Caleb’s face changes instantly, from neutral to alarm and horror and more than anything, concern.
“Oh, fuck,” he says. “God, I’m sorry —"
“We didn’t break up,” I say, cutting him off.
Caleb blinks.
“Right,” he says, though he’s obviously surprised. “That’s just…”
“Exactly the kind of thing we’d have gotten into a screaming match about before?”
“Something like that,” he says, very carefully.
He’s not wrong. Caleb is a lot of things — very smart, not a fan of Delilah, an outdoor enthusiast — but he’s sure not wrong.
“We didn’t,” I say. “Everything is fine, I’d just like to find anything else that I’ve forgotten about and get it out of here.”
“But you’re fine and everything is fine,” he says, still clearly not quite believing me.
“Yes,” I say.
He looks around, like he’s taking stock of the job ahead of us, surveying the living room.
“When they run search and rescue operations, the first thing they do is make a grid and then search each square meticulously,” he says. “That seems like it might be a useful way to think about this mission.”
I grin and ruffle his hair, which he hates.
“See? This is exactly why I called you,” I say.
“What? I called you and somehow got suckered into a panty search,” he says, already pacing the room. “I’ll start over here. Do you have any rubber gloves?”Despite our thoroughness, we don’t find that much: a tube of chapstick in a side table, a mystery sock in a drawer, a powder compact hiding behind a can of shaving cream in the bathroom vanity.
We’re in my bedroom — the last room to search — when Caleb grunts from the floor.
“Is that something?” he says, pointing. He’s lying face-down on the carpet, his arm under my dresser, pointing. “It looks like fabric.”
“Move, I’ll get it,” I say, and I don’t have to tell him twice.
I cross my fingers that it’s not underwear, reach under the dresser, and pull it out.
It’s not underwear. It’s too big to be underwear, the folds covered in dust and stuck together with cobwebs since I don’t exactly clean the baseboards behind my dresser that often. When I shake it out, we both back up.
“Bingo,” Caleb says, as we both look at the skirt.
It’s short, pleated, plaid. A classic schoolgirl skirt, and just as soon as I’ve held it out to see what it is, I’m crumpling it in my hands, looking for the trash.
Caleb’s just watching me and laughing.
“What?” I say, shoving it into the bin.
“Good thing she didn’t find that,” he says. “Looks like you had a good time, though.”
I shoot him a glare, but it’s not very effective. Possibly because I’m pretty sure I’ve also turned red at the fact that my little brother just found someone’s sex costume under my dresser. Why did I ask him to help, again?
“It was a while ago,” I tell him, as if that helps.
“Into that whole Catholic schoolgirl —”
“You really want to talk about who’s into Catholic schoolgirls?” I ask.
Caleb shuts up instantly, then clears his throat.
“The outfit wasn’t my idea,” I tell him, and he wisely says nothing.
Each of the things we found today, I could tell you whose they were except for the chapstick, which might even be mine. The panties belonged to a woman named Susan who was in town for a week and who I saw twice. Every so often, she still texts me to ask how I’m doing.
The hairbrush was Theresa’s. The makeup bag was Lindsey’s. The powder compact belonged to a woman named Gina, with whom I had an extremely casual relationship for several months.
And the skirt belonged to Gwen, a very enthusiastic woman who initially said she wanted the exact same things I did — no commitments, no strings, casual, physical — but who ended things when she wanted more than I could give her. She called once to ask if I knew where the skirt was, and I guess I could tell her now, but it’s been so long that I’m sure she’s gotten a new skirt.
I remember everyone I’ve been with. Names, faces, what we talked about afterward. If that’s not enough I wrote everything down in a spreadsheet, afraid of being the soulless asshole who can’t keep his lovers straight. It was never about notches on my bedpost. It was about doing something I was good at: making women like me.
The early women I wasn’t kind to. Back then I didn’t give a fuck beyond not knocking anyone up or getting a disease, so I fucked around and dated three or four girls at the same time, letting them each think they were the only one until I got caught. Someone spray-painted the word MANWHORE on my car, and I’m still not sure who.
I deserved it. I was the asshole who let them think I might be in love with them, then took what I wanted until I was done. They’d call me their boyfriend. Occasionally they’d talk marriage or kids, or would want me to meet their families, and I’d string them along until I got bored.