4. Chapter 4 Theo
Chapter 4 Theo
T his cannot be happening.
What is Staley doing here?
Two things hit me all at once.
It’s 8:00 a.m.? How on God’s green earth did I sleep so long?
Staley Monroe is standing on my front porch looking like an utter goddess, the sun dancing around her reddish hair like a small campfire. It’s all hot and mesmerizing.
Make it three things: Staley Monroe is my cuddler. Although she’s held me once, I don’t know how I feel about paying her to do so again.
Thank God I put on pants. The sun glares in my struggling eyes, forcing me into a desperate squint because this has to be an illusion. Bourbon was a bad idea. A groan is all I can muster, and my tongue is plastered to the roof of my mouth as if I’d slept with cotton in my cheeks.
Okay, four: I’m a certifiable idiot.
A rotting feeling stirs within my stomach. Excuses line up in a queue in my mind. I’ll tell her I have the flu, a case of violent food poisoning, or shingles, and booking a session was an accident. My reflection in the mirror by the front door only bolsters the illness story, as my eyes are bloodshot, and my face is puffy and blotchy.
I must have pressed submit in my boozy state.
My stomach lurches, and my palm slips from the doorknob from nervous sweating— retreat, retreat, retreat . Like the greatest poets who repeat words in their works of art to emphasize their importance, retreating is the only rhythm I can find meaning in now. Staley cannot cross this threshold. I won’t, no, I can’t, allow it.
“Mr. Sullivan?” She repeats my name.
My head drops against the door in defeat. With a slight thud, I beg my body’s greatest weapon, my brain, to activate. You need a plan, genius.
I tug my lip into my mouth and bite down. It’s a terrible habit, but one that often gives me the best ideas when I’m stuck in my writing.
But you can’t write your way out of this one, Sullivan. Fu-fuck.
My internal dialogue also has a stutter.
My objection turns to a sigh, and I think about what Barb said yesterday. I can subject myself to a stuttering, tripping-over-my-words conversation with people or find another way. But this moment is not a conversation, not the one I had in mind anyway. Staley is here right now.
To cuddle me.
This is it—my moment. She is lovely, but we met under the most precarious of circumstances.
“Y-yes. Hello, Staley.”
Slamming the door in her face, and pretending none of this happened, could be a viable option. Or I can count this as an immersive experience as Barb suggested. All I have to do is invite Staley Monroe into my home for a cuddle session. Most poetry benefits from the occasional variation, if only to assist in removing the boring parts. Perhaps this is all I’m dealing with now, a variation or a constancy of ticking keeping everything in time at its own pace. The variation rattles, enlivens, and even quiets the reader into remaining interested.
“May I come in?”
She is radiant, and in the timeless words of William Wordsworth, “A lovely Apparition, sent.”
These are not ideal circumstances, but nothing in my life has proven otherwise up until this point. She glares at the face of her watch, taps her foot, and parrots her head to the side in an attempt to get eyes on me. If I learned anything about her in class, it’s that she has persistence flowing through her veins. Leaving my front door at a slight crack is like a ticking clock. Opening it is the variation.
“Mr. Sullivan, class is in an hour and a half.”
Impatience laces her words.
If I let her in and we cuddle, I’ll need to open up to her and let her hear my voice.
In the absence of speech, I open the door and allow Staley Monroe in.
The scent of clean linens and something fruity emanates from her as she passes. Her sigh is miniscule as if this is the last place she wants to be, and part of me agrees with the sentiment.
“Where can I sit? I’ll need to review a few things with you before we start your session, and we’re already behind.”
Right. The whole I got drunk daydreaming about her while accidentally filling out a cuddling appointment, submitting it, and then meeting her at my front door hungover may have something to do with it. I am her teaching assistant, which is one big gray area.
“You could s-say that again.”
I mumble only to myself.
“I’m sorry. Do you have a complaint about the schedule? I was here on time. Look, my app shows me checked in five minutes early. You took ten years to get to the door and open it.”
There’s her spark again. My body hums with a new sensation, electric maybe.
It’s safer for me to stay quiet and keep my voice under control as much as possible. Shaking my head, no, is all I offer. I gesture for her to sit at my dining table, and yet she very forwardly makes herself comfortable in my writing chair instead.
Removing her plaid flannel exposes her softness and a small strip of her creamy midriff. Staley’s figure is curvy in all the right places, pear-shaped with full hips. Avoiding eye contact with her doesn’t stop the tightness from forming in my belly. If I have a type, she is it.
The flannel hangs on the back of the chair as if she’s been to my place a million times before. She eases into my writing chair, completely relaxed. I’d rob my mother of her unearned millions to pay for the sense of assuredness Staley carries herself with.
Thoughts crowd my mind, and questions I long to ask her pile up like tabs open on a computer screen.
Why do you smell like coffee?
Do you hang your clothes to dry?
The erotic audio . . .
Sweat from the hangover trickles down my spine, spurring me into a nervous frenzy. Nerves plus sweat equals a breeding ground for a lot of stuttering. Without a breath between words, she delivers the spiel she must give her cuddle clients.
“Right, before I, I mean we, start—Mr. Sullivan, or um? Theo?”
Her cheeks flush as she looks up from her phone. Am I making her uncomfortable?
“T-theo.”
“Theo. There are a few ground rules listed here on our release form, which you initiated last night. I’ll need you to review them again and then sign your name here to agree to the terms again. Consent is a must for Cuddle Like You Mean It clients and cuddlers. It’s not only to protect me, but you too.”
Staley stands to hand me the document I supposedly submitted last night. There they are, my initials next to multiple boxes.
TS. TS. TS.
I scan the important parts:
Cuddle appointments are to adhere to the timeframe set forth. Any session exceeding the booked time will incur charges at a prorated fee. If the cuddler feels their safety is at risk, they are entitled to leave the session without explanation, after which an investigation will be conducted. Sexual advances, inappropriate touching and/or groping, as well as indecent commentary toward your cuddler, can be determined grounds for cancellation of this contract and any future sessions.
In other words, I agree to gentlemanlike behavior, which has never been a problem. Nice is easy enough.
There’s an inherent power dynamic here I wouldn’t need to consider if the cuddle agency had sent me someone far less good looking and far less one of my students. This is fixable. I’ll tell her how I respect our roles too much to put her in this position and give her an out.
If only I could end this interaction by continuing to bore a hole through the paper by staring at it for too long. Staley takes notice.
“Do you need a pen?”
Before I can answer, Staley is back at my desk searching for a pen. Memories from last night flood my brain, sweeping me out of my frozen state to beat her to what I did not want her to discover. Pages and pages written, splayed about my workspace, waiting to be discovered. Because what could be worse than this?
Not a damn thing. Staley is centimeters from holding my top-secret, private writing in her hands, from making this morning nine million times worse than it already is. My hand brushes against hers briefly, and there is static between us, constricting my chest and setting off attraction alarm bells. Without a moment to lose, I snatch the papers away and slip them into a drawer.
I slam the drawer shut, causing the cup of pencils, microphone, and lamp on the desk to rattle. Staley releases a small yelp at the sound, and I can only assume how much I am ruining everything right now.
I have no choice but to channel the coolest part of me and nonchalantly lean back on the desk with my arms crossed over my chest. How’s that for seduction, DH Lawrence?
Staley looks up at me with a glimmer of violence behind her eyes.
“Look, Theo, if you don’t want to sign the contract, say so, and I’ll be on my way. But the money you paid is non-refundable. The tip too. Consent matters.”
Right. She asked for a pen. I fish one out of the desk and hand it over.
Staley looks at the pen and looks back at me. Her energy is nothing short of irked, and it’s official—I have entered Chad territory in her eyes.
“The pen is for you, Theo. To sign ... If you want to.”
My chest warms because, of course, I want to. I want nothing more than the opportunity to lay side by side with this woman, to get to know her. Experience her, respectfully. To practice.
Staley is eyeing me as if I’m the worst cuddle client she’s ever encountered, and I might agree with her. Between the admonishing look she’s giving me and the lingering hope she might listen to me, stutter and all—with as much attentiveness as she provides the male voice on her phone—I realize what a conundrum I’ve inserted myself into. But we poets are total daydreamers, and courage is fleeting. I scribble one more TS and hand the contract back to her.
But this isn’t a story about Mr. Darcy placing his hand in Miss Bennett’s as she climbs into a carriage. This is a tragedy about Theodore Sullivan—the boy with a stutter.
My heart fails to maintain a regular pattern at the uptick of her smiling mouth.
“Great, now let’s go over your intake form. So, you’re a virgin?”
Of all the questions Staley Monroe could have asked me, it has to be this one.
Fu-fuck me.