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“Keep talking?” she managed.
“Well, if you’re anything like me, you know how difficult it is to be on the receiving end of charity. It dampens your pride. It—I dunno . . . makes you feel less than. But what if you translate the giving to a currency-like state; the giver receiving their gratification, and the taker whatever their needs are for the day.” He gestured to the sandwiches she held by lifting both index fingers from the tray. “Then it’s win-win. No worthlessness or whatever other shitty feelings the homeless person has because they inadvertently paid the volunteer with gratification.”
His response was perfect and had cut away most of her remaining argument. Áine had never been so delighted to havesomeone trump her and had to chew her lip to suppress it so he wouldn’t dare try it again and have her smitten.
“You liked that, didn’t you,” he accused her with a deeper tone than his argument.
Her lip unfurled, “I did.” That and other things that made her want to squeeze her thighs together.
Fionn’s fingers danced atop the clingfilmed dome of triangle sandwiches. “And what about reciprocal altruism?”
For what she expected would stretch whatever tension was brewing between them, Fionn lost his confidence, sweeping his eyes low to keep them firmly on said fingers.
Seeing this, the concept of sharing thoughts had no longer become a talking point she merely chose to entertain. Because for her earlier wonder about what Fionn’s inclined head meant, this time she knew wholeheartedly the purpose of his dancing fingers. He was using ‘big words’ according to his presumed social circle, which probably wasn’tto be encouraged. This happened to Áine, too. It had even created what had now become an intermittent party story, with a minor name change for how small the Tinder queer pool was in Dublin at the time.
She had met her date in the city of a Holy Sunday—Fucking Bethany. At least, that’s what she’d Christened her.
Bethany was cuddling up to Áine in a secluded booth, lit only by a small lantern on their table. They were knee to knee, pint to pint of Peroni, both bare-legged and engaged in what she could only consider such filth that Áine’s underwear was damp in its centre. But seconds before the expectancy of them running out the door together back to Bethany’s digs, Áine chewed the curve of Bethany’s ear and whispered, “This is salacious, even for me.”
Bethany pulled from Áine’s nibble, a second layer of crimson kissing her pierced nose. “Big word,” she said with a chuckle, like Áine was six and Bethany was her inferior-riddled primary teacher.
Áine knew then why people said it; the phrasebig wordor something similar, even when they should have been single-minded for their horniness.
Intelligence threatened and stole the equilibrium.
Nobody likes to feel inferior, so they react oddly or negatively. In Áine’s blighted opinion anyway. Although, she wished she’d figured that out some years sooner, to know how close she was to stealing the equilibrium. It would have saved the ending of many relationships. Áine was so ingrained to seek validation she’d become quite depressed and thin in their leaving whether she liked them or not.
But who was this man before her now? Not the Fionn she went to school with, that much was clear. In six years, it appeared he’d grown more than just in the sense of girth.
An unexpected bitterness drenched her tongue because if he was this person years ago, they might be engaged, or parents given Áine’s track record of close calls since having her coil removed. Maybe he would have told her regularly to not listen to her mother’s opinions, and she would have helped steer his life away from gambling.
Her heart uncomfortably ached, like it was being coaxed out of her chest with the false promise of repairs. While Áine didn’t know much about reciprocal altruism, she gave it a shot to please him, and move on from the reminders of the past.
“I do wonder, can you make yourself altruistic or is that a trait we’re born with?”
He stuttered a quiet laugh, enough to loosen his broad shoulders. “Buddhists might disagree with it being more nature than nurture.”
“Oh, why’s that?”
“Ahh, I’m not sure why I said that really. They just seem like the kind of people who could become that through way of life, better than most.”
“I like that idea. Might even love it if it treated me well, if you know what I mean. And so maybe you’ve changed my usually obstinate mind.” She bowed with both head and chest to congratulate him on what most couldn’t do.
“A first for everything, I suppose.”
They smiled at that. Smiled and then softened their lips in unison until both visibly clenching their foil trays, found kitchen corners to absorb their bashfulness.
She realised, all melancholy and unexpected, that it was the last for everything between them. A buzzer went off from reception, saving her from the burden of wallowing. The buzzer vibrated her pumps, sending a tingle up her thighs.
“Ah!” They said to burst the bubble they’d been enclosed in since coming inside. Áine had even forgotten she’d been cold, which was a feat considering she loved to complain about that.“Born cold,”her mother would say with too many awful connotations for it to ever be considered funny. And yet the crowd always laughed, as did Áine.
“That’ll be the charity worker knocking for the sandwiches,” she said, gesturing with fingers for him to follow.
He did so in the vein of loyalty, back through the dining room and into the foyer. A prickling sensation called throughout her to grab his hand. To guide him by touch.
He’d let me do it too.
She opened the heavy front door.
