Page 91 of Pierced

“Hello,” she says back.

“Um… do you want to go shopping?”

“Not even a little bit.”

“Good. Me either.”

“What do you want to do?” she asks.

“I kind of think I’m doing it.”

“Good. Me too.”

Quiet settles in the suite. We stare at each other. After several long moments, she breaks the silence.

“I don’t need to work for you, you know.”

“Uh… yeah. I get that. I mean, I guess I get that now. What made you—?”

“It was about wanting to start a normal life. Be a, whatever, traditional girl. Get a job. All the stuff people do.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And then, when I met you… I mean… you’re you. So.”

I nod. “Well, yeah.” I blow out some air. “And now?”

She puts her finger on my chest and traces it around the area where my heart lives. “Now? I don’t know. ”

“What don’t you know, exactly?”

“I don’t know.”

OK. Redundant, but I don’t want to push.

“I don’t trust very easily.”

“Yeah, no, I… I get that.”

“The thing that happened with the whole Sexpert…” She sighs. “Something like that can never happen again.”

“It won’t.”

“Ever.”

“It won’t. Hey, look at me.” She does. “It. Will. Not. OK? Look, I don’t care if you quit at the magazine, or if you don’t, or if you want to do weird things to my dick, or whatever… seriously. I just… I just want you around. Me, I mean. I want you around me. The promotion, all the other stuff—yes, it was an apology, obviously it was an apology, but—the real reason I’ve been working so hard to get your forgiveness is this.”

“What? So I’d fuck you?”

“Yes, Myrtle, that’s exactly what I’m saying. No! Jesus. So that you’d be here. So that you’d be around. So that the one person that I feel like, honestly? That I feel like is my equal would be there when I needed them. That probably sounds pretentious.”

“It doesn’t sound pretentious.”

“It doesn’t?”

“It is pretentious.”

“Fine. The point is…” Oh, boy. Are we really doing this? Um… yeah. I think we may be doing this. “The point is that our pals Eden and Andrew may be right about something.”