Under the Stars and Stripes (Under Him)

She’s already dressed in the outfit I had couriered to her address late last night and, per my instructions, she isn’t wearing makeup.

She doesn’t need to. After I started to develop the pictures I took of her the other day, I noticed how perfectly the light seems to hit her from almost any angle in such a way that it eliminates the need for it.

I shrug.

“Shit happens.”

I wave for her to follow me into the building.

“How’s your week been so far?”

She sighs.

“Could be better. I’ve been apartment hunting for the last two days with my best friend but finding a place during a pandemic can be difficult when no one wants to show up and let you see the places.”

“Yeah, but soon enough, the prices on everything will drop tremendously because there will have been this long stretch of time where no one could leave the houses they’re in to go to new ones and the market is going to be very consumer friendly.”

She nods.

“That’s… well that’s actually kind of cynical.” She seems to ponder this for a moment. “I like it.”

“So why the sudden house hunting?” I ask her. “Don’t you think you should lock down a few checks before hemorrhaging out a deposit?”

“Actually, yes, but it just all goes back to losing my job. My best friend and I had an apartment in the city that we split the rent on. But she got laid off the same day my restaurant shut down and we both had to move back home for the time being.”

“Oh…” I say. “Something wrong with your folks? Because if I’m not mistaken… didn’t that just happen like five days ago? Could you not just stay with them?”

“Well. I mean, there’s nothing technically wrong with them, as in, they’re both still alive, if that’s what you mean, although my mom is MIA.”

I feel my head jerk back in confusion.

“MIA? What do you mean? Like… she was taken?”

She snorts as she laughs, but I’m being completely serious.

“No, Liam Neeson,” she teases.

“That better not be a knock at my age.”

“Oh, it definitely is, old man,” she giggles. “But no, she and my dad split a couple years ago. He’s quite the drunk and may be a misogynist as well. But it could just be me and my mom that he hates.”

I’m a little taken aback yet again.

“Wait… he hates you?” I ask.

She sighs.

“In a word… yes.”

This poor girl. Who would’ve thought that under all the exterior perfections of her curves and visage, so much pain lay beneath.

“It’s cool though,” she says. “He’s been this way for as long as I can remember. If he were to change now, the shock would probably trigger a stroke in my brain.”

Before the thought even tries to make any sense in my brain, it’s coming out of my mouth so fast that the words might as well be riding down a mudslide of vomit.

“Well, I have an extra bedroom you’re welcome to stay in while you look for a new place if he’s getting to you,” I tell her.

It’s not exactly the smoothest I’ve ever been with a woman, but I guess it could have been worse.

She spins around and looks at me, her perfectly shaped brow furrowing at me.

One of her eyes squints down and she asks, “Huh?”

“Wow, um… that offer probably sounded a little weird coming from your new boss, didn’t it?”

She purses her lips as if she’s trying to conceal a smile and says, “Uhh… I don’t know if I’d say it’s weird necessarily. But it’s certainly not what I was expecting.”

She bobs her head up and down as if she’s considering, but I worry she may just be trying to allow an adequate amount of time to pass, to make it seem as if she’s considering this offer while actually thinking of a polite way to say no.

“No, actually, it is a little weird,” she finally says, “considering that we just met and you could be a serial killer.”

“How do I know you’re not the serial killer?” I fire back.

“Well… I’m not the 30-something inviting 19-year-olds back to take up temporary shelter at his lair and/or sex dungeon.”

“Well, obviously you’re not going to invite me back to your lair and/or sex dungeon, because, duh… then I’d see all the bodies of your old bosses that you’ve slain before me.” I pause and roll back the mental transcript of everything I’ve just said. “Wait… when you say sex dungeon, does it spark joy or despair in you?”

She laughs just as Tony is entering the room with Justin.

“Did someone say sex dungeon?” Justin asks without prompting.

“I had a sex dungeon once,” Tony says. We all look at him in surprise, and then he adds, “Well… it was one of those tiny buildings they sell outside in the Home Depot parking lot, and it wasn’t really a sex dungeon so much as it was the place I went to get away from my girlfriend while we were fighting.”