mf series

Kael's Diary: December, 1989: "Sowing the Seeds of Love"

Lurking at the top of the stairs was me. I was slouching in the darkness, my
black fedora pulled to just above my eyebrows, dark pea coat humphered
around my shoulders and tucked under my butt as I crouched there, on those
carpeted stairs, my black hush puppies not making a sound.

I had only just taken my gloves off, up there, I'd already knocked on her
door but she was out. Couldn't find a light switch but I knew the place, an
old house in an old city in rural Ohio, possibly a two bedroomer to start
but addition led to addition and it's a good thing I had known the place,
there were half a dozen locations where the floors didn't come together in
just the right way and the architect wasn't proud. Just another tiny
apartment building, just another place to stuff the students.

There was a key at the front door, down there, and that's why I had ducked
down and squatted where I was. Christ, what if it's not her? Best way to
find out -- wait.

The door flew open and she with it, ushering a blast of cold late December
air. Her hood was open and over her head, but it was her and not someone
else, I knew that. I knew the coat. Green down thing, nasty. She turned to
the steps and I said "hi" and she gasped in fright and disbelief and then in
joy and wonder and charged up the stairs at me and landed in my outstretched
arms.

"Woof, careful," I said, holding her and bringing her into my lap, sitting
now at the top of the stairs, "remember I was puking sick this morning."

"Oh, God," she said, kissing me lightly on the mouth, "how are you?"

"I'm fine," I said, taking my hat off and holding it with one free arm,
"just a bad gyro or something, ehw, I can still taste the tin foil."

"I didn't think you were coming today," she said.

"Well, until about ten neither did I, but, you know, I'm in love."

"Mm-hm," she said. "How long were you waiting here."

"Coincidence," I said, "I just got here. I tried your door."

Bright blue eyes set into a pyramid of darkest brown, wavy, frizzy hair. She
placed her bowy lips against mine and pressed her tongue into my mouth
slightly. I pulled my mouth against hers and breathed a little faster.

"I'd like to try your door again," I said.

  ------------------------------------------------------------------------

December in this last year of the boom-boom eighties. The beginning of the
end for the millennium and the start of the closing chapter in my college
career. My grandfather was dead and he had told me the meaning of life, and
for that I was grateful. It was just this past spring and he was dying and I
visited him in Florida and he told me you have to set goals. Life is setting
goals and achieving them. You have a larger goal, and you succeed at it by
establishing smaller ones in order to attain that final, larger goal.

Yes, pretty simple, but it's not "plastics" and you don't have to be in Wall
Street or some other form of business to use it, you can be an actor, like
me. It's so simple anyone can see it and yet no one my age was doing it. I
was twenty-one, in the middle of my fourth year of college, and aware that I
would be starting a fifth in order to get done. My grandfather's words of
wisdom clued me in to the fact that my present course was just another of
the ones I'd been riding since my inception, one of those fated paths of
least resistance.

Sure, choosing a major in theater might have been considered a little
radical to those I'd grown up with in that stifling, fifties era-style
suburb I still called home. But it was still college. I was still doing what
was expected of me, and once that simple choice was made, I now had a new
set of adults to tell me exactly what to do next so I didn't have to think
about it at all. My advisor had a whole pre-figured out course of study he
sent all of us through in order to keep our minds on performance and not
worry about other aspects of theater or business or the world or anything
else that might distract us >from (or, who knows, improve) the "work".

Screw that, I altered the major a little, changed counselors, and made
myself learn things, important things, things I might need to know later on,
if I intended to carve a life for myself rather than just following a well
worn path set before me.

And I met Maria. And that was a surprise. After three years of dodging every
single possible relationship that sprang up in front of me -- and god knows
they were plentiful. I'm an adorable guy. Women love me. I'm cute and
talented and I kiss good. But I was terrified of being hurt again. The
single important relationship I'd ever had in my life, one that spanned the
decade, from first yearnings at the age of twelve to losing my virginity
five years after to the final break, the moment I let go, see ya, I'm on my
own now and don't expect any more phone calls, it was finally dead and
buried, and only since March.

I was complete. I lived alone in a basement apartment with one bedroom, one
bed, ceilings that towered three inches above my six foot head and I liked
them that way. Sure I had my nocturnal visitors, the whole summer of 1989 I
was getting laid all the time, but in the morning they went away and I could
just lie there or walk calmly and proudly, naked, all the way from the
bedroom, through the kitchen to the shower and use up all the hot water.

And nights when I was on my own, a balmy summer's eve let's say, with Joe
Jackson on the stereo, all the lights out and just past dusk, napping in my
underwear, the alley light shining through the blinds, casting sexy shadows
on the tee vee, the couch, the wide bay doors which divided the bedroom and
the living room (but were never closed) and on me. Half-awake now, I would
hear the murmur of voices from the back patio of the bar across the alley,
wafting through the open window with the fragrant night air, part sweet
summer mist, part dumpster.

Cool jazz. Hot night. I stood and walked to the window.

"It's late," J.J. sang, "I'm winding down. Am I the only one..?"

And for the first time in my young adult life I actively noticed I was happy
to be me. Just me. I had been happy to be me and someone else before and
that was nice, too. But to be alone and know it's okay. I knew also that if
I needed company, I could step out onto the street, walk for a block or so
and run into someone I knew, or check out a few bars within reach or there
was always the set or a movie -- but to know I could just sit in peace,
alone with my thoughts, and that that could be enough...well, it was new, it
was different, it was so alien and wonderful.

But as I was saying, I met Maria. And I don't think I could have without
this transformation. Years and years of hiding and ducking, yes love is
wonderful but responsibility sucks and I was always too fucking immature.
But I changed, I was riding higher and taller and I had opened a new door
and the first person to step in was Maria, nineteen and bright, a stunning
young woman, taking time off from that expensive private school she'd spent
her freshman year at to make some money and ride tuition free at this huge
state university that employed her father. A professor's kid. That same
professor who'd written a rather rude (but completely deserved) letter to
the editor of the paper I wrote for criticizing my work as "politically
incorrect", whatever that means.

I had met Maria a few months before, or even perhaps a few years before -- I
was always coming into contact with a variety of high school students who
either got involved in projects that crossed over to the university, or
through other college students, students who grew up in town and had
introduced me. She may have even been at a party or two in the last
apartment I'd lived in, I knew her old boyfriend anyway. But I knew her by
name only just recently.

Thad, a good friend, also a theater student, and I went to visit our friends
in Danielsboro, Ketucky, who were involved in an outdoor production called
"Daniel Boone was a Man" or some such nonsense, one of those dramas
involving lots of horses and square dancing and pretty white views of
American history. Lots of our friends were playing the part of "Injuns" and
had to shave all of their body hair off, paint themselves dirt color and got
to grunt a lot.

On our way home, an eight hour journey in Thad's lovely air-conditionless
rusty old tub of a car, we had a lot of time to just talk and more often
than not the conversation was little blue.

"So," Thad said, "have you looked over 'Balm in Gilead'?"

"That's the undergrad show?" I asked.

"Yeah."

"No."

"I'm auditioning for the part of Dopey," he said, "he's a heroin addict."

We were cruising along state road 555 in Suthuhn Ohiyah, windows open full
blast, hot air on our faces, sitting in the same T-shirts we'd slept in.
Thad was at the wheel and I had just finished fiddling with my banged up wee
tape deck, god it was good for how literally dented the exterior was. The
plastic was cracked and every little piece of metal was scratched and bent
but it was nice and loud and tinny. Thad's old wreck didn't even have FM but
I had mix tapes of all sizes and colors.

"Sounds great," I said, "Can I tell you something funny?"

"No," he said, "no, not funny."

"Fuck you, it's, I feel a little odd, you know, it's personal."

"No, not personal," Thad said. "Come on, you can tell me anything."

"Did I apologize for picking up Vera?" I asked.

"Oh forget about that," he said, "and give me another cigarette."

I looked at him wide and strange. "You're out already?"

"Already?"

"You bought two packs at that gas station yesterday."

"Yes," Thad said, "and I spent the night with a bunch of broke and sad
actors."

"I see."

"I'm a charitable guy."

"Yes you are," I said, and fished out two sticks from the already ratty pack
I had planted in the cracked door-side armrest.

"And besides, how many have you had today?" Thad asked.

I reached into my pocket and found a pack of matches.

"Mom, I'm telling a story."

"I'm sorry."

"It has pussy in it."

"Tell your story."

I stretched out, reaching behind me with interlocked hands, touching the
roof a few feet behind me. My face was slick with sweat and my hair a bobbed
blond mop, ratty from filth. No shower this morning and I hate that.

"Beth," I began, "you knew I was fucking Beth?"

Big sigh from Thad. "Yes, I knew you were fucking Beth, Jesus Christ you
know how to hurt a guy."

I looked surprised. "You like Beth." I cupped my hands and leaned into my
own lap in a desperate attempt to light my ciggie in the gale force highway
winds. It was a triumph.

"Oh you are mean, tell your fucking story."

"Don't raise your voice at me."

"Tell your fucking story."

"Do you know your lighter doesn't work?"

"Tell your fucking story."

"So," I said, turning my body slightly so I could look at him better, one
knee up on the wide, single, old-style front seat, "she was going on about
how shy she is."

"Shy?"

"You know, the first time we kissed she needed the lights out."

"She's got bad acne," Thad observed.

"You think she's cute," I said rather defensively.

"I'm just saying."

"She has got bad acne. Anyway, so she's over the other night, and it's hot,
and we're watching Cure videos and the blue light from the tee vee is just
painting the walls --"

"You are killing me."

"-- uh-huh, and we're kissing and I ask if she wants to fuck and she's like,
she doesn't know and I'm like, well, do you fuck and she says, yes she had
but she doesn't know if she can trust me and I say, I'm not asking her to
trust me I'm asking her to fuck me --"

"You didn't say that."

"-- maybe I didn't, I'm saying it now, though, but we crawl from the couch
to the bed --"

"Why did you bother?"

"-- why did? Because the couch is right in front of a window, you don't
really want to hear this do you?"

"Keep going," Thad said, "I am piqued."

"That's what she said."

"Ha."

"So anyway, I've got her all nude and everything on my bed -"

"How are her tits?" Thad asked.

"-- how are? They're nice, so everything --"

"Nice? They're nice? She has this killer cleavage."

"-- yes, killer, I'm not talking about tits here, I am, I am trying to talk
about fucking. You are talking about tits."

"You know who I really like?"

"You aren't interested in this story at all, are you."

"I am."

"I would like to know who you really like, though."

"I will tell you later."

"You won't change your mind about whoever she is?"

"I will not change my mind," Thad reassured me.

"So it's not going well. Her cunt, I dunno, it was too small or something
--"

"Oh you'd like people to believe that."

"-- and anyway, it was just not going well at all, it was uncomfortable and
she said she wasn't sure if she could really do this, she said she wasn't
really any good and anyway, she's shy, and I'm trying to calm her down and
my dick is just straining against the latex here --"

"Ah safe sex, I was gonna ask."

"Why do you care?"

"Because I love you."

"Oh," I said, "that's sweet. Well, you know, these are the eighties and all,
it's a matter of life and death."

"Thank you, George Michael."

"Don't you bad mouth George."

"Please go on."

"Well, this is the thing, so she lifts her legs above her fucking head! She
just traps them behind her arms, outta nowhere, whoom, her feet are behind
the fucking headboard, her navel is almost touching her own breasts and her
cunt has become this wide open enormous gash, it's like five feet wide now
and she looks up at me, and I'm gawking over the thing, and she says, will
this help?"

Thad stopped in mid-drag to stare at me with incredulity for a long,
dangerous, eyes off the road moment, and then began guffawing in the most
athsmatic manner. I just grinned.

"I thought you'd like that," I said.

"Shy?" he asked.

"Very shy."

"Oh my god! So then what did you do?"

"I got fucking laid, Thad, I humped her 'til I bled, what do you think I
did."

"Jesus. That's great."

"That's just sex, Thad."

"You know who I like?"

"She does this groovy thing with her tongue."

"Who?"

"Beth."

"You know who I like?"

"Who?"

"Do you know Maria B.?"

"No."

It was the first time I'd heard her name.

  ------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Oh, Maria B.," I whispered softly into her ear. Late December, and I was
pushing myself slowly into her.

She bared her teeth and hissed slightly, drawing in a sharp breath.

"Huh?" I asked, "Is, are you okay?" I leaned up a little, up on my hands, I
looked into her concerned face.

"S'nothing, ah," she said, and the tension in her brow softened and relaxed.
I began pumping a little faster, but it didn't seem to be going well.

"Huhn," she said, "I love you."

"Mmnf," I said, "yes, I love you, too, I'm so glad to see you." I was
rocking my pelvis into hers, curving my spine my rest my mouth on one of her
large nipples.

"Could I be on top?" she asked.

"Ha," I chuffed, "I love it when a woman asks me that."

We fumbled around each other on that bed, not too wide, a single person's
bed for a single young woman. The curtains were closed, it was dark in her
room and I didn't know where the edge of the bed was. I lay back, pinching
skin, and she hopped up on top of me, mighty thighs straddling my wide hips,
I put my hands onto her tiny waist and slid them up to her happy little
tits.

"God I love that," she said, "yes, squeeze them."

She put me inside of her and made that face again.

"Okay?" I asked.

"Mmn, yes," she said, "it's better now."

And we began rocking in time. Her time. It was better. I was never very good
at coming on the bottom, but now I was.

  ------------------------------------------------------------------------

An hour later Maria was packing large amounts of her things into a bag and I
was put my loafers back on, getting ready to walk the half mile back to my
apartment to get my car. It was the first moving day and we would be
starting slow.

"Have you told your folks yet?" I asked, putting on my huge coat.

"No," she said, futzing with some shoes, "not yet."

"But you will, right?" I asked. "I mean, soon?"

"Yes, soon."

"Today would be nice."

"There's a rush?"

"Yes," I said, sitting close to her on the bed. "Because I have already told
my parents you're moving in, and you know, news travels fast."

"The length of the state?"

"It's a small state."

"It's not that small," she said. "What did they say about it?"

"Well, only Mom was home at first, and she said she knew this would happen
and did we need anything to fix up the place with."

Maria stopped what she was doing to look at me with a confusing smile. "She
didn't."

"You don't know my mother. Dad called when he got home to give his
congratulations."

Maria shoved a handful of undies into the side-pocket of a suitcase. "You'd
think we were getting married."

"Oh, no," I said, "too soon. We've only been together two months. I told
them that would be at least another two."

Maria just laughed.

  ------------------------------------------------------------------------

December 31, 1989. New Year's Eve. 11:59 PM, the last minute of the decade.
Maria and I were walking very very fast through the biting cold in order to
reach a big house on Mentor Street. There was a party there, a New Year's
Eve party -- apparently it was one of the longest running New Year's Eve
parties in Clemson's history. Lots of brothers and sisters, Clemson natives
who also went on to attend the university, renewed the same lease over and
again and their end of the year bashes had become such legend that it became
THE place to be for every Clemson High graduate or anyone else who happened
to return to school before classes started the following week.

"So," I said, "am I going to know anyone here?"

"Probably," Maria told me, "at least the odds are very good. I'll probably
know a lot of people. There's so many people I want to introduce you to."

"I know," I said, "I'm excited about it."

A brash gush of wind thrust down the street and I pulled my coat closer to
me and yanked down my hat to keep it from blowing back the way we had come.
The house, our destination, set up on a little hill rising >from the street,
was still a thousand yards away.

"Have I told you about Jo?" she asked.

"I think so," I said, "which one is she?"

"The one in New York. The artist."

"Oh, the one with the green hair?"

"It was green the last time I saw her," she said.

A rousing cheer of human voices rang out from the house. Everywhere there
was the sound of people yelling, fireworks being set off, and further in the
distance we heard the discharge of shotguns.

"Hey," she said, "happy new year!"

"Come here," I said, and stopped her in the middle of the street. I grappled
for her puffy coat and we both smiled and pressed our faces into the other.
Small, playful kisses and one big tongue wrestle, her hot spit warming the
inside of my chilledhead.

"Welcome to the nineties," I said.

"Strange, huh?" she said.

"I have a feeling they're going to be better than the eighties," I said,
"with you in them."

"Hmn," she said, grinning wildly. And we headed up the hill to the house.

Parties. Such unpredictable chemical events. If I know everyone at a party,
and I'm feeling good, it can be like Hollywood. Lots of kissing and talking
and drinking and it's a time to be magnanimous.

"Hey what's up? How's the project? You look FABulous, baby."

Then there was the party I met Maria at, last July. It was a cast party for
a how I wasn't in. I was only running props and no one there, except the
host, who had invited me personally, knew me.

I put a six-pack of cheap beer in the fridge and took an import sitting next
to it for myself. I looked around the room. It was too bright in that
apartment, I could see everyone too clearly. No one said hi. Everyone was
sitting about, talking quietly. The music was on low. I saw a familiar face
(one that had been pointed out to me, not one I knew personally) sitting on
the couch, and an empty chair next to it. I took the chair.

"Uh, hi," I said.

"Hello," she said.

"You must be Maria."

"Yes," she said, for indeed it was.

"I'm a friend of Thad's."

"Oh," she said, "yes, I know you, you're, Kael is it?"

"Yes," I said, "Kael Goodman."

"That's a strange name."

"I'm a strange guy," I said. "Kael Goodman, the Irish Jew."

She just stared at me.

"Ha ha ha ha ha," I said.

Awkward pause.

"You make a very good bird," I said, "in the show."

"Thank you," she said. "You go to school here?"

"Yeah, I'm in theater."

"How do you like it, I think I might have to spend some time here." She said
it like it was an impending prison term, but hey, she grew up here, her take
on the place was probably different from mine.

"Oh, it's great," I started, "I like to think I've learned a lot. I mean, I
hope I have after three years but sometimes I think I'm doing all the
learning myself. That sounded stupid -- what I mean is, it's like you can
just skate through most of these courses, almost all of the profs are, like,
complete dummies and they'll give you at least a passing grade no matter
what shit you sling at them, excuse me, I meant excrement, but, I mean, do
you see what I'm saying? I'd like to think I'm a pretty intelligent guy, you
know. I mean, I read for God's sake, how many people can you say that about?
I guess the point is, I'd like to think this is all going somewhere, oh, I'm
sorry, did I get any of that on you, I'm sorry, and who knows, maybe when
it's all said and done, I'll have made something...of...all...this."

Death.

"That's very fascinating," she said, and turned to speak to someone else.

Oh, and did I mention all of the assholes I've met here?

This party, however, was something else. It looked like the kind of shindig
where someone could have swung from the chandelier, though no one did, and
had there been a chandelier, which there wasn't. (Oh, great, and now I'm
Douglas Adams.) The place was packed with teenagers and twenty-somethings,
all drinking and smoking and shouting and laughing and eating and drinking.
It was bright, sure, not dingy enough for my tastes, but the music was loud,
the floor was filthy and the company was young and degenerate.

"Hey!" Maria was saying. "God how are you? You look great! Yes -- not since
-- you were there, too? Oh my GOD!"

I just followed on behind, and it wasn't such a bad place to be.

"Have you met my boyfriend? This is my new boyfriend. Kael, I've got someone
for you to meet, Frank, Bob, Jim, this (dramatic pause) is my new boyfriend,
Kael."

Boyfriend. I hadn't been called that, excuse me, I hadn't let myself be
called that in a few years. It felt nice. It had a pleasant ring. Kael,
Maria's new boyfriend. My coat was still on as she took me by the hand and
led me through the streaming crowd of immediate post-midnight revelers. She
introduced me to a skinny guy, about her age, with a wild mop of
frenetically curly blonde hair.

"Kael, this is Lewis."

We shook hands. I smiled.

"Hey!" he said. "Heeey, I know you -- you were in, whatsis, 'Balm in Gilead'
last semester, weren't you?"

"Yeah," I said, "that was me."

"Oh Maria," Lewis said, "oh hey, he was fantastic, you played that, what, he
was a dope addict --"

"Well," I said, in my studied 'demure', "they were all dope addicts."

"Dopey," Maria said.

"Yeah!" Lewis said, "you were fuckin'-A fantastic, man, let me shake your
hand!"

"Oh, we just did," I said, "I don't want to peak too soon."

"Ha ha HA!" Lewis laughed. "Oh Maria, I love him, he's hysterical!

Lewis was a fun drunk. I would like to have had him around at all my
parties, if only to laugh at everything I said.

"Hey you," came an unfamiliar voice behind me, and Maria cried out in
surprise and rushed past me to hug the new arrival. I turned to see a small
woman dressed in a black, second hand coat, but that was what I noticed
first. It was her electric pink hair that stood out like a neon beacon
crying "NOTICE ME."

She was almost a whole foot shorter than me, and once she and Maria
disengaged I could see her face. She was thin and small. Small nose, small
mouth, and HUGE glasses that were perched on the very tip of her nose, dying
to fall off.

"Kael," Maria said, "this is Jo."

"Oh THIS is Jo," I said, "I would never have guessed. It's a pleasure to
meet you."

"And you as well," Jo said, "Maria's told me a lot about you."

"I've heard a lot about you, too," I said, "I thought your hair was green."

"Well," Jo said, not blinking, not looking away for a moment, "you know,
Maria hasn't seen me for a while, what has it been, a year?"

"'Bout that," Maria said.

"And after all," Jo said, "it is the nineties."

"Hell," I said, "I would have guessed 1983."

"Not in Athens," she said.

"But you live in New York City," I said, giving particular weight to those
last three words and letting my eyes bulge.

"Big sigh," she said, "why must people always fear the unusual."

"I apologize," I said, "my own flavor was black, black hair, black
eyemake-up, and that was only a few years ago."

"You don't strike me as the type."

"You just met me," I said, "what would you know about my type?"

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a pack of English cigarettes.
"Mind if I smoke?"

"It's not my party," I said, and I leaned in to whisper in her ear, "and I'm
dying to join you, but I told Maria I quit."

"Did you?" she said, sticking a smoke in her face, making her already quite
stuffed up voice even more so.

"Uh, yes," I said, "it's been almost a month. I don't want to be a slave to
anything in the world I live in."

"Except Maria," she said, and struck a match.

I blushed and smiled tightly.

"Except Maria," I said.

  ------------------------------------------------------------------------

"What did you think of my friends?" Maria asked. It was an hour or so later
(maybe three, we were looped) and we were stumbling our way through the
brick paved Clemson streets back to my, uh, our apartment.

"Wonderful," I said, "all of them, just charming."

"You were getting pretty bold back there," she said.

"I was?"

"Sure, when Jo and Lewis and us, when we were all standing around there,
weren't you feeling me up?"

"Ha!" I said, "no."

"Oh come on." She looked at me to see I wasn't lying. "You were squeezing my
ass."

"I'd know if I was squeezing your ass."

"Shit!" she said, "it must have been Lewis!"

"Probably," I said, "it wasn't me. I don't think it was Jo, either."

"You two hit it off?" she asked.

"She's just the type of lithe, androgynous pretentious art-fag I would have
loved to try and nail when I was a sophomore," I said. "I think she's
great."

"I knew you'd like her."

  ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Maria and I slouched about our tiny love-nest of an apartment. I had a
viscious attack of the late-post-New Year's Eve-drunken munchies and had
just toasted and buttered a bagel. I put it on one of those turquoise
plastic plates I had discovered in the closet when I had first moved in, and
stepped into our living room.

The tee vee was on, perched atop a milk crate. The tee vee had a nineteen
inch screen. The milk crate was sixteen inches across. The milk crate would
have looked a lot more comfortable and secure on top of the tee vee. Maria
looked very comfortable propped up on the couch, her big eyelids slowly
dripping down her blue eyes. She was watching hippies fooling around with
the special effects generator on Clemson cable access. I sat down next to
her and set my plate in my lap. The space heater behind the couch blew a
pleasant gust of hot, dry air up my neck, which was only now beginning to
thaw from the five blocks we had briskly strode back from the party. I
peered at the tee vee.

"Are those hippies?" I asked.

"I went to high school with most of those guys," she said.

"Right," I said, "and the ones you didn't go to high school with, I did." A
scruffy looking kid was stuffing mustard into his mouth while the others
interviewed each other. There was lots of tie-dye everywhere. "Do they think
they're being creative?"

"Is that a bagel?" she asked, leaning her shoulder into my thigh. She tossed
her thick frizzy hair around her face and smiled up at me. Straight teeth.

"Yeah," I said, smiling down at her suspiciously, "Why, did you want it?"

"I'll take half."

I handed her the plate. "Take the whole thing," I said, getting up, "I'm
feeling big."

"You're looking big," she said, getting a prime view of my backside as I
rose. "You need new pants."

"I need to lose ten pounds," I said, heading into the kitchen.

"You need to stop taking me out to dinner," she said, munching her bagel.

"I always went out to dinner," I called out, "only now I have some lovely
company." I stuck my head into the fridge the relocate the bagels, which had
mysterious hidden themselves behind the butter.

"I love you, Kael Goodman," she said, sober, for a moment. I popped my head
up over the top of the refrigerator door and looked at her, squinting, my
glasses left by the answering machine.

Lying almost sideways on the couch, our couch in our apartment, was the most
beautiful woman in my life. Where the hell had I gotten off -- young, sexy
round face, she had dimples! The woman had dimples -- her heritage was
Greek, Irish, Native American even, mostly Greek though, her skin was pale
and her eyes were huge and her nose was long and straight. Oh yes, she had a
little mustache, most women do you know, but when she smiled at me her face
was bright and shiny and even now, plastered and stinky from party smoke, I
could tell she adored me and I was so happy she was there.

It hadn't been easy, I admit. One night, not long before, I'll never forget
this, we were at her old apartment, maybe last November. We'd been together
a month. We were lying on her bed, facing each other, my shirt was off and
she was running her fingers along all the twisted scars and bumps on my
chest. They were remnants of severe acne scarring, these 'war wounds' were
still quite red and visible. I had a few stray hairs sprouting along my
chest, connecting my nipples. Her plaid shirt was all unbuttoned, no bra,
her little breasts peeking out, her big nips still hard from minutes before
when I'd had her flat on her back, licking and sucking at them, making her
coo. I drew a line from her navel up between her breasts and up to her chin.
She was smiling.

"You know, Kael," she said, "I really like you."

"I like you, too, Maria," I said.

"I can't believe you made me dinner."

"I'm a sensitive eighties kinda guy," I said, "you have to know how to do
those sorts of things these days. If you want to get laid, anyway."

"Not tonight," she said.

"I understand."

"I'm going back to my old school this weekend," she said.

"I see," I said, and moved my face in and bit her lightly on the chin. She
growled approvingly. As I sucked at her neckline I said slurped out, "going
to visit what's his name?"

"He's my boyfriend, Kael."

I backed away a few inches. "And what am I?" I asked.

"Oh, I don't know," she said, "I love spending time with you, but I plan to
go back there after a semester or two and I really do love him, you have to
understand that."

I laughed in a disaffected manner. "I know, I know, and I am happy to
entertain you while you wait."

"Yeah," she said, "that's it, you're my little entertainer."

My mouth twitched slightly. It almost gave me away.

"Ha," I burst out suddenly, "well, yes, I do know what my place is. Kael
Goodman, pleaser of women."

"You're very good at it."

"Honey," I said, "I'm the best."

A half hour later I was in my car driving back to my apartment. My face was
tense, my brow furrowed, my knuckles blanched, gripping at the wheel. I
began to slam my palm against the dashboard as hot angry tears spewed out of
my eyes and streamed down my face.

"Dammit!" I howled, "no, no, NO! I do not want to do this again!" My voice
was loud and unbridled, phlegm collected in my throat which had completely
closed into itself, and I had difficulty breathing. I blubbered and bawled
little a child, trying desperately to keep my car on my side of the road as
I sobbed without care.

"I don't want this," I groaned. "Never, never, never, don't let me do this."
I tried to sort through all the horrible, pathetic and sad things I was
feeling.

"I do not want to fall in love," I sighed.

But I did. I already had. Unbelievable -- there I was at one thirty on a
school night, banging down Alex's door (she lived right across the street)
still sniffling and teary-eyed. Alex had been asleep but she knew something
was wrong when she opened the door. I asked if I could spend the night and
she said sure and I curled up next to her, it was very strange, I hadn't
been in the same bed with her since we'd last had sex, for the last time,
the previous June, and this wasn't exactly the same circumstance. She
dropped right off and I stared out the window trying to think of anything
except Maria.

And here we were two months later and she was mine, sitting on the couch,
watching stupid homemade tee vee and she said she loved me.

I was toasting myself a bagel when there was a knock at our door. It was
Humphrey, Maria's childhood playmate, former Eagle Scout, present day
Communist.

"Hey, come on in," I said.

"Kael, right?" he said, shaking my hand as he stepped in. Humphrey was a
hulking thing, a big long mass of blonde hair and a straggly thick beard,
but you could still see the little kid in his eyes. He had an uncomfortable
self-effacing laugh whenever he spoke.

"Yeah," I said, ushering him in and closing the door against the cold. "Warm
yourself up. Happy New Year."

"Happy New Year," he said. "Boy, it sure is low in here, isn't it?"

"Is that Humphrey?" Maria called from the living room.

"Yeah, honey," I said, "and yes, well, it used to be a basement, you know.
Maria's in there, watch your head as you go in."

"Thanks, ooh, is that a bagel in there?" he asked, pointing at the toaster
with one hand, removing his enormous army jacket with the other.

"Uh, yes," I said, "I was making it for you." Humphrey went into the living
room and I buttered the bagel for him. As I was putting another into the
toaster, there was another knock at the door, a very loud one.

It was Claire.

"Well," I said, letting her in, "I didn't expect to see you tonight."

"Who's that?" Maria yelled from the living room.

"It's me," Claire said.

"Who?" Maria bellowed.

"It's Claire," I said, shutting the door again.

"Claire?" Maria laughed.

"Never mind her," I said, "she's drunk. So am I."

"That makes three of us," Claire said, and sat down at the kitchen table. I
just stood there and looked at her.

"Why are you here?" I asked.

"Happy New Year," she said, smiling up at me benignly.

Claire was a freshman here at the University of Ohio. During the summer of
1988 I had a very, very brief thing with her. We were both doing summer
theater together and she'd come on to me very heavily at a cast party I had
thrown. I felt very awkward and self-conscious making out with a high school
student, but, you know, I did anyway. But it didn't last very long and it
didn't get very far, but that didn't keep her from making my life hell
whenever we ran into each other.

"Happy New Year," I said, "why are you here?"

"Apparently I missed you at the big party."

"I missed you, too, Claire," I said, "would you like a beer or something?"

"Yes," she said, and I went to get her one out of the fridge. I could see
Maria and Humphrey talking, she on the couch, he sitting cross-legged on the
floor next to her. They were eating bagels. Maria saw the look of
helplessness on my face and just smiled and rolled her eyes.

"This is a nice place," Claire said, accepting the beer, and then taking a
huge, long suck off of it.

"It's nice," I said, not sitting down, just leaning against the sink,
against the cracked brown contact paper that disguised whatever damage had
been done to it by previous tenants. The toaster went "ca-chuunk" and went
to put it on another plastic plate, this one peach colored. None of the
plates were the exact same size.

"Suplised to see me?" she asked.

"Yes," I said, scraping and buttering my bagel at the sink, "I haven't seen
you since, well since the last time I saw Thad I suppose. Some time last
semester."

"We aren't dating anymore," she said, squinting her beady little brown eyes
at me.

"I know you two aren't dating anymore, Claire."

"Why were you such a DICK to me, Kael?" she asked. The weight she put on the
word 'dick' made me wince and I cast another side-long glance into the other
room. They were laughing about something. I was hoping it wasn't me.

"I'd like to think I was being honest with you," I said.

"You dumped me really fast," she said, "you didn't need to do that." I
turned around and set my plate on the table before going to get myself a
beer.

"We weren't even 'dating', Claire," I said, rummaging in the fridge.

"Sure we were," she said.

"Ha!" I said. "We only did it once." I turned back and saw she had slid the
plate with my bagel on it to her side of the round table. "Don't touch
that," I said, menacingly.

She began to pick up the bagel. I lunged across the room at her and she
swiftly lifted the pate up and stepped back out of her chair and against the
far wall by the fire extinguisher.

"Don't you fucking DARE eat that," I said.

"Ha ha ha," she snickered. I countered around the table towards her. She
slid around the other side, stepping over boxes and huge undiscarded piles
of the U of O Examiner.

"I'm warning you," I said.

"You're warning me what?" she said as she slipped further around the table,
foot crossing over unsteady foot.

"It's been a long night, and you can stay here and abuse me, if you wish."

"Oh, I do."

"But all I want is THAT FUCKING BAGEL!"

She stopped where she stood, in front of the fridge, and looked into the
next room.

"Hey Maria," she said.

"Hello, Claire."

"Hiya Humphrey."

"Nice to see you Claire."

"So," Claire said, leveling her gaze at me, "is SHE here now? She's your
main thing?"

"Give me that bagel, woman."

"She your new GIRLFRIEND?" she asked.

Conversation in the next room had stopped. I was pressed, this was the
challenge of my collegiate sexual career.

"Yes," I said, "yes Claire, Maria is my girlfriend. She lives here. She
belongs here and you do not." I stood up straight, almost hitting my head on
the ceiling. "Now," I said, taking a deep breath, "just...please...give me
the bagel. Give me the bagel and no one gets hurt."

Her face dropped and a slight quiver came to her thin bottom lip. She
slammed the plate onto the table.

"Here," she said, "take your stupid bagel."

"Thank you," I said, even though the impact of her action had caused one
half of it to fall onto the floor. Claire then turned, picked up her beer
and slammed out my front door.

Humphrey quickly walked through the kitchen, his coat half on, a partially
chewed bagel sticking out of his mouth.

"Fee you, Kael," he said, heading for the door.

"Oh, no, Humphrey," I said, "you don't have to go."

"Oh don't worry," he said, I understand." And with that he closed the door
behind him. I watched him go, and looked back at Maria, smiling wryly at me,
still just sitting on the couch. I picked up my plate. I retrieved the bagel
from the floor (it landed buttered side up, thank you) and dusted it off. I
looked at it. I looked at Maria. I took a big, comical, tiger-sized bite out
of it, complete with "Aaarumph!" sound effect and Maria giggled.

Fwump, I sat on the couch next to her, and she put an arm around me.

I whimpered slightly.

"Aw," she said, "my poor little Casanova."

"I didn't mean to drive your friend away," I said, chewing mournfully.

"You didn't," she said, "he told me he couldn't stay long."

"I told her," I said, in my best child-like voice, "that, that you were my
GIRLfriend."

"Yes," she said, "I heard. The neighbors heard."

"Wanna have sex?" I asked.

"Do you?"

"No," I said, "not really, not now."

"Then let's just watch tee vee."

"What's on?" I asked.

"You are."

And I looked at the screen. And there I was. It was a little project I had
done for access the summer before.

"Jesus Christ," I said. I was in my underpants, delivering a monologue I
made up on the spot about insects or something. "They'll let anyone on that
channel."

"That's this apartment, isn't it?"

"Sure is."

"How much did that cost?"

"Nothing," I said, "They just let you borrow the equipment and you do the
rest. Hey, and that reminds me."

"Yaas," she drawled.

Mind if I videotape us fucking?" I asked.

"Hmn," she said, "well sure, why not."

We watched me talk for a little while longer in silence.

"Hey," she said, "I just thought of something."

"Yaas?"

"Who gets the tape if we break up?"

I looked at her and smiled. I looked down at her lap. I looked back up.

"You worried about that?" I asked.

"No," she said, "not right now."