Since the audiobook is in review, I thought I’d send out the first chapter of this years best contemporary fiction, for men. A promise keeper, learning that his rules make him into the monster he’s trying to avoid being.
Alissa was playing with me like a science experiment.
“What are you doing?”
“I’ve never seen one from a dark guy before. It’s usually pink.” She continued examining me as if David Attenborough were narrating.
“Well, take a look now. It’s getting late.”
“Are you kicking me out?” She looked as surprised as the last time or anytime I’ve kicked her out.
“No, no. Not right away. But, you know, soon. Actually, wait … ”
If Alissa put on a shirt she would be the girl next door. Hair long enough to tickle her collarbone with a face straight out of a wheat field. She wasn’t supermodel thin but attainable thin. Gym membership thin, willpower thin. Not cocaine thin or purge thin.
“Where’s my clothes?” She snapped up her white panties. She never wears the comfortable panties when she comes over.
“In the dryer.”
“Thanks.” She tiptoed out of the room.
“Yeah, least I could do, it was kind of my fault.”
She pulled out a slim-legged pair of denim jeans and a white cotton shirt. Just how you’d expect a woman to dress for a movie, or the malt shoppe. A small Christian girl from a small Christian town. I’ve been to that town. I’ve met women from that town. Most were cockteases. She threw her shirt on and just like that, her wholesome disguise was complete. I sat up in bed and reached for my bathrobe, a big white fuzzy towel of a robe.
“Wait. I want to ask you something.”
“Oh, so I don’t have to leave yet?” She picked up her purse and gave a sharp glance my way. Not angry, more…offended. That’s fair.
It had been a half a year of the same surprise. She would come over after one or both of us went to the bar and struck out. We fooled around. I’d learn about a new kink that I either loved or hated. Then I’d kick her out.
I got out of bed and went to the living room and played XBOX. Queen and Country and sex and silence; ideology for the modern man.
She walked into the living room fully dressed.
“You don’t owe me an answer,” I said, “but I want to know something.”
That stain on her shirt was completely gone. I love that damned washing machine machine. It was worth every penny. My deployment exempted me from income tax, so I finally had the money for designer furniture and appliances.
I think she was Irish. In Canada, that’s code for looking like an English girl but with straight teeth and a proper set, big enough. Not cartoonish or absurd. A healthy handful. More than that is a waste. Besides, I’m not greedy and there are starving children in Africa. Stop drifting, Rex. Don’t lose this thought. Don’t you fucking dare.
“Yes, the stain is gone,” she said.
“No, not that.”
“I’m not fucking Mike anymore.”
“Not that either. I know that. It’s that, the worse I treat you, the better you act.”
“OK?” she laughs nervously. She’s uncomfortable with this conversation that hasn’t even started yet.
“I kicked you out of my condo and the next weekend you gave me a blowjob in the hallway. You gave me that whip to play with then you told me I was a better lay than Mike. I don’t even call you by your real name. I don’t get it.”
I’m stalling. Just say it.
“Why do you let me treat you like this?”
“Like what?”
“Like this.”
“I dunno. I’m having fun aren’t you?” She would rather me cum in her mouth than have this conversation. I should have never put her shirt in the wash. I should have been back on her like a dirty shirt. I should have never opened my stupid mouth. If I could be two people, I would slap the other guy. I saw the look. She saw right through me. She knew I wasn’t her me. I was mine.
“I’m getting a glass of water,” I said. “Want one?”
“Thanks.”
I didn’t even want water. I wasn’t great at this. I was good enough to know when the only play left was to exit and change the subject.
I needed a second to think. If she’s enjoying it, is it really that bad? Yes. She’s stupid and doesn’t know what’s good for her. Maybe the problem was me? It couldn’t be. I wasn’t really an asshole, not like Jon was, not like she wanted me to be. But she doesn’t know all that. She couldn’t appreciate the real me. I could see it in her eyes. The minute she heard real me ask a question, to attempt a real moment, to be myself, she checked out. I cleaned her shirt like a nice guy and soiled her fantasy.
Fuck, other me seemed to be saying. I knew you couldn’t shut up.
Real me had been trying to get laid for so long that maybe that was the real me. Her image of me was better than the real me. That me never got laid and never got so much as a smile. I needed to recover, put the real me in a box.
“Hey, I brought you a water,” I said. “But it’s not free.”
“What do you mean?”
“Shut up, flip over.”
“No, it’s late. I called the cab already. It should be here any second.” She walked out the door, and I walked over and turned the lock behind her. Then I poured the water in the sink and sat on the sofa. The ring on my XBOX was glowing, the screen flashing:
Waiting for players …
I woke up tired and in a shitty mood until my feet touched the cold floor, cussing at no one in particular. I checked my Seamaster, a gift to myself for circumnavigating the world on my deployment. 0545. I had to shower, shave, and drive to work, and change into my uniform. Plenty of time. No terrorists to kill at present, so the only adventures were in the foreign ports. I wished there were more, but my income tax exemptions paid for the furniture and custom sheet sets and all my toys.
I sat on the chaise lounge of my white, Italian leather sectional sofa and drank my coffee. It’s dark and drizzling outside. It’s that time of year where you leave in the dark and come home in the dark. Everyone says it’s depressing, but I found the cold darkness to be crisp, invigorating.
The side of my face itched. I had a scratch from a down feather sticking out of my duvet. I needed to buy a new duvet cover, and I was down to my last two sets of sheets. There used to be a few ivory and navy blue, three hundred thread count, Egyptian cotton. I was down to my last set and they are beat to hell. They were clean, but stained with regret. I washed them after every session with a woman. The good sheets don’t pill. The pillowcases were discolored from all the makeup and vomit and sweat and sex stains from many late night adventures. The duvet cover had blood stains in the middle so it had to go. It wasn’t a lot, but any amount of blood is too much.
My head was killing me. I was finishing my coffee and looking at my reflection in the patio door. This guy, real me, was really fucking it up for everyone. It was time to kick that loser out. Blue Jeans, grey henley, scruffy face, work boots. I look fit but tired. I look like someone who just met me and right off doesn’t like me and wants to give me shit.
You’re just like Jon, you know, the other guy said.
“No, I’m not. I will never be like him.”
Sure you are. You didn’t even like Alyssa. You hated her.
“Well, yeah. She called my cousin a whore.”
Yet you slept with her anyway. You were on her like a dirty shirt!
“That’s different.”
Is it?
“Yes. She’s not just some chick married to a skidder operator doing coke on the weekend. I’m not hurting anyone.”
It probably hurt Mike since she was his girlfriend.
“Mike hurt himself. I didn’t do anything except for once I won.”
Right. I forgot about your rules.
“Fuck you.”
Oh yeah. Your moral rules that make you better than all this. You know her name, you slot her into your notch count. Let me guess, she’s number twenty?
“Twenty-three. Alyssa’s twenty-three.”
This is probably the first time you’ve said her real name and not flippantly calling her the Dog Walker.
“You’re annoying me.”
When Manjeet was sleeping around and having fun you didn’t bat an eye. Why is it any different here?
“Manjeet. I hadn’t thought about her since I was seventeen. How long have I been a hipocrite? I don’t think I am. It doesn’t matter. It’s different when I do it, I do it the right way.”
Yeah, sure. Whatever you say, friendo. I get it. Everyone else is wrong and you’re right. Everyone else is stupid and immoral and they hurt the people they love, the people you love. But you’re different
“I try to be.”
Do you though?
“I want to.”
Fine. When you’re out getting the duvet cover, get it in that ivory color. Just like your truck used to be. The right duvet cover is such an important detail, makes a huge difference.
I needed a new duvet cover and some sheets. I needed this asshole to shut up. I’m not like Jon. I will never be like Jon.
You’re going to be late. Get dressed and get to work.
♦
She was probably sitting in a meeting right now. I was back on board in the communications consoles beside Jason. He was six foot, five inches with a military crop. He wasn’t fat fat. He was Fred Flinstone fat with a scar across his face from rugby as a teenager.
“Why do you call her the dog walker?” he asked me.
“Man. I’m busy. Laz is going to yell at us if we don’t get all the morning traffic finished before stand easy.”
“Oh whatever man. It’ll get done when it gets done. We always figure it out. Is it because she only does doggy style or something?”
“It’s because I don’t like her. If I call her Alissa it makes her a human being.”
“Dude, thats rough.” Jason always found the humor in my most asshole behavior. He bit his tongue and laughed from the belly. He held himself together long enough for more questions,
“So you just call her a dog.”
“A dog walker. I like dogs.”
“Right. A dog walker, then just fool around and she’s OK with it?”
“I guess so. I messed up last night though. I asked her why she liked it when I treated her that way and she hasn’t talked to me since. I left a bright red hand print on her ass that would be there for work. She’s a marketing director for Zellers.”
“Sounds like a strong, independent woman type job.”
“I guess so. But she walks foster dogs for the SPCA on the weekends, so I call her Dog Walker.”
“Is that what Mike calls her?”
“Doesn’t matter. We aren’t building a life together. I don’t even like her. Besides, nine times out of ten when we go out Mike is fucking whoever. He doesn’t give a shit.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that, man. Have you ever seen him when a girl dumps him first? Beneath that whole I’m an asshole who owns a truck thing he does, he’s actually a sensitive soul.”
I didn’t say anything, but it felt good to finally beat Mike without having to invent some Calvinball rules. He freaked out all the time, but this time I win. I fucked the girl and she told me I did it better. And that’s the best part: not the sex, but the win.
“Are you like this with all the girls?” Jay asked.
“No. This is the first one. I have rules. I always try to make them breakfast, give them a coffee, offer a ride home. I make sure to remember everyone’s name. I think it’s important.”
“Those are some weird rules, dude.”
“Maybe. But I’m not an asshole.”
“Except for when you are.”
“That’s different.”
The tones of the bosun’s call came over the intercom. Those notes, low, high, low: a general call.
Standeasy.
“Rex, you coming?” Jay asked.
“In a bit. I have to check something first.”
I slid down the ladder and opened the hatch to number two mess to grab my cellphone from my locker. The comms office was wrapped in copper mesh forming a faraday cage. No signals in or out. Phones remained in our personal space as a security requirement. I checked the phone. The LED light wasn’t blinking, but you never know.
“Hope you made it home all right.” I sent it after she left. Still on read.
I don’t blame her. There were two Rexes in my condo. One was having an existential crisis over turning into his asshole of a stepfather with a shitty moral compass; he’s the nice guy. The other one fucked a chick he didn’t like just because he could. She loved asshole Rex and loathed the nice one. Asshole Rex marked his territory like he was pissing on a tree stump just because he could. She looked good and let him treat her like shit. He didn’t care. He got laid. The reason both Rexes were going at it like Spinks and Ali was because she liked it. Nice guy Rex couldn’t dismiss this as a broken woman who didn’t know any better. She was pleasant. She did community service. She had a good job, good friends, a nice apartment. She didn’t have a drinking problem. There were no pills in her medicine cabinet. She didn’t do drugs. Her only vice was dick and degradation. There was nothing wrong with her.
The other Rex, the asshole, was pissed off at how the nice guy keeps ruining all of his fun with stupid, made-up rules and daddy issues. There was literally nothing seriously wrong with the dog walker, yet here we were. It was a situation with benefits. It was better than good.
It was good enough.
