field. Currently, I’m not privileged enough to enjoy the benefits of his nice, elegant body, so men who were not previously my type are all hot to me now. I’m in a bad way. Boulder-size men with ZZ Top beards and face tattoos. Balding mad scientists. Count Chocula. The silhouette from Mad Men’s credits. If this drought goes on any longer I’ll be lusting after the featureless figure on men’s restroom signs.
I watch one of the men with a little too much interest and feel the heat of Nicholas’s glower. I clear my throat and excuse myself from the room.
Later, he tracks me down and throws dirty looks in my direction until I give in and sigh. “What?”
“Could you be a little less conspicuous, please? How would you feel if you saw me ogling other women?”
I assume he ogles other women on the daily. I know they ogle him.
“I wasn’t ogling anyone. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He rolls his eyes. “Please. I’ve never seen a human go so long without blinking.”
“I was … observing,” I say primly. “Don’t make something out of nothing. Anyway, no one could blame me even if I was looking, which I wasn’t. It feels like it’s been forever since I’ve gotten properly laid by someone who wants it.”
Nicholas’s mouth is a thin line. His stare is unwavering. I start to get a little apprehensive and break the silence with another “What?”
His shake of the head is curt. “Nothing.”
Nicholas is lying. When he says Nothing, what he really means is I need time to come up with something devastating to say.
I’m all braced for it after the movers have left and we’re standing outside our new house that’s actually his house, which I’m still calling Disaster.
I’m watering the Charlie Brown tree because I have love to give and nowhere meaningful to dump it. This tree needs me. I’ll feed him and sweep away his dead needles and he’ll grow to be the best and biggest tree in the yard. He’ll give pollination-birth to a hundred new trees, which I’ll string with tinsel. He’ll be the patriarch and general of my new tree army.
His name is Jason. Right now he’s my number one priority on this earth.
Nicholas watches me closely as I pat Jason and murmur affirmations. I’ve heard from science that it helps the plants if you talk to them.
When I’m certain Jason is taken care of, I march up to the house. I haven’t even taken off my shoes when Nicholas starts in on me.
“There’s a difference between being needed and wanted. In some things, I like to be needed. With sex, I need to be wanted. I can’t be just some guy in your bed getting the job done. I’m not having disconnected, going-through-the-motions sex with you. Not you. You’re supposed to be the person I connect with the most deeply.”
“We do connect.” Oh god, is that my voice? I sound so blah. My lying skills are taking a beating from all the brutal honesty we’ve been engaging in the past few days.
“You stopped seeing me, Naomi. You stopped wanting me. You’re going to figure out one of these days that I can tell when you’re starting to disassociate, and it’s the most heartbreaking experience I’ve ever had. It’s nonstop. It keeps on happening. I try to bring you back to me every time you go to leave, off into your own head where I’m not allowed.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I feel deeply uncomfortable, and the intensity with which he’s speaking makes my skin burn hot.
Nicholas continues as though I never interrupted. “I can’t be intimate with you when you disassociate because I can’t let that become our new normal. But being distant from you as punishment for being distant from me doesn’t seem to motivate you to change. So I don’t know where that leaves us. All I know is that it’s a bad idea to fulfill your physical needs if you won’t fulfill my emotional ones.”
I’m not going anywhere near the subject of emotional needs. I cross my arms and rush straight to the defensive. “Motivate me to change how? What exactly would you like for me to change about myself, Nicholas?”
I can see he’s shutting down. Of course, now that he’s said his piece he wants to turn tail and flee, but I’m not letting him.
“I just want you to care about me,” he implores, gesturing with both hands to the space between us. “I want