eyes – constant blasts to Thomas of entitled arrogance, girlishness, and uncertainty – judged the world from their perception of her sexuality. It was her sex appeal rather than her singular beauty that she put first –– her rawness against her good upbringing was the true measure of a man’s affection – how he reacted to her aggressive, dirty words and staged clothing keyed her safety valves one way or the other. She said she’d learned that sex could keep things both impersonal and close – an obvious lesson, Thomas told her, that she couldn’t stop learning. And that was as far as she had gotten to insight when it came to men – and she didn’t call them men: they were “boys” or “guys” – even though they out-aged her by a good ten years in most cases.
Thomas had tried often during these weeks to convince himself he was wrong; she was just a dumb, pretty young girl with a defensive libido, not the story – he wrote that line about her. And then he erased it. He couldn’t not see there was more – he could always know that – whether he was drunk, sober, crazy, bleeding – he could always see the more in people. And the more led to the why. Why did she need these blatant sexual poses? What were they badly masking? And then there was what he called THE PLAN.
He’d sat in the bar and heard it. It was very obvious. Married by twenty-eight (preferably sooner) to a rich man who could keep her elevated for life. Children done by age thirty-five (preferably sooner), and she also crammed a college degree and a career into the social approval. Thomas’ green eyes stared not at her words, but at the outlines of doubt they drew with every proclamation. Thomas believed that when people proclaim this is it, they’re usually really asking you if they’re right – and too scared to hear your answer. And always white is black; night is day; hidden is obvious – and Denise, she was a beacon of unsure youth wrapped into someone else’s illusion.
But that wasn’t the story.
It was her answer to the story’s question that completely crumbled his past into his present, and made him fall into total love with her. That was her story. Because it was, in the end, his as well.
___
To most people, Denise seemed stupid, shallow, and a hopeless slut; most people don’t like to see that both sides of the coin have rust…most people enjoy the labels.
Thomas believed labels were just the first lie, and he listened patiently as Denise casually named three “boy-guys” she was sleeping with. One was a steady who seemed to Thomas both ignorant and clever – he was getting a “good piece of ass for next to nothing” – but he spent a lot of time for a thirty year old man worrying about barely-legal Denise’s whereabouts – not that he didn't have good reason to worry, because Denise also had recently slept with another man she called “her love.” And there was a one-night stand that both bored Thomas and made him sick – he felt awful that Denise would give up so much to someone so vapidly random. But he always liked to put virtuousness in girls who caught his eye – even though he wrote that everyone ended up, “Bought and paid for whores.”
He wasn't in a good mood the day he wrote that.
Today, Denise reiterated that she wasn’t cheating on the steady guy with the other two because he didn’t make enough money and their relationship wasn’t “going anywhere”; going somewhere was a big deal to her – although she never named the where with any authority other than the generic specifics. In the middle of the confession, she made Thomas wait for more while she phoned the steady to say hello. She said the word baby to him as if sure it erased all his doubt. And then she slammed her phone shut and talked openly about the one she claimed to love – and Thomas perked up; she was finally saying something about this “love of her life” that didn’t make him seem like a definition she was trying to comprehend. He became real and so did she…thanks to his horror.
___
Denise confessed her “love” liked to sleep with her without even offering a courtesy kiss – he would literally plug her holes and exchange bodily fluids without any thought beyond his finishing up. And this didn’t seem to bother Denise. She told Thomas about this terrible ritual in a way that was discomfortingly ignorant of basic human functionality. Nevertheless, he could see that to the most damaged part of her, these inhuman experiences from the “loved one” provided comfort, because they made sex into nothing but an act, and she was good at acting. And if she ever doubted that maybe she didn’t need or deserve this dirty, there was enough burnt self-image from the molesting hands she insisted to herself that she didn’t see anymore to convince her otherwise.
Thomas gazed at Denise in silence when she finished talking. He knew she was trying to tell him, even though she didn’t say it, why it comforted her. It was awful, the why, he thought. It was terrible. And Thomas felt terrible because he knew as sure as God did that it was wonderful…for a story.
__
Thomas felt most guilty when his mind wandered into Denise’s shadow. He had repeatedly sat and listened to her describe a life that was not only devoid of any personal touch, but also impossible to realize if she kept throwing herself sexually against her fears. But now she’d told him, in every other way but the direct one, why she did this and its very obviousness made him regret the goddamn world for how easy horror could wreck a person’s judgment. And it wasn't as if Denise was dumb, at least by what Thomas vaguely referred to as “their standards.” Lots of A’s earned in their sterile classrooms by her. But life doesn’t have much of an IQ, he wrote down and then said, “You’re fucking yourself into bleach”– and her pain buzzed his mind out from this space and into unpredictable emotion as his eyes fixed on her shadow…and now Denise ceased to be just observation and linking thoughts, or a facade of his past – and her sudden realness was shoving him into saying something profound that would fix her. But there was always too much to write and nothing to say…and a full person sat waiting for bandages next to him, completely fucked up and in need of immediate assistance. What he felt and saw was what she felt and saw – all her ache and doubt sliced him.
Thomas knew his pain was killing him – he chose to ignore the slaughter, but he hated that Denise chose to ignore her bleeding. It was all doomed – and the scariest moments were when he’d look from her shadow to her eyes – and he was aware of looking at her not with his eyes, but hers, seeing herself from herself – and it was during one of these moments that he decided he knew what she needed tonight. He wondered how he was going to get her clothes off.
___
Denise was always surprised to see Thomas arise out of his lethargy. He could seem totally dead to her restless mind and then boom! Manic! Words flew off his tongue in such unusual syrup drops and arresting logic that she couldn’t help but to be employed by them for a little while. Whatever Thomas was, he wasn't a high school boy to her high school girl – hell, even when he had been in high school, he’d never been a high school boy to any girl; he was too destroyed even then to be truly young. Denise watched as his green eyes noted all her qualities and unease, recognition mixing with something else that didn’t feel safe. Thomas was complicated to her – and her men, such as they were, were planned out so they could hold spots in her hours but no secrecy; even her self-professed “gorgeous boy” love – the one who used her like a sexual toilet – was just her raped desire reaching out for cruelty wrapped into an easy idea. But Thomas – his clouds drifted in a different sky, and now he drifted at her, moving closer…and he had never moved close before. But he moved now, and she felt only his roaming green eyes tackle her short gazes and words…she finally managed to ask what he was doing…he didn’t answer. She asked again…and he didn’t answer. And that unsafe something was ruthlessly perceptible and it made her get up and attempt a close escape…she drifted around the room as he shadowed her, intangibly pushing her toward the wall. What was it in those eyes? It wasn’t just understanding – Thomas was filled with understanding. It was something else – not lust, but something purer than lust, something even more sexual – and it was barely pressing against her warm body as she felt the wall’s limit hold her against him. His hand held her face and then slid down her vital curves with slender affection – touching and lifting away, touching and lifting away, until she couldn’t stop feeling its discovery and her eyes closed just a little at relief to it, and when they closed she felt his kiss, and her neck lit up with heat that spread down to the small of her back and caught a cool drift of air, but there was no time to hold onto that as she felt a strong shift of her body that she didn’t think his out of shape frame was capable of…and her arms were curled around his shoulders and her mind slowed down the process…the untangling of clothes, the limits gone haywire, the chain unleashed…but the moment was warm, and the touches even softer now and her body and soul were totally in his hands, and the mechanics of the rest shifted away into one giant push of emotion, of closeness, until there was nothing left but the absence of separation, and their bodies were wet and still, and in the hot air and dark twilight that edged through the leaky blinds, everything had music and was trapped gloriously in time, safe safe safe from…life….
___
Denise didn’t mind that he asked why she faked it. She hadn’t tried to fake it with him, she explained. Thomas looked at the ceiling. Yes, but she did. At the end. Out of habit. The rest was real, she told him. He looked at her and smiled and she smiled back. It was nice that he understood and let it go, nice not to feel rushed and pushed; Thomas could make the rain slow down if he felt like it, she thought. Usually she got the sex over with so she could move on to whatever was next. But now, there was no moving, thank God – and Thomas asked her questions and she answered them slowly. She even started to ask a few of him….
Why was he so poor? she asked. What did he do for this meager living? How had he figured out she faked it from watching a dance floor? Why wouldn't he show her his stories? Where was her story?
Thomas said her story was in, “have to.” And lying so close to her breathing soul, he didn't want that story, and he didn’t want to go on with this…but the story demanded and won – it always won, so he asked her what her have to was – and something about that question and the eerie closeness of his deep voice scared her...and she lost the comfort Thomas gave her in this darkness. She said she didn’t know what he meant…and then she didn’t say anything else.
Her silence told him the truth – she’d answered the question exactly as he had thought she would...the story was true. He felt her hand hold his in the darkness, but he knew it was already holding onto something else. Write it down, he thought. Write it down…write it down…but he allowed his hand to stay in hers, his lips to whisper, “Am I?” and then to echo, “Am I?” – and Denise heard his plea and closed her eyes at it, and his mind fell asleep to her silence, and even when she finally realized this moment was past and had left, he still didn’t write it down. But not writing didn’t let him forget. A little memory can kill, Thomas told Denise – but a lot just tortures…and he was sure, for him – there could be nothing but memory….
__
Denise looked around – she had been looking around a lot lately, each glance producing more restlessness and a consistent anger that was unusual for her – she usually let her temper subside once she’d yelled, but lately she was in a constant simmer.
She had started throwing emotional clues at her “guys,” first small ones – then big and bigger, and she felt angry each time they missed them. She leaped between her boy-guys, giving unannounced emotional tests and leaving abruptly when they failed. She kept noticing things – everything goddamn it! From their boring smiles to the way they held a photograph of her impersonally, or the uneasy hostility they expressed when filling her glass with water. She wasn’t noticing cars, money, looks, bodies…and this was exasperating, but she continued to cut through them and that just made everything more quick with rage and frustration. It didn’t take long for her to realize that it was Thomas’ eyes she was using to see, and they moved manic through the life she had held up as an unconscious plea to him. From the moment she had seen his green eyes dance in that bar, they’d impossibly offered an explanation that she was seeking but not seeking, asking for without asking, and that’s why she had spent weeks on his mostly boring bar stool, occasionally fascinated and often disappointed and then in the final stage, made love to for the only time in her young life. She hadn’t gone back since then, hadn’t allowed too much thought to creep in about it. But Thomas was all over her perception now, and like he had seen the world through her eyes, she now saw her world through his…and her pain ceased to be a shallow pose, became real – too real to make new lies, too real not to answer with the words of disappointment that shot out of her, and boyfriend-nights were ended and re-ended in boring antagonism…and her bed was alone and full of thought.
Innocence, Thomas liked to say, never saves – but what does? He knew she was young enough to beg for innocence and soiled enough to know she’d lost it – and he’d said that like he’d said a lot of his observations, with a casualness that didn’t express what he’d really meant. But dimensions were adding by the second for Denise when it came to Thomas, and she wondered why he’d said that…went for that word, innocence. He went for a lot of words: Lost, perfect, blessed, compromised, planned, obvious. Why had she brushed off all those words and kept talking, never stopping to wonder about them, to investigate his sad, knowing smiles? He said the word why a lot as well – sometimes he strung her life’s thoughts together with why. He made her smile as his whys connected things – motions and actions, which she’d never connected before. It was usually an obvious connection, she thought – but she admitted this: If it was so obvious – why didn’t she or they get it?
Denise could hear his whisper in the darkness now, the last words he’d said to her: Am I? Am I?… She echoed his words in a soft voice, and she noticed how they tripped off her lips from him to her. Am I? she heard him ask, and then she said the words again and heard herself ask, Am I?…
It was still early – the night was young and so was she…and both demanded investigation and pushed her out of bed, looking for an answer to both questions.
__
Thomas hated opening up the word processor and seeing white background with no words, and he moved around the small room to get away from the wordlessness, sometimes unconsciously tracing the pattern he and Denise had made on their way to his makeshift bed. He moved against the empty space, fighting it, but the empty didn’t fight back. There was nothing to fight, except the story, which he’d already written. He’d written it a long time ago, for a girl he’d believed was much like Denise…but now he saw little of that girl in Denise, except for the vital signs. She was painfully whole….
He’d first written that story as a misplaced eighteen year old, the age Denise was currently committing her crimes against. He’d been writing this story forever, it seemed – and he had been seeking out his past that night in the bar so he could try to write it once more – this time with hope…but now he no longer was trying to save that past with a rewrite. That past was never about hope – and you usually don’t save the ones you love, he had told Denise – any writer knows that. However, you trust the words to put them down in a good way that makes them whole, even if they are doomed. But lately, nothing was in a good way, and he’d ran…taken what little savings he had, holed up in this small dungeon, and ignorantly tried to recycle some life back through Denise. But what shot back was a new life full of the old, simple planned doom. He couldn’t see anything of her in anything she said, and it was that absence that had opened his past in her, but more importantly – had cut off her future. He’d seen that absence take down beauty in someone special and make her gone – that absence was a killer disease that lived on inevitable fear. He didn’t want to watch it happen all over again. He didn’t want to know the truth, and then see it only set his words free. He no longer wanted to be right, the way a writer has to want in order to know. He no longer cared to know. He just wanted to write something to her that would matter…and he stared back at his computer screen, his fingers searching for the right keys…there weren’t many. And then he saw Denise’s trendy-truck pull up; he unlocked the front door for her, and then slipped out through the backdoor in the bathroom, moving through the bushes and trees and black drifts of the night sky until he was sure she would know he was gone. Gone forever except for –
__
Denise's heart grasped before her mind did that Thomas wasn't coming back, and the smallness here was insufferable without him – the only thing left in the room that had a pulse was the glowing computer. She moved around space and time, sometimes like he had earlier – unconsciously tracing their steps into bed, sometimes just tracing his manic bursts of emotion and words and weird, eerie insight. The walls were four-deep and arrows he’d left to point back to his emptiness and then to hers, and Denise stood over the bed, ran her hands along it with a slight touch, then through the hot air, feeling for the same heat of that night they’d taken together – feeling for anything…she heard his final whisper again, and it was even more her whisper now than it was that beautiful night he’d said it for her against the darkness. And then she walked over to the computer, saw the words in bold type, blinking, hanging there in the middle of the screen, an unwanted goodbye and question mark meant to follow her for the rest of her life. Have To, she saw, and when she could see no longer, she ran toward the front door, intending to flee – but when she reached the door she found she couldn’t leave…so she opened it slowly and stood at its edge, staring into nightlights and wondering why Thomas had needed to know her – wondering what the murky past he’d hinted at really meant to him, or to her…felt ashamed that she hadn’t asked. And now he was gone, gone…and nothing was sure – and that was his point, she knew, but what good was it without him? What good was any of it? In the darkness, she had known a voice, and now it was gone, and the future was big in front of her, but the darkness had no voice. And she wanted to ask Thomas so much but he was gone…he was gone, and that was always going to be the story unless she changed. As she felt the breeze and looked instinctively toward the sky for help, only the night was still young.