“That you know of,” he said.“How well do you know what you want?You thought you were straight for the first twenty-two years of your life.The only sex you had with your girlfriends was vanilla, and we weren’t together long enough to figure out what you’re into.We’ve hardly tried anything.”
“We didn’t get to do enough of the stuff I already know I like.”
“Exactly,” he said.“But it’s more than that.We don’t really know each other.Those questions you asked me when we first got together—”
“I remember everything you said that night.Your favorite color is orange.”
“Do you knowwhyit’s orange?”he said.
He had me there.
“That’s the thing,” he said.“My answers didn’t tell you about me.It’s the reasons for my answers that tell you who I am.Joel’s been asking me stuff about myself I don’t know the answers to.Right now, Joel knows things about me that you don’t know.”
“Could you stop comparing me to Joel?It’s bad enough I had to watch him give you a hand job on TV.”
“Do you remember that conversation we had when I first moved in with you, when we were putting your model plane together?You said you thought you’d seen my O face because you’d watchedWanton Town.”
“Yeah?”
“But you hadn’t seen it, had you?”
I smiled.“I havenow.”
“You didn’t see that on TV, did you?”
“No.”
“Joel’s never seen it, and he never will.Same with kissing—on the set, it’s all for show.When I kiss you, it’s just us.It’s about how it feels, and how I love you.And I don’t use my tongue when I kiss Joel.”
I laughed because he was making it better.And he’d said he loved me.
“I can’t marry you till we know each other a lot better than we do now,” he said.“I want to get to know you—really know you.And I want you to know who I really am so you know what you’re getting when you ask me to marry you.I want to help you find out what your kinks are, and I want to try them all with you.”
“Sounds like fun.”
“It will be,” he said.“But it’s gonna take time.”
“Well, if we’re getting to know each other better, then we need to live together, because we’re not gonna see much of each other any other way, not with your job and both of mine.So, will you move back in with me?I know your place is bigger and fancier, but I want to be alone with you and not have Joel know about it every time we do anything.And I want to make out with you in front of the TV without an audience.And I want to cook you breakfast every Sunday and blow you whenever I want to.”
He laughed.“Sure, I’ll come live with you.You can ride with me to work every morning, and maybe we can make out in the back of the car on the way.And let’s do this: every day, we ask each other one really personal question and get to know each other.Really know each other.”
“Okay, me first,” I said.“Why is orange your favorite color?”
“It’s my lucky color,” he said.“It landed me my second role on account of that resemblance.”
“You said you couldn’t see the resemblance.”
“I can’t, but if other people can, and it helps me get work, I’m not gonna argue.Now you know something about me.My question to you is, what do you put in your brownies?”
“What?”
“They don’t taste like anybody else’s.What’s in them?”
“That’s a really personal question, Eddie.I don’t know if I can tell you.”
“We need to get to know each other better.”
I pretended to think it over.“Espresso powder.”
