[Breeder] Howls: A Coda

[TheBreeder]

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Thursday afternoon I was sitting on the sofa with Spencer, watching Absolutely Fabulous. He’d caught an episode here and there, but had never watched the entire series through, before. There was a scene in which Edina slobbers all over a European designer and blurts out something to him in her awful French. “What’d she say?” I asked Spencer. Because while I read French, I don’t have a clue of how the sounds match up to the words.

He was curled up next to me on the sofa, leaning on a pillow wedged against my hip. “I am your demon,” he said, almost immediately. “No. Wait.” Then he began sounding out all the possibilities.

I watched him fondly, as he pondered the various implications of the conjugations of faire. I’d been angry when he’d left Monday night; the train wreck of one bad night had left me drained and my head full of noise. Tuesday I’d moped and written about what I’d been feeling. He’d texted me Tuesday night to say he was probably going to go home instead of coming to my house, because he needed a night off to relax. I think we both needed a little distance.

Wednesday night he showed up with a wide, white-toothed smile, a pair of open arms, and a bag full of chocolate-dusted almonds as a gift. Seeing him like that healed all my hurt, instantly. He was especially sweet all night. By Thursday, we were curled up in our familiar configuration, pausing the DVD frequently to talk and exchange observations and to laugh. It was comfortable; it was intimate. It’s how I want to spend our remaining time together—as real friends, and not as combatants.

“I’m here to fuck you,” he said finally, after a good three minutes of coming up with alternate translations of what Edina had said. Not as an offer. “It was either, I’m here to fuck you, or I am your demon.” He saw my lips pulling out into a smile and my eyebrows raised. “Or maybe something else entirely. . . ?”

“I’m kind of not foreseeing a future career as a simultaneous U.N. translator,” I joked.

“Shut UP,” he retorted, in a mock huff. “I’m not good at rapid translations!”

“You're good at so many other things,” I consoled. "You don't have to be good at everything."

“I’m good at disappointment.”

There was a note in his voice that made me pause the DVD to look at him.

He stared at his hands. “I’m good at disappointing people.”

“Sweetie,” I said, laying a hand on his arm. “We all disappoint each other.”

We hadn’t mentioned Monday night. But I knew we were talking about it. “I really, really don’t like disappointing people.”

“I suspect you disappoint yourself more than you disappoint anyone else.” I rifflled my fingers through his hair. “You’re far from being a disappointment. I’m happy to know you.”

He looked at me, then looked at his lap. Finally he took my hand, and gave it a squeeze. And you know what? Everything felt all right. I haven’t forgotten what happened. I’ve learned from what I went through, both with him and on my own. If there’s a repeat of it in the next couple of weeks before I go, I’ll know what to say, and how to approach it.

But right at that moment, with my hand in his, it did feel as if we were firm friends again.

“Or maybe it was I want to make you fuck?” he mused.

“Uh-huh,” I said, and turned back on the DVD.

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