Earning Her Keep (Price of Love)

But never existing is complicated. Sometimes, now, I feel like a shell of myself. Who was I then? Who am I now? I don’t fucking know.

But one thing I know for sure. I want her.

When I’m watching her, I feel like I know who I am.

Or who I could be. If only I had the courage to let her see me in return.

Just as she’s smoothing the cuffs on another of my dress shirts, my watch buzzes with a reminder. An appointment downtown with an art dealer in 27 minutes, just like every Tuesday at 11:30a.m. And I do mean every fucking Tuesday, without fail. Even on the fourth of July. Even on Christmas. Normally, the predictability and order would be soothing, reassuring.

But today, it annoys the shit out of me. Because all I want is to be here, watching her, taking her in. Consuming her inch by inch.

Yet the rules exist for a reason. The rules keep me calm. The rules keep shit from spinning out of control. The rules keep me from making a mistake and unraveling the deception of my identity that keeps me—and my father—safe. The spreadsheets and details of my former life make people nervous. The kind of people that don’t like loose ends.

So I drag myself away from the secret room, get my wallet and keys, and go down the hidden back stairway to the garage. I triple-check the deadbolt behind me and get in my SUV.

My Yukon looks like it belongs to a SWAT commander. I didn’t buy it for that reason, but I’m not fucking complaining. I like to be left alone. I like to be feared. And even better than that, I like when people pull over on the shoulder to let me pass on the highway.

Move aside, motherfuckers.

The engine roars to life with Akira The Don’s “Discipline Equals Freedom” blaring.

But even as I back out of the garage, even as I’m about to get started on my Tuesday routine—never vary, never change—I’m feeling unsettled. My anxiety is a nasty bastard. It’s not some little bullshit thing that deep breathing and positive thoughts can cure—fuck no. It’s a beast. A brute.

It’s a whiskey hangover meets two days without sleep. It’s an IRS audit meets an emergency landing. Fucker is as big as a rabid grizzly bear and exactly as easy to ignore. That shit started for me back in elementary school. The teachers didn’t know what to do with me. I fucking corrected them about everything. Worried about everything.

Back then, they just called it defiance. Back-talk.

They tried to beat it out of me with a wooden paddle. Didn’t work and as soon as my father found out, they were lucky it was only the paddle he broke.

From there, I made peace with the disorder of order as best I could, but I’ve always known I vibrate at a different frequency than most. I’m a dial turned up to ten, then jump started until sparks fly and you smell things starting to burn.

So I do what I know works. I lean hard into my rules. I put all my faith in my system. I cross-check everything in my head. The locks are secure, the security system is set to record everything, I’ve logged out of all my accounts, triple-checked the bank safe in my bedroom suite. But still, still, I feel it.

I ignore it and put the pedal down hard, and try to speed my way through it, tires spinning.

Doesn’t work. I slam on the brakes, about ten feet from the entry to the road up ahead. My mind is consumed with thoughts of her.

That laugh and pose she took as she almost tripped on her sock. The way she brushes her hair. Ten strokes on the right side first. Then twelve on the left, then two more on the right, then she starts on the back. I memorize it all.

The shape of her toenails. The way she bites her lip when she’s thinking. The way her blue eyes glisten when she tells Ethel a knock-knock joke. The way she runs her fingers over her nipples when she’s in the shower.

A tap at the window snaps me out of my lusty delirium. It’s Morty, Ethel’s husband. The two of them take care of this estate—and me.

Morty is in top form. He’s got on his gardening hat and his old-guy sunglasses. Morty is afraid of only two things: overreliance on foreign manufacturing and cataracts. “Blue Blockers,” he’s always telling me. “Ordered them from the TV. Made right here in the US of A!”

I admire a guy who is consistent in his obsessions.

“Are you alright, sir?” he asks.

“Yeah, fine, just…” Thinking about her flesh, her lips, that fucking raspberry-shaped birthmark on her left ass cheek. “…just thinking.”

Morty takes off his Blue Blockers. “But it’s 11:18 in the a.m. on Tuesday. Aren’t you supposed to be downtown in twelve…”