Chapter 5 Henry #2
Jamison Duschene: Imagination, my friend. The teddy bears live in our imaginations. Or, in your case, in the woods.
Me: Oh lord, not you too. I live in the suburbs, ffs. I have neighbors and I can order delivery. Neither of those would be true if I actually lived in the woods.
Jamison Duschene: Me too? Who else is teasing you about your lumbersexual lifestyle?
Me: My lumber…no. Nope. And my friend Jamal is always teasing me about where I live. I’ve mentioned this to you, I think. I think that’s actually how you know I live in the woods.
Jamison Duschene: Aha! You admit it!
Me: What? I didn’t…oh, fuck you. Now you’ve got me saying it. I don’t live in the woods!
Jamison Duschene: Mmhmmm.
Me: I have a table sitting here calling my name, why am I even talking to someone who’s making fun of me.
Jamison Duschene: Hey I’m not making fun of you! Um, much. It’s done with affection, at least.
Jamison Duschene: More seriously for a second, thank you for getting me out of my head and making me laugh. Charlie was on my last nerve and if you hadn’t been here to bitch to I probably would have lost my shit at her, and that never ends well for me.
Me: Your sister’s name is Charlie?
Jamison Duschene: Yep. Short for Charlotte, but she says that takes too long to say, so Charlie she became. I call her Charlie Manson when she pisses me off.
Me: Oof, serial killer reference, I bet she loves that.
Jamison Duschene: Ooh, I’m impressed you got that. A lot of people don’t.
Me: Hey, I have Netflix and a fascination with true crime, the same as any millennial worth their salt. And Charles Manson was a big name.
Curie jumped into my lap and started kneading my thighs, startling me a little. I scratched her ears with my free hand as her solid body weight pressed into me. “You’re getting chubby,” I told her, “you know that? We may have to reconsider the free-feeding thing after your next vet visit.”
I swear the cat rolled her eyes at me. We both knew I wasn’t going to restrict her food intake after the way she’d come to me.
I found her as a ragged bag of skin and bones in the woods behind my house when she was only about six months old.
She’d been frightened and starving, and I’d had to hand-feed her for the first week before she’d come out of her shell enough to explore the dish I’d set up for her.
Sure, she was maybe a little on the, um, dense side these days, but I’d much rather have a chubby cat who knew she was loved than a starving one who lived in a tree.
Jamison Duschene: Millennials ftw. Wait, exactly how old are you, it just occurred to me that I don’t know the answer to that so I don’t know when you were born.
Me: I’m thirty-five, I was born in 1990.
Jamison Duschene: Oh you’re a 90s baby!
Me: Wait, are you not?
Me: Shit that was probably offensive to say, wasn’t it. Let’s pretend I said nothing.
Jamison Duschene: Lol no offense taken…much. I was born in ninety-three, I’m turning thirty-two in a few months. And I have the gray hairs to prove it.
Me: You do not have gray hair! I would have noticed.
Jamison Duschene: I totally do. Right at my temples, I have the beginnings of gray streaks. Presumably you were too busy looking at more interesting parts of me to notice my hair.
As if on command, my mind’s eye tossed up an image of Jamison’s cock, smooth and pink and luscious.
I hadn’t gotten my mouth on it that night, and I regretted that deeply.
I usually loved giving head, especially to a responsive partner, and judging by his reactions to my prepping him, he was a responsive one indeed.
Idly, I wondered what he would taste like.
Probably on the sweeter side, I decided.
Too bad that ship had sailed; there was no way he’d want to sleep with me again after my colossal fuck-up that first time.
Wait, it had been my turn to text, hadn’t it? Shit. I turned my thoughts forcibly away from Jamison’s dick and back to my phone. Was he flirting with me? Should I flirt back? Probably no on both counts. I went for a neutral response.
Me: If we ever see each other again, I’m going to examine your head first thing.
Jamison Duschene: You sure you haven’t met my sister? She says I need to get my head examined pretty regularly.
Me: Omg I didn’t mean…lol. Then again you’re still talking to me, so maybe you do need your head examined in that way too.
Jamison Duschene: What’s that supposed to mean? You’re a good conversationalist!
Me: Nobody’s ever accused me of that before. Usually I get ‘Gee, Henry, you need to spend less time with your wood and more time with people.’ Turns out the wood doesn’t talk back and my skills are thus rusty.
Jamison Duschene: If the wood starts talking back, you need to find help. And you’re doing just fine at human conversation, tyvm. Who told you otherwise?
Me: Mostly my mom. She’s less than impressed with my social life and social skills.
Jamison Duschene: Rude. I mean, I’d say something stronger but I don’t want to badmouth your mom, but still, rude. You’re fine.
Me: Texting is a lot easier than face-to-face or phone calls. It gives me time to think through what I’m saying.
Jamison Duschene: I think that’s true for almost everyone, at least of our generation.
Old people maybe find phone calls easier, but I can’t remember the last time I talked to someone under, say, forty-five who preferred calls.
Though the more outgoing among us do tend to prefer face-to-face.
I can go either way (snerk), but I think I’m more of a social person than you going by what you’ve said so far.
Me: Do you go out on a regular or semi-regular basis? Can you carry on a conversation with a stranger? If your answer to either of those is yes, you’re way ahead of me.
Jamison Duschene: Teddy bear, you gotta stop being down on yourself.
Me: Oh my god please tell me my name isn’t ‘Teddy bear’ now somehow.
Jamison Duschene: …
Jamison Duschene: …
Jamison Duschene: …
Me: I hate you.
Stretching out my leg, I nudged the edge of the table I’d been working on and studied it critically. Was that beveling right? It looked like I could stand to sand down the edges of the joint just a tad more to smooth it out.
Curie, jostled by my movement, let out a peevish meow and jumped off my lap, stalking off to yet another pillow.
Me: I just moved my leg when my cat was on my lap and long story short she’s no longer speaking to me.
Jamison Duschene: WAIT YOU HAVE A CAT??
Me: Um…yes?
Jamison Duschene: Name? Age? PICTURES?? You can’t just mention a cat and not provide these things.
I grinned, not having expected that level of enthusiasm in response to my awkward non sequitur, and started scrolling through my photo album to find the cutest photo I had.
Settling on a shot of Curie on her back with her legs in the air, exposing her weirdly hairless (considering the amount of fur elsewhere) belly, I sent it along to Jamison.
Me: It’s a trap!
Jamison Duschene: I will absolutely touch the belly anyway and then be shocked when I get clawed. What’s her name?
Me: Curie. She’s something like two years old, I don’t really know because I found her in the woods as a kitten.
Jamison Duschene: You adopted. A kitten. Out of the woods.
Was that weird? Lots of people adopted stray cats, surely?
Me: Yes?
Jamison Duschene: My brovaries just exploded.
Me: Please never say ‘brovaries’ again. Makes me think of the ‘men having babies’ erotica I’ve come across and just…no.
Jamison Duschene: You’re no fun. Why’d you name her Curie? Is it like Marie Curie? Or like she’s CURI-ous? Or she likes curry?
Me: Lol pretty sure cats don’t eat curry. And I wouldn’t want to see the litterbox if they did. She’s named after Marie Curie because I would swear she was glowing when I found her. Made me think of radium and thus, Curie.
Jamison Duschene: *blink* Your cat is a fairy.
Me: If so, she’s the least sweet fairy in existence. Girl’s got an attitude and I mayyyy have her spoiled rotten.
Jamison Duschene: Of course you have. How could you not with a face like that?
Unable to help myself, I sent him two more photos: one of her gazing into the camera with her bright green eyes, and one of her curled up on her pink satin pillow that I privately referred to as the Princess Bed.
Me: When she looks at me like that, I’d pretty much do whatever she says.
Me: And, well, a princess requires satin bedding.
Jamison Duschene: Sorry, Jaime can’t come to the phone, he’s dead of the cute. THAT FACE.
Me: It’s lethal. I speak from experience.
Jamison Duschene: Try not to let her kill you, I prefer you alive.
My stupid heart did a little pitter-pat at that and I rolled my eyes at myself.
All someone has to do is say they prefer you alive?
I demanded of myself. Talk about low standards.
But then, that was about as close to a declaration of love as I’d gotten since my last relationship went down the tubes.
And his ‘I love you’s hardly counted when he’d also been boinking other guys in the bed he slept with me in.
Grrr. I was still pissed about that. I wasn’t heartbroken, not anymore, but pissed? Yeah, still that. Fucking asshole.
My phone buzzed.
Jamison Duschene: Did I overwhelm you with my sentimental attachment to your still breathing? You went quiet.
How long had I been sitting there internally raging about Ramsey and his wandering dick, to have Jamison checking in with me? I checked the timestamp on his last text, 12:34, and then the time on my phone, 12:39. Oh. Five minutes of rage wasn’t that bad.
Me: Sorry, got lost in thought. I appreciate your preference for me to be living and will do my best to persist in that state.
Jamison Duschene: Damn straight, you'd better.
Jamison Duschene: Oh shit, my sister’s calling again. Should I even answer? She probably just wants to yell at me some more.
Jamison Duschene: But if I don’t answer then I get extra yelling next time.
Me: Answer it. I’ll ttyl.
Jamison Duschene: If I never respond to you again, it means she killed me. Avenge me!
Shaking my head with a smile, I put my phone down and returned to my work on the table. I’d promised the Uthers that they’d have it for Thanksgiving, which meant that I needed to buckle down and focus on work rather than not-flirting with a guy I’d slept with once.
Even if I kinda wanted to do it again.