“And why is this necessary?” I didn’t want to avoid a troublesome topic like some idiots I know but… what good would it do, dwelling on things we couldn’t change? Asking terrible questions I could barely think about. Would I want her to change, if that was somehow possible? Would—
“I want to know what you want,” Alicia said. “That you really… want me. There’s lots of people out there interested in things I’m not.” She was serious, but that, it really sounded like bullshit to me.
Because I cared about her, I managed not to roll my eyes. “And you might want someone easier to deal with,” I countered. “On days when I’m even more difficult than usual and you’ll be tired of it and want, even for one second, for me to be someone who’s easier to get along with, who’s a little bit nice.” That was just as likely, maybe even moreso.
“Hey—” Maybe I was nicer to her than everyone else but that was still different than actually being nice. I wasn’t exactly the easiest person to get along with. I hated more stuff than I didn’t hate. Most people would probably say Alicia was the saint in our relationship, not me.
“It could happen,” I insisted. I was currently making my room a lot scarier just to annoy Luke. A guy who bugged the hell out of me, sure, but had also been supportive and always there for me. That’s the kind of person I was.
…
And I had so not thought this through because the room was indeed scarier, even to me, and I had to live here. There were scary movies, creepy dolls, allusions to devil worship and sports merchandise. Sports merchandise!
My girlfriend thought about what I said while I contemplated how much of a mistake these redecorating efforts might be. She arrived at an answer first. “You’re saying we’re both screwed up and it cancels the other out?” Like I’m a bitch and she’s frigid and those are just the crosses we have to bear.
No, that wasn’t what I meant. I’d been attempting a nice sentiment, I wanted to be reassuring. I sucked at being reassuring. “I’m saying,” I tried again. “I’m just worried about where all this is coming from,” I told Alicia. She sat on my bed while I hung up my own poster on the wall.
My girlfriend frowned. I loved seeing other people frown, but it always made my heart ache when Alicia did. “Maybe I freaked out with what’s going on between Luke and Ryan and hearing what you said that night,” she said. “But this is still something we should be figuring out. I mean, when it comes to exploring our sexualities—”
I tried not to scowl. “I can’t take you seriously if you’re going to sound like a high school guidance counsellor.”
“Exploring our sexualities,” she continued undeterred and my chest did something funny and I didn’t know if I liked or didn’t like how she wasn’t intimidated by me. “That’s what people do when they’re young. This is our chance.” She reclined on my bed, looking up at the ceiling. “My fear is that. You might want to experience this particular kind of intimacy with someone else and you’re going to be mad when you didn’t get the chance.” With a sigh, she lifted herself up to look at me. “If we don’t do this now, you might wish we had. You might want to.”
I couldn’t exactly argue with that. Had that ever happened before? Oh well, there was still one thing I was sure of. Yeah, I might want to experience intimacy, or whatever dumb thing we were calling it, only there was one problem.
“My fear,” I said quietly. “Is that you still won’t.”
I didn’t know what else to say. I looked at the poster I hung up on the wall. Alicia went back to decorating after a while, but I kept looking at it.
While I picked some creepy stuff to put in here, the poster was my secret weapon. With all the new, strange decorations, Luke might not even notice it at first. When he did notice it, he’d probably stare.
The poster was of two women kissing. The photo was in black and white and wasn’t particularly salacious, just a sweet intimate moment captured on camera. It seemed like a safe enough place to look between the creepy dolls and scary movie posters. The image would be innocuous at first, or it might make him blush and look away. And then he’d get caught staring at it. It was going to freak him the hell out. Was he allowed to look? Or then he’d remember it was mine and get grossed out.
A lot of the stuff we added in here would scare him, but this poster would confuse him. The more he’d try to figure out how to feel about it, the more confused he would get. Until he would just avoid it altogether and then I would win.
I looked at the poster on the wall and tried not to think about all the things Alicia and I might never have. I didn’t know what to say.
I only knew what I shouldn’t say. The part I couldn’t talk about. When my lovely girlfriend said, hey, I like you. Maybe even in that way and my body responded. Maybe I was excited, and it was great that I got to have this thing I never thought I’d get with her but—
That was all over now. She didn’t mean it.
