“Colgate. Hamilton. Skidmore,” she said.
“Sure,” he said.
“You didn’t get a good look at the sweatshirts crumpled up in the closet?”
“Do you want me to pick one?”
She rolled her eyes. “So the music eventually cuts back in. It keeps her in the mood. She’s still gearing up.”
“And, yeah, at some point she just kinda says it sweetly, she gets up in my ear again and whispers, ‘Do you want to have sex?’”
“Very polite lawyer bee.”
“And so we have sex.”
“How?”
“The normal way.”
“She’s on the bottom.”
“She’s on the bottom, she’s on top.”
“The normal ways,” Whitney said. “She has the night of her life. She’s making a real show of it since no one’s on the other side of the temporary walls for the first time in months. You make her come seven, eight times.”
“Here’s the part I’ve been waiting for, though.”
“Uh oh.”
“Here’s the whole point of everything up to now,” he said, shifting on his seat. “It’s happening, there’s all the normal stuff, she seems to be enjoying herself. The album’s running through again for the second time and another ad’s playing for three-for-one something or other. Then she sort of scoots up the bed and gives the impression that she might turn over and face the other way.”
“She wants you to fuck her from behind.”
“Hold on. We’re just sort of going through the motions, nothing crazy, she’s still on her back, but we go to shift things up. It’s all happening slowly. But then, without warning, the whole right side of my face just cracks—like it’s been hit by a two-by-four or something. Somehow this knee’s come gunning for me. This limb, connected in no way to the hips beneath me, has come whooshing like a propeller blade, smack in my face, and hard. Kneecap, leg bones. All at once, my face is hot and damp. Eye and cheek throbbing, nose gushing.”
“Oh my god!” Whitney, alight. Whitney, in love. Those gleaming teeth. Those wide wet elastic lips.
“She’s mortified. She hops up. Throws on a robe. I ask for directions to the bathroom and end up in a closet. I must be bleeding out like a pig all over the place. I find the bathroom, close the door, get a good look at myself, naked and pasty and pathetically out of shape. Just the sight everyone wants to see after imagining themselves doing all the right things in bed. It looks like I’ve murdered an animal in the sink, there’s so much blood. I get some toilet paper up my nostril. Clean up as best I can. Watch my dick shrivel in the mirror.”
“Your clothes are in the bedroom.”
“It’s not the most comfortable three minutes, getting dressed again.”
“God, I legitimately feel terrible for her.”
“I say goodbye.”
“You kiss her good night. You mitigate the humiliation, I hope.”
“No kiss. It’s late. There’s been a lot of drinking and mouthing around. There’s some thick breath. I don’t know how okay I make her feel about the whole situation. I sort of hold her hand and shake it and tell her there’s nothing to be sorry about.”
“You shake her hand goodbye?” Whitney said, pressing her palms to her cheeks like the Munch. “Oh, Will…”
“I know. I was rusty. I was out of practice. But, hold on, there’s more. When I get to the front door, I can’t manage the right combination of the deadbolt with the other two locks while standing there in the dark. Then I hear this creature scratching with keys on the other side of the door, and we screw each other up again and again until ultimately I’m standing there in front of this mousy brunette wearing a backpack stuffed with bricks, and a Nalgene bottle clipped to the strap with a carabiner. One of the roommates, I presume. The hospital resident. She can’t take her eyes off me. And it sorta gives me butterflies, if I’m honest. This impression I seem to be making on women all over the city all night. What I’ve forgotten, of course, is that I basically have a bloody tampon sticking out of a hole in my face. Naturally I offer her my hand, too, and we shake. She looks reasonably mortified. For her friend mostly, I’m sure. I could be a home invader, for all she knows. I wish her a good night. I ride the elevator down and watch my face warp in and out in the dented reflection of the doors. I looked like one of the Picassos we saw yesterday.…I step out in the cold night. I hail a cab. Return home from the strange land across the river, my head pulsating, my face all bloody…”
“And your balls gone blue.”
“Nice,” he said. Will snorted and finished what was left in his glass. “Foreshadowing, for what it’s worth?…I didn’t come with anyone.”
“Wow,” Whitney said, shocked and saddened in equal proportions. “That’s terrible. Foreshadowing, for what it’s worth?…The same can’t be said for me.”
What timing! The waitress was at their shoulders. She apologized for the delay. She pointed to the chalkboard above the bar with its inscrutable Catalan. Through her broken English and their pathetic Spanish the three were able to agree on the simplest order: whatever the chef suggested. It was the sort of friction-less decision that might cost them a fortune. But the risk was less than picking out the names of dishes they couldn’t decipher. They understood the waitress to be asking about food restrictions, and they both shook their heads no, and it was a thing, like so many things, that was radically compatible between them. It was precisely the reason why they’d gotten engaged.
When Will proposed, he managed to do the thing he’d worried would be impossible: he actually surprised Whitney. They’d been together for seven years. They’d shared spaces and they’d lived apart. They’d traveled long distances to visit one another for a night, for three hours. They’d left
