“I’ve never really thought about it, but I know it would include a lot of travel. I can see why it’s a big part of your list.”
“There’s a second list too, which I’ve never really talked about with anyone. It’s up here.” I tapped my temple with my index finger. “After I’m gone, I hope this book finds its way to my mom and stepdad. I have their address written on the inside cover, so maybe someone will send it to them. But there are some experiences they really don’t need to know about.”
“Like what?”
“Like the three-day weekend I spent tripping on mushrooms, or the time I tried amenage a trois. To be clear, I didn’t do those things at the same time.”
Kit lowered the book and turned to me, curiosity written all over his face. “How was that? Themenage a trois, I mean.”
“It was… interesting. I also tried amenage a quatreand amenage a sept, but those were just confusing. Too many body parts.”
“Isseptsix?”
“It’s seven, actually.”
“So, you had an orgy.”
“Yes. For the record, I used condoms, and I’ve been tested several times since then.” I didn’t know why I felt the need to point that out, since Kit and I weren’t sleeping together.
“Was it an all-male orgy?” I nodded, and he asked, “Have you ever had sex with a woman?”
“Once. I was nineteen. She and I were good friends, but she really wanted us to be more than that, so we gave it a shot.”
“And how did it go?”
“Not great. Even though she meant a lot to me, I just wasn’t into it.”
“Are you still friends?”
“No. Our friendship fell apart after that.”
“That’s sad.”
“It was. She ended up doing great, though,” I said. “She went on to earn her MBA, married a dentist, started a successful business, and has two brilliant kids.”
“How do you know all of that?”
“Because I ran into her the last time I was in Baltimore, and she took great satisfaction in telling me how fantastic her life is now. I think she took my failure to turn bi as a personal insult, and that was her way of… getting back at me, I guess?”
“People can be so weird.”
“I know. Anyway, back to your bucket list. Tell me more about what you’d include.”
“Number one on my list would be making enough money to help out my dad,” he told me. “Then, like I said, I’d love to travel.”
“Where do you want to go?”
“Anywhere and everywhere. I’ve never been outside California, so it’d be a really long list.”
“For real?”
“Well, yeah. I’ve always been broke, so travelling wasn’t really an option.”
“If you could go anywhere without having to worry about the expense, where would you choose?”
I thought he might name a dream destination like Paris, or Tokyo, or Fiji, places that had seemed impossible to me while I was growing up. Instead, he said quietly, “I always wanted to see the Grand Canyon, but I never managed to make it happen.”
From San Diego, that was maybe an eight- or nine-hour drive. It broke my heart that something which should have been easily accessible had felt out of reach to him.
