Stephen Dixon - All Gone

“I’m going to a party. I don’t want to go back to my home with you right now or your hotel room and maybe not even later. I want to go to the party and I want to take you and I’ll give you the twenty-five to come along. You won’t meet men there and I wouldn’t want you to for the purposes you might want. I mean, well maybe you might meet men — how do I know what can happen and you’re attractive and in the end that’s your concern what arrangements you make with men, and if all that came out sounding nasty or cynical what I said or any of it, I didn’t intend it that way. Now do you want to come with me or not?”

“No. But answer me one thing before I leave here. If you don’t want me to be your date for that twenty minutes and however many it takes to get to your place, which I don’t think you do, how come you want to take me to your party and give me twenty-five dollars for going to it — it just doesn’t make sense.”

“The twenty-five’s to help you with your bills. It’s probably enough to put off your creditors for a day and I don’t expect anyone to make immediate complete sacrifices for me, one hundred percent and so forth, when their other worries or concerns go way beyond anything dealing with me. As for the rest of your question, at first I did think you weren’t what you said you only occasionally are, or not that, but at least wanted me to do with you what I at first didn’t think you wanted me to. Maybe that doesn’t make much language sense or something but I did at first think you were lonely and wanted a date tonight in the sense of date — to have a meeting or appointment for one between two people for the mutual enjoyment of some kind of social activity but not necessarily sex. So I thought, why not? I thought that then. You seemed pleasant and now intelligent. You’re attractive as I said. And definitely frank and loose in the sense of being open with your thoughts, far as I can tell, and what you feel, besides your vivacity and enthusiasm, all of which I like too, but not all of which was I able to gauge so quickly when I first met you. And I don’t have a date tonight and just about everyone at the party will — a companion they came with, husbands and wives, men and women friends, all-to-mostly coupled. I might even be the only truly single person there, not that it bothered me till maybe when I began thinking of it with you. Secondly, now that I know what you wanted to have a date for — but I’m not answering this correctly or whatever, am I?”

“You’re not answering it just about at all. All I asked was why you still want to take me there. It can’t be because you might be the only single.”

“No. I also wanted to continue talking to you because I think what you’d have to say over one evening when we were socializing rather than in the thirty-minute span when we were just biff-banging and walking to and from the place of sex, would be very interesting — more interesting than my going alone to the party, though even more interesting if we were both at the party. No, that still doesn’t sound clear or right. Maybe, almost probably certainly, because after the party you might also consent to coming to my apartment and then I would have the best of both evenings — party and now this, when we could make love. Because then I wouldn’t have to pay for it, which I don’t like doing, and it would be better because we could take our time, there’d be no thought that a man just preceded me — that and maybe you’d even be grateful that I took you to someplace nice and you had a good time among friendly people but something that was maybe untypical in your experiences — but that must sound so self-serving and egotistical, it does to me.”

“I’ve been to lots of nice parties before. I go to them as often as almost anyone and ones without pressures too.”

“Of course. But that’s all. Just that we’d go together and you’d talk, I’d talk, together, to other people, you might have to lie a little, I don’t know. I’d have to lie a little about you too. Or we could both lie about the same thing: we met on the street, you were lonely, etcetera — that story about coming out of the hotel which doesn’t have an elevator, etcetera. Or you could have been upset because your dog or cat jumped out of your window and you were upstairs when it happened but downstairs when I met you — the ambulance had just taken the dead animal away, or injured if you don’t like it dead. And I was passing by on my way to the party and asked or you asked if I could talk to you because you were so heartbroken and lived alone or your roommate was out of town or away for the night and I bought you a drink for your nerves and we talked at the bar or restaurant and that’s when I invited you to the party, more to take your mind off the cat — something like that. And we’d eat the good party spread they’d have there, maybe drink too much, and if you wanted to smoke I’m sure there’ll be some people there who smoke and will let you join their circle — I don’t like to but you just go ahead. And then when most of the guests have left or are leaving I’ll get our coats and we’ll leave too and cab to my apartment — that is, only if you want to. And I won’t try anything funny with you — meaning I’m not a masher or beater or anything weird. That I’m not. We might have a nightcap. You might want to change your mind at my place and leave. Or you could even take a shower if you like. No pressures about any of those either. Do what you want. I won’t leap into the shower or tub with you and insist you scrub my back. And then I’ll light the fireplace and we could sit in front of it — I’m not kidding, I actually have one and plenty of kindling and hard wood and you could undress me if we haven’t already undressed and I’ll undress you or we’ll undress separately if we undress at all—”

“Can I have another drink?”

“Sure. I’ll get it.”

I go to the bar and get another scotch and glass of wine and bring them back.

“Where was I? We were in front of the fireplace?”

“I was thinking,” she says.

“Yes?”

“Let’s go to the party. We’ll stick with the lie you just made up. I like the cat out the window. That sounds real because it sounds possible and I do have one in my room so I know how they love ledges and what they’re like if anyone asks me about him and the stupid things he can do. And you made the party sound like fun — the whole evening. I won’t let myself meet anyone else and I’ll leave when you want us to or maybe a little before then when I want to if I’m feeling uncomfortable there or things get sticky. You’ve been nice and I expect you to stay nice. But you can’t kick me out of your apartment at three or four in the morning, all right?”

“Why would I?”

“Some guys have. Even the ones I was in love with. Suddenly they don’t want me. Maybe I can’t blame them sometimes — the new ones I just meet overnight. They get scared their wife or girlfriend’s coming home or that’s just an excuse and they want me out because they’ve had enough of me or they suddenly feel guilty or even diseased sleeping with me. Or listen to this, they have to go to work extra early that morning they say and don’t want me in their apartment alone. I don’t want you doing that.”

“Tomorrow’s Sunday. I’ve the weekend off. If you come to my apartment — though who knows what could happen by then. I might get drunk at the party, though I don’t usually, and make a stupid scene about something else and you’ll get embarrassed or frightened and leave without me and regret you ever met me.”

“You won’t do that?”

“No. What I’m saying is anything can happen to spoil it but I doubt very seriously anything will. We’ll go to the party and stick with the story. We’ll talk, eat, drink, leave around the same time everyone else does, cab to my apartment if you still want to and light a fire and take a shower or anything like that but all reasonable, sane, comfortable, etcetera. Then we’ll go to bed or even make love on the rug in front of the fire or wait till morning for that or not even in the morning — not ever — anything you want.”