that Victorcalls
boy panties
. He’s every inch Victor’s type: compact, muscular, curly black hair, olive-skinned. Ethnicity tough to peg. For some reason Victor makes a big show out of his refusal to sleep with other Colombian guys, and it’d be a bad guess for this guy anyway, whose features skew a little more Hebraic. Both of his nipples are pierced with tiny steel barbells, giving his chest a look that Ollie thinks of as
perky
.
“Looking for the bathroom?” Ollie says.
“Yes, please?” says the hookup.
“You want the second door on the left,” Ollie says. “This is the first door on the left.”
Hookup leans out the door again, looks down the hall, leans back in, a smile across his face. Perfect teeth, she notices, again in keeping with Victor’s taste. “Thanks!”
“You got it,” says Ollie, and she gives a little thumbs-up and then falls back down to the pillow, pressing her face into it, inhaling the metallic stink. A second later she can hear the pipes in the wall shudder into life, the slosh of water falling into the clawfoot’s wide basin.
“Isn’t he a dear.” Another voice at the doorway: Victor. She pulls her head up a second time. His body type is nearly identical to the hookup’s and he’s wearing the same style of underwear, only patterned with maroon and cream stripes. No nipple studs: Victor’s decorative gesture is a crucifix on a slender gold chain.
“He’s fine,” Ollie croaks. “You think you’ll be keeping this one?”
“Oh, no,” Victor says. “A young thing like that, his whole life ahead of him? It would be cruel.”
“I thought you delighted in cruelty. Didn’t you say that once? Something something its exquisite grandeur?”
Victor makes a
tch
sound with his tongue, as though she’s misjudged him terribly, and then he comes and gets into bed with her. They go way back, Victor and her, and this is not an uncommon way for them to begin the morning. It’s affectionate but not sexual, even though this morning she can smell the musk of fucking on him, and his semihard penis pokes her naked ass as he snuggles up behind her. She grumbles and pushes him back an inch, her palm into his face.
“My sweet,” Victor says, and when she goes just a beat too long before responding he props himself on an elbow and asks, brightly, “What are you thinking about?”
What is she thinking about. The same stupid stuff. The farm. The broken circle which used to be Ollie and Donald and Jesse. She could admit this to Victor. He’s the one person from her adolescence who she’s held on to in adulthood, and so he already knows the whole sad tale. He knows the pre-farm Ollie as well as the post-farm Ollie, just like she knows the pre–Food Network Victor and the post–Food Network Victor. And she’s confided in him before on mornings like this one, mornings when she misses the life she made for herself. Sometimes it feels good to miss it out loud, while Victor strokes her hair sympathetically. But sometimes she’s not in the mood. Sometimes it feels pathetic to still regret a mistake you made a long time ago. Sometimes you have to front like you’re strong. Isn’t that the way, she wonders, to actually become strong? Fake it till you make it, like the alcoholics say?
But Victor still awaits her answer. What
else
is shethinking about, she wonders, trying to remember. She thumbs the scar tissue on her finger, a piece of nervous habit usually, but today it reminds her of knives, which reminds her of Guychardson, which gives her something to offer to Victor, something to get him off the trail of the real answer.
“I’m thinking,” she says, “about a knife.”
“A knife?”
“A magic knife.”
Victor may have ended up turning into a pastry chef instead of a warlock, but he still uses the magic he learned from the street magicians, usually to get himself nudged back into the limelight, with only partial success. He’s always nagging her to get back to practicing,
boy panties
. He’s every inch Victor’s type: compact, muscular, curly black hair, olive-skinned. Ethnicity tough to peg. For some reason Victor makes a big show out of his refusal to sleep with other Colombian guys, and it’d be a bad guess for this guy anyway, whose features skew a little more Hebraic. Both of his nipples are pierced with tiny steel barbells, giving his chest a look that Ollie thinks of as
perky
.
“Looking for the bathroom?” Ollie says.
“Yes, please?” says the hookup.
“You want the second door on the left,” Ollie says. “This is the first door on the left.”
Hookup leans out the door again, looks down the hall, leans back in, a smile across his face. Perfect teeth, she notices, again in keeping with Victor’s taste. “Thanks!”
“You got it,” says Ollie, and she gives a little thumbs-up and then falls back down to the pillow, pressing her face into it, inhaling the metallic stink. A second later she can hear the pipes in the wall shudder into life, the slosh of water falling into the clawfoot’s wide basin.
“Isn’t he a dear.” Another voice at the doorway: Victor. She pulls her head up a second time. His body type is nearly identical to the hookup’s and he’s wearing the same style of underwear, only patterned with maroon and cream stripes. No nipple studs: Victor’s decorative gesture is a crucifix on a slender gold chain.
“He’s fine,” Ollie croaks. “You think you’ll be keeping this one?”
“Oh, no,” Victor says. “A young thing like that, his whole life ahead of him? It would be cruel.”
“I thought you delighted in cruelty. Didn’t you say that once? Something something its exquisite grandeur?”
Victor makes a
tch
sound with his tongue, as though she’s misjudged him terribly, and then he comes and gets into bed with her. They go way back, Victor and her, and this is not an uncommon way for them to begin the morning. It’s affectionate but not sexual, even though this morning she can smell the musk of fucking on him, and his semihard penis pokes her naked ass as he snuggles up behind her. She grumbles and pushes him back an inch, her palm into his face.
“My sweet,” Victor says, and when she goes just a beat too long before responding he props himself on an elbow and asks, brightly, “What are you thinking about?”
What is she thinking about. The same stupid stuff. The farm. The broken circle which used to be Ollie and Donald and Jesse. She could admit this to Victor. He’s the one person from her adolescence who she’s held on to in adulthood, and so he already knows the whole sad tale. He knows the pre-farm Ollie as well as the post-farm Ollie, just like she knows the pre–Food Network Victor and the post–Food Network Victor. And she’s confided in him before on mornings like this one, mornings when she misses the life she made for herself. Sometimes it feels good to miss it out loud, while Victor strokes her hair sympathetically. But sometimes she’s not in the mood. Sometimes it feels pathetic to still regret a mistake you made a long time ago. Sometimes you have to front like you’re strong. Isn’t that the way, she wonders, to actually become strong? Fake it till you make it, like the alcoholics say?
But Victor still awaits her answer. What
else
is shethinking about, she wonders, trying to remember. She thumbs the scar tissue on her finger, a piece of nervous habit usually, but today it reminds her of knives, which reminds her of Guychardson, which gives her something to offer to Victor, something to get him off the trail of the real answer.
“I’m thinking,” she says, “about a knife.”
“A knife?”
“A magic knife.”
Victor may have ended up turning into a pastry chef instead of a warlock, but he still uses the magic he learned from the street magicians, usually to get himself nudged back into the limelight, with only partial success. He’s always nagging her to get back to practicing,
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