Trophy Husband (12 page)

Actually, it’s more like a grin.

“I appreciate that. I really do.”

“Well?”

He sighs, then puts his
hands on the table. “I don’t think I meet the
other
qualifications.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t ever say my age on my show, but I’m
twenty-nine,” he whispers.

“Holy fuck! You’re practically
middle-aged.”

He laughs. “Yeah, I’m an old man, McKenna.
But keep that between us. I want the kids to think I’m cool.
Besides, somehow, a viewer updated my Wikipedia page and it says
I’m twenty-three, and I never got around to correcting it.”

“Well, I am so glad we resolved this issue.
You are clearly not in contention.”

He reaches out and briefly touches my arm.
Then he looks me straight in the eyes and says, “It’s a shame.”

He’s serious. At least, I think he’s
serious. My breath catches, and my heart skips, and I want to go
back in time and rewrite the age rules for my Trophy Husband game.
Let them be thirty or younger, even though that makes no logical
sense. But hearts aren’t logical and my heart wants Chris to play.
I don’t know what to say next though, so I return to the one topic
I can handle — business. Besides, I made a pact with my
girlfriends. They’ve had my back, and I can’t let them down. This
isn’t about me. This is about the point, the pursuit, the game.

“So, what can I do for you? You’re helping
me and I don’t want this to be a one-way street. I’ve got to be
able to do something to help you out, though truth be told, most of
my viewers are young women and I’m not sure how many are
gamers.”

“You play,” he points out. I like that he’s
willing to change directions so quickly, that he doesn’t keep
harping on some philosophical question, or practical question,
neither of which I have answers to.

“Well, yes, but I’m just a casual fan.”

“Exactly. And a lot of young women are. In
fact, the female gamer is one of the fastest growing categories in
the whole video game business,” Chris says excitedly. “I’m actually
starting a new show in a couple months targeted for women who are
sort of the casual online gamers, but new to the console games. And
I need to get the word out, promote my new show.”

I nod. “So we do a cross-promo, maybe?
You’re thinking some of those girls who watch my show might want to
try a little Guitar Hero?”

“Guitar Hero? Did you just say Guitar Hero?
That game isn’t even made anymore.”

“Oh, I didn’t realize that,” I say, feeling
stupid. “Someone gave it to me a few years ago. It looked kind of
fun. I think I played it once, but I haven’t been able to find my
copy since.”

“Hey. I didn’t mean to sound like a gamer
snob.”

“It’s okay. You didn’t.”

“I mean, it’s a totally awesome game. You
should definitely play it more. I was just saying I think chicks
are getting into other games too. The shooter games, the sports
games, even just trivia games. They’re all taking off into the
mainstream, especially with hot young chicks, like yourself.”

It’s my turn to blush now.
He said it again.
Hot chick.

“Oh look,” he points at me. “Now you’re cute
blushing.”

“I guess we’re just a bunch of cute
blushers.”

He smiles again, and then places his palm on
my wrist, and that single gesture of his hand on my skin melts me.
And while there’s a part of me that wants the kitchen table fantasy
with Chris, I also want the other side with him too. The part where
I let him into my heart and my soul, the part where we get to know
each other. Because right now, I want to lean forward and taste his
sweet lips. I want to hop into his lap and wrap my arms around his
neck and smother him in kisses. I haven’t felt this way in years. I
don’t even know what to do with all this wanting. I want to spend
the day with him. To wander around the city, and stop in shops, and
grab a coffee, and talk, and get to know him, and ignore my phone
because he’s so much more interesting than any text message could
ever be. I look at his hand, resting on me, and it’s almost enough
for me to throw the whole Trophy Husband quest away, to just ask
this guy to spend more time with me. But I don’t know how to back
down, or how to let go. Most of all, I don’t know how to begin to
let someone into my wounded heart. I don’t even know if my heart is
healed, or if the scar tissue has just grown so thick and knotty
that no one can ever touch me again.

So I return to a subject I can handle.
Games. “Speaking of games, I kicked ass at Qbert when I was a kid.
My parents were totally into this retro bowling alley near our
house, and it had all the classic arcade games.”

“I was a Mario Brothers man myself.”

I reach for a fry and dip it into a
lime-ginger sauce. “I loved that game. I used to play for hours,
bouncing from square to square, trying to avoid Coily and the
gremlins, trying to jump on discs. I went from level to level, to
the white and green level, then to the ones where you just saw the
tops of the squares…” I take a bite of the French fry. “I miss
Qbert. And I mean the real Qbert, with the diagonal joystick, the
pixilated graphics, the funky sounds.”

I notice Chris has a devilish little smile
on his face, that one side of his mouth is curled up.

“What?”

“I have Qbert.”

“For the Playstation, you mean?”

Chris shakes his head. “I have the real
Qbert.”

“The arcade Qbert?”

He nods proudly a few times.

“You have Qbert, arcade Qbert?”

“The real deal. In my living room.”

“I am having visions of eighth grade now. I
am having visions of Silverspinner Lanes and me getting the high
score, punching my initials in for all the world to see.”

“Bet you can’t beat my high score.”

“Oh, you think you can take me on in
Qbert?”

“I do.”

“You are on.”

He holds out a hand to shake, and I have to
wonder if he’s trying to find ways to touch me too. If he’s liking
this little flirty stuff as much as I do. If he’s imagined more
than flirting, more than lunches, more than kissing too.

“You’ll have to come over sometime and we’ll
have a Qbert match,” he announces and then digs back into his
chicken sandwich.

Now, take me to your house now. Show me
Qbert, and let me play, and kiss my neck as I move the joystick.
Then brush my hair aside and flick your tongue against my earlobe,
and make me shiver so much that Qbert dies and I don’t care,
because all I want to do is turn around and have you kiss me so
deeply and so much that I can feel your kiss all the way through my
veins.

* * *

After we finish, we leave the restaurant. As
we walk down Union Street, I notice that Chris is a few inches
taller than I am. I don’t often meet men who are much taller. I
like the feeling of being next to someone who is.

“You know something about those fries?”

“What about those fries, Chris?”

“I will eat them in the rain. And in the
dark. And on a train. And in a car. And in a tree.”

“They are so good, so good, you see.”

I close the blinds in my bedroom and slip
into bed. I pull my computer onto my lap, settling under the
covers. It’s been ten hours since my lunch with Chris and I know
one thing for certain: I want to see him again.

I knew pretty much the
second I sat down with him, the instant we started talking, that I
wanted to see him again. I think it works that way more often than
not. The whole idea of liking someone. You just kind of know, right
away, within minutes usually. There was a moment, maybe when he was
talking about having looked me up online, when he paused and then
moved on to something else. It was almost as if he was going to say
that he thought I was cute, or something. Or maybe it was when he
said
it’s a shame
.
It felt like something went unsaid, something
good
went unsaid there at our
lunch.

Maybe I’m fooling myself. Maybe I’m just
wishing and hoping for things I won’t have. Things I don’t even
know how to deal with. Even if he does like me, what would I do
with that? How would I fit that into my grand scheme?

I don’t have the answers though, so I focus
on the here and now. On the feeling. On the wish and the hope that
I might see him again.

I open an email message to
him and start it
in medias
res
.

So that one time I played Guitar Hero I only
made it through two songs. I think I have two left hands.

I hit send, then slide out of bed to brush
my teeth. Once they are scrubbed and buffed and clean as can be, I
turn off the light in the bathroom, then the bedroom, telling
myself to close my computer for the night, to resist hitting “send
and receive.” But self-restraint has never been my strong suit. So
I hit that tantalizing little button in my email program, just in
case.

The icon whirs and a few seconds later, I’m
rewarded.

That is so not OK on so many levels. I will
teach you. Meet me at that electronics store on Thursday at 2 p.m.
for a lesson.

I write back.

Lesson? You teach at the computer store?

His response comes moments later.

That’s why I was there when I met you. I
teach newbies how to play video games once a week. Like yourself,
evidently. Go ahead and say it. I am a full-fledged Internet
geek.

I reply.

You are indeed. But then again, so am I. I
will see you there in two days.

Then I do shut my computer down for the
night, as Ms. Pac-Man sleeps at the foot of the bed. My laptop
occupies the left half of the bed, the side Todd used to sleep on.
I sleep alone, haven’t shared a bed for the last year. Except with
a computer and a dog.

I snuggle under the covers and close my
eyes, thinking about Chris and how he blushed something fierce when
I asked him to be a Trophy Husband. Of course, I was just playing
around.

Still, he would make a good candidate if he
were twenty-three. Then I wonder what actually constitutes a good
candidate.

I say the words quietly aloud.

“Trophy Husband.”

I break it down.

“Trophy.” Then, “Husband.”

As I separate them, as I pull the adjective
away from the noun, I find I don’t really like them apart, I don’t
really like the second word by itself.

Husband. Husband. Husband.

For the first time since I started this
project that word echoes in my brain. That title, that role. But I
don’t want to think about the practical application of the title.
Because I’m not ready to think about what it means. That’s why I
have answered the question in other ways. That’s why I have turned
the question into one I want to answer, a question about politics,
about equality between the sexes, about what women can do, about
proving the naysayers wrong, about making a point. Or about my
friends, and how they want me to do this to move on. How I need to
need move.

Even though now I kind of want to move on to
Chris. So I close my eyes, and think of him, and the way he
blushed, and how he touched my hand, and how he said all those nice
things that make me want to curl up with him instead of my Mac.

I’ve let my mind wander to him so often
already. I’ve pictured snapshots in time with him – on my table,
kissing him by his car, making out with him on my couch. But today,
for the first time, I felt as if maybe, just maybe, he might want
those things too.

And so, I let the images rush by. I picture
him here with me, walking into my bedroom, seeing me here in my bed
with just a tank top and bikini underwear on. He drinks me in, his
eyes saying how much he wants me. He doesn’t lower the light. He
wants to see me, to watch me, to savor every inch of me. He walks
over to the bed, crawls up onto it, and straddles me. He’s pinning
me, a knee on each side, then he brings my wrists up high above my
head. I’m helpless, but I don’t care. Because each move he makes
stakes his claim to me. He buries his face in my neck, kissing me
behind my ear, and making me groan. He runs his tongue down to my
chest, cupping my breasts through my top. I’m completely aroused in
an instant and I wriggle under him. He flashes me a quick and
wicked smile, knowing he’s having the desired effect already. But
he doesn’t give in to the arch of my hips just yet. Instead, he
lets go of my wrists, removes my top, and kisses my breasts. First
one, curving his hand all the way around and tugging at my nipple
until I say his name in a hoarse kind of voice. Then the other, so
deliciously, that all I want right now is to know exactly how his
mouth feels against the center of me. I writhe underneath him,
trying to guide him faster down my flesh to the throb between my
legs. And soon, soon, he listens to my body, inching down my waist,
kissing my belly button, and then nipping at my hipbone. I cry
out.

“Please touch me,” I say. And he knows what
I mean and how much I need to feel his tongue swirling a delirious
line across all that liquid heat in my core. In one swift move, my
panties are off, and his face is between my legs, and my hands are
in his hair, and I am mindless with pleasure as his tongue swirls
against me. My knees fall open, blood rushing through my veins,
heating my body, as I see him, feel him, picture him here with me.
He is masterful, his tongue painting dizzying brushstrokes through
all my wetness. I grab him, bring him closer, wrap my legs around
his shoulders. He grips my calf, running his hand over my smooth
skin as he buries his face between my legs, spread open for him and
holding him tight at the same time. I rock into him, and I can’t
stop. I can’t hold back. I don’t want to. He goes deeper with his
tongue, as if he can’t hold back either, as if he can’t resist
drinking me in, as he grips my hips and devours me with his lips so
intensely that the neighbors may soon know his name. Drenched with
desire, I am panting and moaning, singing his name and wishing he
were the one doing this to me right now.