Donald Quist

Glissando


It was her stirring that had startled Keith awake. He pulled back from her embrace and tried to squint through the dark. From above he looked like a man admiring a painting… Except he was naked and horizontal on a leather couch which didn’t belong to him. Come to think of it, Keith didn’t know anyone who owned a leather couch. He started to panic.

George could hear his heartbeat quicken. Her ear was smashed against his bare chest. She ran her fingertips over her body, conducting a minor physical. From what she could gather she was naked. He was naked too. He was a He, very much a He, if the warm fleshy cylinder shaped object slapped up against her thigh was any indication. She was on a leather couch, real leather. Luckily the room was so cool she wasn’t sticking to it; she hated that. However, leather, being the material that it is, was susceptible to temperature change and at that moment George was particularly uncomfortable. She felt like she was sprawled over a block of ice. Later she would tell Abby to invest in a throw or an afghan, preferably from Crate & Barrel.

Keith last remembered drinking at the bar alone. Everything after that got kind of fuzzy. He assumed he had met a girl at the bar, they hit it off and she invited him back to her place. It was a completely reasonable series of events, not too incongruous, plausible if it weren’t for the fact that Keith was socially retarded. How was it that a man whose hobbies included hunting for rare Magic the Gathering cards, looking for continuity mistakes in Doctor Who and writing letters to major television broadcasting stations detailing the reasons why airing a live action Inuyasha series would prove lucrative, could convince a woman he didn’t even know to have sex with him. Maybe they didn’t have sex. He felt his penis. Sticky, wet, pubic hairs matted and patted. Yup, they had had sex. Maybe she was a he. There was only one way to be certain.

George was thinking about of lot of things when Keith’s hands began to roam her body, namely her ever-mounting credit card debt. She wouldn’t have minded Keith’s curiosity if only he had some finesse. He wringed and prodded, groped and grinded, probing her as if he were administering a health exam. George tried to ignore it as long as she could, hoping he would eventually get bored and drift off back to sleep. She was doing well she thought, turning a cheek to his countless boob grabs and butt squeezes, forgiving him for dashing his ring finger in and out of her vagina like he was ‘Backspacing’ on a keyboard. However, when she felt a wet thumb press into her ear she had had enough.
“Motherfucker, did you just give me a wet-willy?”

Keith didn’t know how to answer that. Short answer, yes. Long answer, maybe. At some point it had become less about finding out whether the human being he had just slept with was a woman and more about seeing how far he could go before waking it up. Obviously, she had been awake, no telling how long.
“Answer me,” she growled. “Did you just give me a wet willy?”
Her voice was kind of deep for a girl. Keith began to doubt his powers of deduction.
“I know you hear me!”
She was incredibly snit. Keith feigned a soft snore hoping that somehow, just maybe, he could diffuse the situation by pretending to be asleep.

When George heard the nasally gurgle of his fake snore she became enraged. The only thing she hated more than sticking to a hot leather couch was having her intelligence insulted. She pinched his nipples and twisted them until he yelped in pain.
“OWWWW!”
She released and shoved him off of the couch. He hit the bare hardwood floor with a loud THWACK.
“Jesus titty-fucking Christ,” he cried. “Goddamnit.”
George didn’t care for blasphemy either, or using the Lord’s name in vain. She was a devote Catholic.

Keith rubbed his ass. He was pretty sure he had broken it… Well, it felt like it was broken. Keith heard her rise from the couch. Then he felt a heel fall into his abdomen. The air was forced out of his lungs and he curled into a fetal position. As he whimpered for her to stop a tiny fist hit his inner thigh, then his right arm, then his head.
“I can’t fucking believe you’d use profanity like that,” she screamed at him.
Keith was confused by her religious conviction.
“But you just cursed right then,” Keith shouted back.
“Yeah but it wasn’t blasphemy, you piece of shit!”
“I’m getting preached to by a chick who just had unprotected sex with a complete stranger,” Keith exclaimed.
Silence.
Silence and then Keith heard her back away.

George was putting some serious thought into what he just said. He had a point, but she couldn’t let him know that.
“It wasn’t unprotected, I’m sure of it,” George argued.
“When you say, ‘I’m sure of it,’ it just sounds like you’re unsure.”
“Well I am. I know myself, I’m careful. I never forget to take my Yaz and I never forget to carry condoms. Trust me, there’s a used rubber here somewhere on Abby’s floor.”
“Abby, that’s you,” he asked with a little more excitement in his voice than he had intended for her to hear.
“No, Abby is the girl whose apartment this is.”
“And what’s your name?”
“You don’t know my name,” George asked, twisting her lips up into a pouty frown she usually reserved for having pretend arguments with boys she liked; it kept things lighthearted and playful. However, in the dark the “look” lost its effect. She just came off sounding hurt and upset.
“Do you know mine,” he spat.
“Roger,” George fired.
“Not even close,” he sighed. “So, do you want to know my name?”
Something in his voice made George want to go on the defense.
“Did I ask for your name? I don’t want to know your name. There’s no point in learning your name. We’ll probably never see each other again,” George barked.
“It’s Keith.”
“What?”
“My name is Keith.”
“WOW. Look you don’t have to stick around here to prove how good a guy you are okay. I get it. You can go now.”

Keith ignored her.
“And what am I supposed to call you… Not-Amy,” Keith asked, quite pleased with himself for delivering such a clever quip.
“A-B-B-Y, Abby, not Amy, dick,” she said, taking a seat on the couch. Keith could hear the cushions squish and squeal beneath her weight, sharp and soft onomatopoeias - like air escaping a half deflated balloon and the squeak of a finger pushing across the hood of a car freshly waxed. He heard a few springs pop. From the muscle memory of his fingertips he remembered she was thick but not fat. Her breasts were large, heavy and real. Her butt was wide and…
“Why would I refer to myself in the third person,” she boomed, pulling back Keith’s attention.
He was grateful. He feared if he had gone on thinking about her body much longer he would get excited.
“I thought you were just being a bitch,” Keith responded.


George had trouble believing this boy could lack so much social grace. Even if he wasn’t familiarized with the proper etiquette of a one-night-stand, he was expected to know better than to infer a girl was a bitch, to her face. Everything he said was wrong, everything he did was wrong and George couldn’t help finding that a little cute.
“You have no idea you just insulted me do you?”
Though George couldn’t see his face she could feel him staring back at her blankly. He was like a new born.
“No wonder I jumped your bones. You’re emotionally abject. Man, you are so fantastically glib.”

Glib? Keith hated it when people used four-letter vocab words just to sound smarter than the person they were talking to. Keith knew four-letter vocab words.
She continued, “Here I am getting all pissed off. Getting mad at you is like trying to sue a puppy for shitting on your floor, he didn’t know.”
“Well that’s kinda harsh don’t you think,” Keith bemoaned.

It was something about the way he said it, something about the meekness in his voice, something that made George fidget uncomfortably. She had hurt him, and though that had been her intention something, something, something suddenly made her acerbic tone a little too caustic. She could feel him, through the darkness, slipping away, retreating into himself. She called after him.
“My name is George,” said George. “And yeah, I know it’s a guy’s name so don’t.”
“Don’t what,” he asked.
“Don’t start cracking on my name.”
“Why would I do that? Your name is George, why’s that funny?”
“It’s not, but that doesn’t usual stop people from… Well, you know.”
“Y-yeah,” he said, and with a groan rose to his feet. “So why the hell is your apartment so dark?”
“It’s not my apartment. This is Abby’s apartment.”
“Right.”
“This place is a loft, that’s why our voices are echoing like mad. It’s huge, and open, and it came fully furnished. It’s really a beautiful space it just…”
“Has no windows?”
“Not even one.”
“Man, how would she know what time it is?”
“A clock, Keith.”
“Oh, yeah, right,” he said. George could hear his breathing get heavier. He was nervous and he didn’t know what to say next. “So is this place rent controlled too?”
“Yeah, actually. I don’t know how she found a place like this on the Lower Eastside.”

Why Would Keith be in the Lower Eastside?
“The Lower Eastside,” he repeated.
“Yeah, we’re like a couple of blocks from Canal and the Bowery.” She explained.
“The Lower eastside,” Keith exclaimed. He was confused. “But, but, but…”
“But what, butt?”
“But the last thing I remember I was sitting in a bar in Hoboken.”
“Yeah, that’s where I must’ve met you. JINX, right, I love that place. They’ve got this special – Pat’s Blue Ribbon and a shot of Wild Turkey for $2.00. Who does that? You go there often? I don’t remember ever seeing you,” she said.
“Well, yeah it’s just down the street from my house… Wait what do you mean you don’t remember ever having seen me? You didn’t know my name until five minutes ago. I’m not sure you even know what I look like. Can you even remember anything from last night?”
“Never-mind that. Did you just say you lived down the street from that place?” She pretended to wretch. “Oh my God, you’re a Jersey Boy. Fucking gross, now I’m going to have to get checked and… ”
Once again, Keith found himself offended. In his desperation to make her feel just as inferior Keith decided to attack her promiscuity.
“Are you serious? You’re the chick running around sleeping with random strangers. If anyone should be getting tested it’s me. You were looking for cock in Jersey. You got a Jersey cock. What did you expect? You’re so starved for it I’m surprised you didn’t drop to your knees and start sucking me off at the bar.”
She went quiet. Keith had proved victorious but he didn’t feel much like celebrating. He feared he had gone too far. After her silence went on for more than thirty seconds he feared he had ruined any opportunity he might have had to get to know her.

George was thinking. George was thinking about boys, well, one in particular, Keith. In the dark people do things they’d never do in the light. People are honest in the dark. Keith’s outburst was honest. It was an honest reaction to George’s teasing. And where most guys would ignore or shrug off her insults with the hope that it would somehow provide them with another opportunity to sleep with her, this boy, Keith, wasn’t so eager. He wasn’t willing to compromise his integrity for a lay, and that frightened George. Keith was an anomaly, standing in blatant defiance of everything she had learned about the opposite sex, everything she had come to know and value as true. It was scary but it was exciting and she hadn’t felt excited in a long, long time. He might have royally screwed any chances he may have had to sleep with her again but at the very least he had earned the truth.
“I must have thought you were like me – slumming it. Jinx is where people in the city go to drink for cheap. I don’t go there with the intention of sleeping someone…”
“But I bet that shit keeps happening,” he snapped.
He was still angry. He deserved the whole truth.
“Yeah, it keeps happening. I go out blow money I don’t have getting drunk and fuck the first guy to show any interest. I do that because my life is shit, I’m going nowhere and I’ve acquired so much credit card debit the government has to garnish my wages. My parents have disowned me. I’m unemployed and live with my friend Abby sleeping on her couch, this couch.”
He, Keith, was rendered speechless. George could feel his anger slip away.
“Well…Wow. Okay,” Keith stammered. “Well, at least you’ve got your health, huh?”
George began to laugh, loud and booming. She didn’t know why she was laughing. What Keith had said wasn’t particularly funny or clever but it was right, right for that moment in time and she welcomed that with giggles. Her chuckles reverberated off the distant walls and slammed Keith’s eardrums.

Keith got a brief impression of the size of the room. It was vast and empty, like his chances, he thought. His armpits started to sweat.

“I guess you’re right,” George said, wiping the tears from her eyes. “And what about you? You don’t exactly seem like the type to hit up bars and drink until you blackout.”
“My girlfriend broke up with me,” Keith said.
“Oh, sorry to hear that,” George said. They were both surprised by how genuine she sounded. “How long had you two been dating?”
“About two years, which is a big deal to me, you know? Last week I told her I thought we should move in together but she wasn’t feeling it, apparently. She was avoiding me until yesterday afternoon when she finally found the balls to tell me it’s over.”
“I’m sorry,” George said.
“Why do you keep apologizing? It wasn’t your fault.”
“Yeah, I know. I was just trying to be nice is all. You actually seem like a nice guy, you know, when you’re not fondling a girl you believe to be unconscious.”
They laughed.
“Yeah, sorry about that, I was just… Well… I don’t know exactly what I was doing,” Keith mumbled. “But, I’m not one of those creeps that tries to take advantage of women.”
“You never had a one night stand?”
“No.”
“Well, if we had drinks in our hands this would be the part where we cheers. I always wanted to be someone’s first,” George said.
“First one night stand?”
“First anything,” she sighed.
Silence.
Comfortable silence.
He found her redoubtable. She found him quixotic. Maybe she could be his catalyst. Maybe he could make her a better woman. Maybe she could be the standard to which he’ll hold every girl he’ll ever meet. Perhaps this was one of those chances for love everybody spent so much time talking about. Perhaps they could be each other’s greatest mistake. There was something, something, something, even if they didn’t know what to call it.
“What if I don’t want this to be a one night stand,” he asked.
She sat there thinking. She thought of a million excuses. There were clear reasons why she and he would never work but she couldn’t find an excuse for, a way out of, the question she found most pertinent. Why Not? She couldn’t think of a reason not to try.
“Look, you think you might want breakfast or something, you know assuming it still is breakfast,” she asked.
“Sure. Um, is there a bathroom around here though, I have to take a piss.”
George cringed. Later she would work on his speech.

They stood. In the darkness Keith reached out his hands and George found his wrist and pulled him to her side. She rolled her fingers into his palm then clasped her hand with his. Together they walked forward. She said she was thirsty. Keith didn’t mind the detour. He didn’t want to pull away. He feared that if he let go of her hand he might never find her again, and though he knew that was ridiculous, it didn’t make it any less true.
George led Keith to the kitchen. She knew the way. She knew the space. She wore it well, as if it were her own. She navigated smoothly. Keith’s arms never grazed a wall his feet never fumbled or tripped. They reached the kitchen and George was thirsty. Releasing Keith’s hand she leaned over to pull open the refrigerator door.

The light blinded them. Once their eyes adjusted they discovered themselves bathed in the soft florescent glow of an icebox.
George saw him. He was tall, lanky, with the face of a child. His facial hair looked as though it had been penciled on. He had an emo/mall hair-cut and the black bangs of his thick shaggy mane fell over part of his left eye. His chest was sunken in and his shoulders hunched over leaving his arms to hang straight down, hands swinging at his waist. And for the first time she wondered if she was good enough. Keith was as pure and untried as griege goods fresh from the loon, and she was a harlot.
Keith saw her. She was pale, her body accented by freckles. Her skin was supple. Her knees touched and her hips were wider than her shoulders. She was shaped like a bowling pin. Her hair was dyed a red that frequented leaves in fall. Grey hairs sprinkled atop her head danced in the light. She had a tattoo of an anchor on both her forearms, which was funny because she was so small, tiny, tinier than Keith had been expecting. Her eyes roared – big and lightning blue, invasive and furious and Keith wondered if he could handle her. Could he be what she needed him to be?
George reached into the fridge and pulled out a large jug of orange juice. She flicked the cap off, took a sip and handed it off to Keith. He cradled the jug and touched it to his lips. Then together, but separately, they swallowed some of their insecurities. They swallowed some of their naive notions about the nature of being, about the world and their place in it. They replaced the orange juice, smiled and closed the door, returning to one another’s arms in the middle of the dark.