10. Olly #3
I had leaned forward while holding his hand, and he held it tighter, as if he were afraid I’d fly away if he let go.
He put the hot sauce down, and after the most agonizing silence I’d ever endured, he said, “Magic. I like that. I like a rogue black hole, doing as it pleases and becoming what it likes, instead of trying to wedge itself into the saltshaker or the peppermill. I know, I’m mixing up your metaphors, but I get it, I really do.
You’re a rather mysterious, unique celestial body, Olly McLeod, and I am so intrigued by you that I’m sorry you felt like you had to keep this part of you a secret.
” He paused then, like he just caught on to something important.
“Not just me, but everyone, right? Because this would dominate the rumour mill at work, if you came out as...what do you call yourself? Genderfluid? Genderqueer?”
I laughed a little sadly because he was right about this being great grist for the mill at work.
“I just prefer plain old nonbinary. Or ‘enby’ for short. And my pronouns currently are she and her. I already have everyone calling me what’s basically a guy’s nickname, but if I do feel ready to come out, my pronouns will be they and them.
And my name in my heart will always be Oliver, but I don’t think I can make that public.
It feels too sacred to me, too important.
I’m content to be—how did you say it?—mysterious and unique Olly. ”
He lifted my hand and kissed the back of it, tenderly at first, then with a slight scrape of teeth.
“Then I will only think of you by that name, until you’re ready for me to say it out loud, if ever.
The same with the pronouns.” He cleared his throat, and slowly placed my hand back on the table.
“Um, so a question. I get you’re nonbinary, but how does that affect your intimate life? I mean, are you interested in men?”
I laughed and patted my now very small but noticeable tummy bump.
“Don’t worry. This baby was conceived consensually with Shepard.
In theory, I like men, women, those in-between, or those who reject the whole idea of gender.
Anyone, really, as long as I like their mind and their heart.
That’s my big criteria. What’s inside, not what parts are outside.
So I call myself pansexual, to mean everyone, even though in reality I’ve only been with Shepard and Joey. And got knocked up by each.”
“And you said this wasn’t a TED Talk,” he teased.
I could see a line forming for tables, and Hilda shot me a bit of a glare.
“Hey, so I think we’re going to get tossed out of here for hogging the table,” I said, bobbing my head in Hilda’s direction.
“Do you think we could go somewhere else to finish this? Maybe the scene of the crime. Your apartment. Would that be too difficult for you? I don’t mind going back to my place instead. ”
“Actually, it’s almost time for my surprise for you, remember?” he said, with a wink, as he rose and grabbed my coat from the hanger and attempted to help me put it on. He was, in actuality, making the process take three times as long, but at least chivalry wasn’t dead.
He was buttoning up his peacoat and then grabbed my bag so I could wrangle the buttons on this forties-style burgundy felt coat I had thrifted.
Usually it was an early winter jacket, but the temperatures were falling fast this year, and even though it was just Halloween this week, it felt like December.
I was so high on my conversation with Clark, that I didn’t even complain when we got hit by a blast of cold air when leaving the diner.
His car was just up the street, and he took my hand like it was no big deal anymore, gently swinging it back and forth as we made our way up the sidewalk.
“You know, you keep grabbing my hand in public, and we are on the cusp of our potential doom with HR,” I said.
“As it is, if we’re not fired, it would mean moving you onto the secondary team probably or rescinding my promotion so we’re on the same level.
I’m not sure, honestly. And here I was looking forward to this year’s office bash. ”
“I actually have been, too. Fun fact: Halloween is my favorite holiday. Last year, I went out as tap-dancing Columbia, from The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” He had a wry smile on his face.
“Some people didn’t like all the sequins, considering I also had a full beard.
But what’s Halloween without a little bit of drag?
” I smiled at him, but it felt sad, because I had rung a bell I couldn’t un-ring, and I might have forced my own relocation, just to try to find a job where I wouldn’t be seen as a predator toward my junior staff.
That wasn’t what I was, was I? I hadn’t been grooming Clark all of these weeks, right?
I felt something visceral stir in me, and I almost tripped.
Clark noticed. He immediately had an arm around me, almost as if he knew I were going to stumble.
Interesting. I reached out and took a peek at floating surface thoughts, and I didn’t see that he had foresight, like me.
Instead, I saw him worrying over the state of my ankle, and if Becky would be okay until we made it home.
I backed out of there quickly, feeling foolish for looking for foresight in normal, some would say boring, Clark.
He cleared his throat, and I was brought out of my head and into the moment.
“Whatever you are thinking, it is wrong, and whatever happens, we can make it through, okay? Now, we’re due at Shepard’s friend’s place in like, a half hour.
” That was all he replied, and he moved his thumb in little circles around the back of my hand.
Okay, so perhaps I wasn’t a predator. I felt my face flush, and was certain I was red as a brilliant sunset, realizing we hadn’t discussed anything about what we were to each other, or rather, what we wanted to be.
“So how does Shepard fit into your secret plans?” I asked because I was genuinely surprised. I had given him Shepard’s number as a backup in case something went wrong with the baby, but I hadn’t expected him to use it.
“It was an art project, and I have the final results back in my car. I had this idea in my head that wouldn’t leave me alone for the Halloween bash, so I asked Shepard if I described it in detail, if he could draw up some designs for the Costume Studies Major I found who was happy for the paid work.
Shepard is a nice guy, I think. Though he was all kinds of squirrelly when I was giving him the ideas I had for the costumes.
I mean, I know I went overboard on yours, perhaps, but I wanted to give you something really memorable, and good enough that you could wear it again, if you liked. ”
We reached the car, and he held the door for me while I got in, and then said, “Look in the dash. There are a few sketches in there for you. We are supposed to have a fitting, and then I can go back and pick them up Thursday morning before work, or Wednesday night if we need a second fitting. I really do think you’re going to like yours.
” As he walked behind the car and got in, doing up his seat belt, I sat there as the other shoe dropped so hard it passed out of our reality.
“What is this?” I almost whispered as I held a sketch of me, facing forward for once, in a pink-and-white ball gown holding a long wand with a tall tiara atop my bushy red hair which had been tamed somewhat, and a man who was unmistakably Clark, wearing a flowing red cape and a blue suit with a distinct red ‘S’ on his chest. My mouth went dry, and I felt my head spin.
What I was looking at was impossible. I had been drawing a dress—this dress!
—and a red cape for twenty-five years, give or take, and this was where it was all leading to?
Not some kind of message from my biological parents, but to Clark and me?
What I couldn’t understand, what had me start to wheeze and sweat was the fact that he knew what costumes to draw in the first place.
I felt my anxiety breaking loose to a point where I knew that I needed a pill, and I couldn’t have it.
Clark hadn’t replied, presumably because he was trying to navigate us safely out into the goat-path roads of the cramped waterfront area, and something in me just broke.
I couldn’t help what happened next. I just heard the words as he heard them, not even registering that I was the one shouting them.
“WHAT IN THE EVERLOVING FUCKITY FUCK IS THIS?” I realized again that I wasn’t breathing quite properly, and made to fumble for my inhaler, before everything blanked out.
In the deep, the tentacles of the kraken moved, reaching upward from its dark domain toward the light.