Текст книги "Katherine in Gold"

Автор книги: J. B. Hartnett

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Текущая страница: 2 (всего у книги 15 страниц)

Katherine

A week had passed since Tori and Cam’s wedding, and in that time, I’d signed every single document that pertained to Bear Claw. I knew exactly what I was signing on for: a fifty-thousand-hour work week with a man that tested me every chance he got, never lost his patience, and got right under my skin, just like someone else I used to know.

And that hadn’t worked out well for me at all.

Friday morning, I woke to two text messages: one from Tori, inviting me over for coffee and breakfast, the other from Goya, reminding me about his show that night. I washed my face, slapped on sunscreen, jeans, flip-flops, and a black tank…complete with huge sunglasses, and I walked my ass over to Tori and Cam’s for coffee and, hopefully, bagels.

Friday morning was bagel day.

I decided to walk by Bear Claw and see if Holst had done anything during the week. Sure enough, the windows were covered with newspaper, with just a foot clear at the top for light to get inside. A pang of guilt flooded me. I was avoiding him, but I shouldn’t be avoiding the business I’d just invested in. It was as much mine as it was his. I’d been able to push my emotions deep for ten years, and this new…relationship…wouldn’t be any different. I made a silent promise to myself I’d be there tomorrow, armed with cleaning products, to start working on my dream.

Just another few feet, I faced the green gate with the awesome brass knocker and flagstone steps of Tori’s house. I knocked on the front door of the Arts and Crafts home and waited. I was basically furniture at their place, but they were newlyweds, and I’m no prude, but when you walk in on your bestie splayed upon the front stairs of the foyer, her husband’s head between her legs and his naked ass with a peek-a-boo ball sack greeting you….

Dude. You knock.

The door opened to Cam’s smartass grin, which said everything without saying anything. “Kath,” he greeted.

“Coffee,” I returned, avoiding all conversation with him, and walked straight to the kitchen.

I plunked down at the worn pine table, opened my phone to the message from Goya so Tori could read it, and took a sip from the mug Tori had just handed me.

I’d given several kickass—in my mind—housewarming gifts to the new couple. One was a ceramic garden gnome key holder I’d had custom made. Quite similar to the one that lived on my porch…Gozer the Garden Gnome (I loved Ghostbusters.) Gozer needed a mate, and that mate, of course, was Zuul. Most female garden gnomes were busty, but this she-gnome had enormous boobs, wild, red hair, which lifted at the back to hide a spare house key, and a red dress that left very little to the imagination…I mean, if you were into gnomes, you couldn’t disagree this little gnome had it going on.

My other favorite gift was three coffee mugs: two of which read, “My best friend is a whore.” The third read, “I married a whore” and it was just lucky that Cam had a good sense of humor. Most people think the term “whore” is either an occupation or an insult, but I used it as a term of affection. I wasn’t even sure how it began, but I often said it to Tori, and when I did, it came from a place of love.

Tori took a sip from her coffee and lifted her eyes from the message. “Dude.”

“Dude,” much like the word “whore” or even “fuck,” also had many meanings and uses. It was all in the way you said it. And the way Tori said “dude” meant she was having the same reaction I had to the message.

“I know, right?”

I gave an awkward chuckle and rolled my eyes. I’d avoided Goya all week, blowing him off with the excuse my new business venture was taking up all my time. Yeah, I totally lied. And his message that morning was a reminder, not only about his show, but an offer he made, which filled me with terror, and a term of endearment that made me want to move to another state.

“He said the L-word,” she pointed out. “And he wants you to move in with him?” Just hearing her rundown of the text message gave me anxiety.

I decided not to let that show and deflect the whole thing with humor. “Yeah. I’m just as confused as you are. I even thought he might have sent the message to me by mistake.”

“Kath,” she began softly, “you’re not considering moving in with him…are you?”

I almost choked on my coffee. “Did you snort a big, fat line of stupid before I got here?”

Her eyes bugged out before she said with relief, “Thank God. You’ve been…weird lately. I had to ask.”

Cam suddenly appeared with two huge hiking packs.

“You just got hotter, Cam,” I declared and leaned in to my bestie. “How are you gonna do it?”

“Do what?”

“Hike along those trails and not ass rape him every chance you get?”

She leaned closer, her fingers tapping on the coffee mug, and confessed with total sincerity, “Well, we discussed it, and, after much research, decided that anything I do to his ass will be in the privacy of our own home.” She picked up her mug again and continued casually, “Besides, ticks are a real problem. The ass is the last place you want a tick.”

Cam smiled, listening with good humor, and filled his mug. Then he grabbed a glossy card from their fridge.

When I realized it was an invitation to Goya’s opening that night, I let my head fall with a thud on their kitchen table.

“He invited us,” Tori shared.

Thud, thud, thud.

“He invited everyone from the tattoo shop, too,” Cam added.

It was getting worse. He was invading. And I had to put a stop to it.

“You can’t come,” I mumbled against the table. “You have too much to do before you leave on Monday.”

“Don’t worry,” Cam told me with a grin. “I already let him down easy.”

“I’m breaking up with him tonight,” I said to the table. I lifted my head and asked through my veil of hair, “Can I borrow that strappy slut dress?”

“I thought the idea was to make yourself less attractive?” she asked.

“That doesn’t mean my next fuck-buddy won’t be there.” I winked, and with that, I pushed away from the table, squared my shoulders, went upstairs, and helped myself to my bestie’s closet.

***

When I began dating a guy, I gave no illusion we’d have any kind of future. I was careful, I got tested regularly, and I put them through my own rigorous testing in order to determine if they had the skills and necessary equipment to do the job right.

When I met Goya, he was cocky, so full of himself it was a wonder he even noticed I existed. I was at my favorite bar one night, the Saloon, feeling sorry for myself and tamping that feeling down with a drink or two before I went home. Tori was in La-la-land-o-Cam, so I decided it was time to throw my line out and see what I could catch.

Then he walked in: curly, dark hair, deep brown eyes, a tight tee, and chisled features which told me all I needed to know…almost all I needed to know. See, a man didn’t need to be hung; he didn’t need to be particularly handsome either. But I wasn’t going to fuck just anybody. I wanted passion and confidence and hopefully the ability to back those two up.

I overheard Goya talking about his new collection, how incredible it was, and my first thought?  What an egotistical prick. Then the girls he’d arrived with left and he bought me a drink. To my surprise, he didn’t talk about himself at all. He was charming, probably an act, but I gave him a chance and let him take me home.

He followed me in the door, and I called over my shoulder, “Just wait here a second,” and went to my bedroom. There, I opened the top drawer of my bedside table. For my thirtieth birthday, I’d bought myself a new dildo. This one was…meaty…ten inches of pure, fat, unrepentant silicon, and because I’d never been with a man of color—not yet anyway—I chose black. I named it Devon. For some reason, don’t ask me why, I decided it looked like a Devon.

“Devon” had this suction thing so you could place it on any surface and ride it, something I’d only done a handful of times. I arranged him on an elegantly carved solid wood chair and only then did I open the door and say, “Come on back if you want.”

I did my best not to smirk and went about taking off the boots I was wearing when Goya asked, “Is that my competition?”

“Oh, him?” I said nonchalantly and shrugged. “I guess.”

“Kath.” He held my eyes as I looked at him in the mirror. “There’s no competition.”

I raised one eyebrow and gave him a grin he took as a dare, and I can say with absolute conviction, Devon had nothing on Goya.

But Goya was exhausting. He wanted things from me I wasn’t willing to give. My friends barely tolerated him, but they didn’t know him. Yeah, he was kind of an asshole and had this holier-than-thou thing going on, but it was all for show. He lived for his art and wanted to be something special. In my moments of weakness, I could imagine breaking him down and training him in acceptable social standards. He was a good guy, he loved me (apparently,) and damn, he was a great lay.

But I hated his art.

And that’s why I had to end it. If I could find it in me to be supportive of what he loved to create, maybe I could…try to have more with him than just sex. But I’d already let it go on for far too long, and now he was emotionally invested in a way I never could be. I decided it would be soon, in the next week, but I’d wait until after his show. He was a man, he was attractive, he knew how to use the goods God gave him, he had a nice place in North Laguna, and drove a sporty, little Fiat. He’d be fine.

In an outfit that somehow stayed on my body through the magic of synthetic fabric, I alighted from the cab in five-inch strappy heels and strutted my almost six-foot ass into the posh gallery of the Laguna Beach Art Institute. I wasn’t completely whored-out; I wore a dark purple wrap and matching earrings to break up the solid black of the ensemble.

I was greeted by a young woman, very pretty with natural auburn hair, wearing a uniform of long sleeved black shirt, black pants, and a black apron.

“Welcome to Expressions in Darkness.” She smiled.

Expressions in Darkness. What a knob.

She handed me a program that I glanced at briefly. I’d seen a few of the paintings, but not all of them.

The woman continued to smile at me.

I returned it and asked casually, “Is there somewhere I can pick up a strong cocktail and a box of razor blades?”

“Uh…” She studied me for a split second then determined it was all right to let her guard down. “The one in the grand hall is…frightening,” she warned on a whisper.

A guy walked by with a tray full of champagne glasses filled with black liquid. I grabbed one, hoping I wasn’t about to ingest ink, and drank the entire thing. It was delicious.

“Thanks for the heads-up,” I told the young woman and made my way into the exhibit.

It wasn’t long before I really, truly needed to get out of that place for my own sanity. Of course, that was when Goya found me, three black drinks down, one in my hand as I stared at the aforementioned frightening painting in the grand hall.

“Darling,” he cooed over my shoulder.

I stepped forward to get closer to the…painting, then stepped back and tilted my head to the side. I repeated this routine once more and finally asked, “What’s he doing with the fork?”

“It’s a demon consuming the fallen souls of humanity.”

I rolled my eyes, and thank God he didn’t see me. I needed to keep that attitude in check if I didn’t want him to stab me with a fork.

“You don’t like it?” he asked, affronted.

“Hang on.” I put my hand up and waved it around to the top of the painting. “What’s going on with the demon guy’s tongue?” There was literally a forked tongue, one half apparently impaling a woman vaginally and the other half sodomizing a man.

“The demon is showing the humans the cost of their sexual depravity,” he explained.

Well, if this painting was anything to go by, I knew what Hell had in store for me.

I finished my drink, turned to him, and said, “I can’t move in with you Goya. I like my place, and I don’t want to leave it.”

“That’s fine,” he said with his own brand of practiced ease and shrugged. “I can move in with you.”

No. No no no no no no no.

“I have to go,” I blurted, turned on my heel, and got the hell out of there.

Holst

A week had gone by and I’d not yet heard or seen Katherine. I took all the paperwork to her apartment, just as she’d requested, and within twenty-four hours, she’d returned everything back to me.

By messenger.

I had no intention of pushing her. There was a war going on inside Katherine, and I could see it happening. I witnessed the exact moment when she’d made up her mind. Her declaration that she never went back on her word had a deeper meaning. There was much more to Katherine, and each and every time I was in her presence, I felt a pull to learn exactly what it was.

The invitation to her boyfriend’s exhibit had been given to me by Frodo, the man who finished the tattoo on my leg and set the ball in motion for the coffee shop. I figured that giving my support to Katherine’s partner was a show of good faith. No matter my attraction to her, she was involved with someone else, and I, of course, respected that.

I remembered learning about the Spanish painter, Goya, and knowing Katherine’s boyfriend had been greatly influenced by him, I was intrigued. As I walked through the exhibit, I saw this Goya wasn’t an imposter; he had his own style, which was obvious, even to someone untrained like myself. The similarities lied in the imagery, the topics: dark, depressing stories from the bible or Greek Mythology. Yes, Mark “Goya” Espinoza was talented, but there was nothing beautiful in his art. My one requirement in any kind of artwork was to gaze upon something beautiful, and from his hand, I had yet to see beauty…that was, until the very end of the exhibit. Mark had painted his lover, Katherine, and captured every emotional nuance of her within that frame.

Breathtaking.

I knew she’d be there, or assumed she would, but I wasn’t fully prepared for the vision of Katherine. She was wearing—barely—a black dress, tight, made of four large Xs. It started mid-thigh and crossed below her shoulders, the pattern showing a diamond patch of tan skin on each side of her ribs, her stomach, and her lower back. She finished it off with shoes that invited a man to hold the heel while she rode him, and a long scarf that would’ve been perfect to tie her to the bed while he returned the favor.

I recognized mystery and pain in Katherine, just as Mark did in his depiction of her. From her blond locks to her pale brown eyes and a blush she probably wasn’t even aware she wore. That portrait was created by the hand of a man in love. She was his muse, but at that very moment, I looked to see his hand wrapped around her arm, too tight, roughly yanking her to his side. She quickly tugged herself away and hastily retreated to the front entrance of the art college.

It was none of my business, and it wasn’t my place, but I followed, because his handling of Katherine absolutely made the blood beneath the surface of my skin boil. I felt my fists curl and prepared for whatever might happen when I confronted this man.

The art college, tucked into the hills deep in Laguna Canyon, was poorly lit. My apartment was a block from Pacific Coast Highway, densely populated, houses practically stacked one on top of the other, but still, coyotes bravely came looking for food, forced there by building projects. A woman should not be in the canyon on her own, and not just because of hungry coyotes. I doubted she’d had time to call a cab, so I would intervene if necessary, if only to offer her a ride home.

I moved toward the two figures, quite hidden in the shadows, and that’s when I overheard Goya’s words to Katherine.

“I have given you everything, Kath. No one else. I have never let anyone else into my life before you.”

“Mark—” she began.

“And you walk out of my exhibit, out of my life?”

“Mark, I’m sorry, just let me—”

“You’re over thirty,” he told her softly. But his gentility was only there to falsely cushion the blow he was about to deal. “And for now, you can use those long legs, firm ass, and great smile to get laid. But another, what, eight years, your looks will dim. You’ll be the middle-aged slut trying to pick up thirty-year-olds, in your mind thinking you’re still the beautiful woman I’m looking at now. The problem for you is, you’ll be almost forty. And the men like me, the ones that would have taken you at thirty and kept you, married you…they won’t give you that second chance. Five years from now, I see you in the same bar, I don’t care how good you look, Kath. I’ll fuck the new batch of thirty-year old pussy. I’ll still be able to have a family with them, but you’ll be alone and too old to give any man over the age of forty what he really wants. And you know it.”

Fuckin’ hell.

“Mark.” Her voice broke as she said his name. I knew she didn’t want him. She was too good for him anyway, but for any woman to endure what he’d just said, I wanted to sweep her up into my arms and carry her away. Kick the living shit out of him, and then carry her away.

I moved silently toward them and watched as he closed the distance between them and said, “Beg.”

“Excuse me?” she asked, her words weak as she spoke them.

“You’ll change your mind, and when you do, I expect you to beg.”

She stepped back, rolled her shoulders, and arranged her wrap, giving herself time to rise from the ashes. “You’re gonna need to lower your expectations then. And Mark?” she spat, using his given name, apparently something he hated almost as much as she did. “If I had to name that last painting with the forked tongue in the guy’s ass? I’d call it Abomination in Oil. It makes me want to slit my fucking wrists.”

“Then it did what it was supposed to do. It invoked a powerful reaction from you.”

I understood what Frodo meant when he mentioned the man had a sizable ego. Katherine walked back to him. Her first words were too quiet for me to hear, but the finale, was loud and clear.

“…never asked why I refused to give you more because you think you love me, but I know what it is to not have your love returned, Mark. I know what that one-sided feeling is like, and if you really loved me,” she said with a finger in his chest, “you’d be the one begging me to make that pain stop.”

I could see the physical reaction as her words manifested in him. “Kath…I’m sorry, I overreacted and—”

“No.” She pushed him, forcing him to step back from her. “I told you from the beginning. I made you no promises, and this is exactly why. This isn’t the first time I’ve been in this situation, Mark. But I have the decency to tell the people I’m with it’ll never be more.”

“It could be,” he countered. “We’re good together.”

“No.” She shook her head. “I can’t love you when I’m in love with somebody else.”

I carefully and quietly moved as close as I could without being seen or heard.

“Thank you for making me forget the pain for a while. But it’s not fair to you. Bye, Mark.”

She walked away from him, and when I was sure she was out of earshot, I came out of the light and faced Goya.

“You heard all of that?” he asked.

I gave an affirmative nod, trying to control the powerful desire to physically harm him, and said, “The painting of her is the best of the collection. I’m not an art aficionado, but I know when something’s good, and that portrait isn’t just good, it’s a single moment of time captured on canvas. It makes me feel a desperation for the subject, even not knowing her very well. You painted her agony.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “She didn’t see it.”

He walked past me and stopped on his way to the entrance. “Good luck with the café. That should help distract her from her…agony, for a while.”

“Mark,” I called, stopping him before he entered the building. “You are not welcome in our place of business. Do we understand each other?”

I didn’t wait for his response, since there was no mistaking that my words were not a request, but a threat. Then, I went to my car with the purpose of finding Katherine.

Katherine

I was walking.

Fresh air was good. It gave me clarity. It helped me sort my shit out. But it was hard to sort my shit out when I was seething with anger, drunk on black champagne cocktails, and bleeding from the wound Mark just gave me.

Fucking. Asshole.

The first time I ever got drunk was in the company of my lover. He poured us each a glass of red wine the night he took my virginity. And he took me as an equal.

“A woman in every way, Katherine. Your age is not indicative of the woman you already are,” he’d said to me.

I drank socially, but never wine. Wine was an association of blossoming love, and wine was reserved for him.

“We should always do this,” I’d told him. “Even when we’re old, you can be my anchor while I get tipsy.”

“I’ll always be your anchor, no matter where I am and where you are. I’ll be your constant…the compass for your heart.”

“My true north,” I joked.

“Yes,” he’d said.

He lied.

I was drunk, storming down the dark road of the canyon, and the next words from my mouth sounded crazy even to my own ears as I screamed into the night, “You ruined me, you betraying, fucking asshole!”

“Katherine,” I heard behind me and came to halt.

I didn’t answer because I was mortified. On top of everything else, there was no doubt Holst had heard me sobbing and screaming at the top of my lungs.

“What are you doing here?” my shaking voice asked over my shoulder.

I heard his steps come closer, the heat of his body against my back as his long fingers wrapped gently around each arm.

His touch…

Phenomenal.

His head bent to my ear…

Dangerous.

“Katherine.” He spoke quietly, gently, as if he was trying to calm a hysterical woman wielding a shotgun on a cheating husband. “I was invited to the exhibit. I was told you left only moments before, so I came to find you, and now I’m going to take you home.” He turned me slowly, keeping the distance between us close while I kept my head down.

“Katherine?” he asked, and I knew he wanted me to look at him. But if I did…fuck…if I did, he’d see right through me.

I kept my gaze to the ground. “I’m fine. Sorry. I’m just…a lot is happening. Tori and Cam are leaving for a few weeks. I haven’t even started working on the coffee shop with you. I’m just…”

“Come,” he said and pulled free the arm I had wrapped around my middle.

“I’m drunk,” I explained, probably unnecessarily. “I think exercise is good to prevent hangovers.”

“And food,” he added and took my hand in his, guiding me back toward the parking lot.

I recognized his car as we approached. “Just drop me home, Holst.” The fact he was still holding my hand hadn’t really kicked in until he unlocked the dark blue BMW and opened the passenger door.

“Watch your head,” he warned and kept me steady while I sank down into the cool leather seat.

Once the door was closed, he got in and completely turned his body to look at me. He leaned in, just enough that I could smell whatever scent he was wearing, and asked, “Katherine?”

“Y-yes?” I stammered.

“Seatbelt.” He smiled that perfect smile.

“Right.”

I buckled myself in when he again requested, “Katherine?” I reluctantly gave him my eyes. “I feel that, in the spirit of equality in our business, beginning that relationship on a falsehood would be bad form, and you don’t need any other reasons to hate me.”

“I don’t hate you,” I interrupted, because, really, I didn’t.

“Tomorrow, when you’ve slept on it, I have no doubt you’ll find, at the very least, you don’t like me very much.”

“Can you please just tell me whatever it is you were going to tell me so we can go? I made a garlic and herb roast lamb, and I’m hungry, and it’s sounding pretty good right now.”

He turned on the car and pulled out of the space a little too quickly. Like, Formula One quickly.

“Can I ask why you’re driving like a maniac?” I was actually bracing myself with one hand on the dash, letting my purse fall to my feet, the other hand gripped onto the door handle.

“Meat,” was his one word reply.

“Is that supposed to mean something to me?”

“We need to talk. I also happen to be hungry,” he told me as he took a sharp left turn to head up Third Avenue toward my place. “And you’re going to feed me.”

I had so many ways I wanted to respond to this assertion. “It’s been a big night, and, like you said, I’m probably going to…dislike you tomorrow, so maybe we shouldn’t push it and—”

The car stopped.

He jumped out of the car and slammed his door.

My door flew open. “You know where I live.”

He offered his hand to me. “Don’t forget your purse.”

I took a deep breath, and up the stairs we went, his hand at the small of my back until I made my way to Gozer, flipped up his hat, and retrieved the house key.

“You keep your spare key in the hat of a ceramic garden gnome.” He made this as a statement, an observation, not a question.

“His name is Gozer,” I supplied. “Gozer?” I said to my fat, little friend. “This is Holst. Holst, this is Gozer, the—”

“Keymaster,” he finished.

That was the first time ever someone knew what the fuck I was talking about or didn’t laugh at me. I was so delighted by this, I let Holst know. “I’ll feed you because you knew who he was without me explaining it.”

“I appreciate that more than you can imagine. Though, I probably would have forced my way in to eat a roast.”

I opened the door and threw my purse onto the couch at my right. On my very high heels, I went to the kitchen, threw my purple wrap on the back of a chair, and opened the oven.

I’d prepared the small roast along with white baby potatoes and root vegetables in the afternoon. It had been marinating since the day before, and I had the timing down perfectly for delicious, succulent, tender meat.

“Can I do anything?” Holst offered.

“No. But you can tell me whatever it is you were going to tell me.”

I plonked the roast onto a heavy chopping board and set it in the middle of the kitchen table. I then opened the fridge, grabbed a can of Diet Coke, a random beer from Trader Joes, and the roasted veggies. I took the drinks to the table in true ex-waitress fashion, balancing everything on one arm. Then I put the veggies into the microwave. While doing all of this, I noticed that Holst had found his way around my kitchen and set the table.

“Do you like pesto?” I asked.

“I do,” he replied.

I opened the fridge and pulled out two jars. One was still sealed, the other I opened, took the veggies out of the microwave and mixed a spoonful through them.

Then I sat down. “Bon appetite.” And popped open my soda. “Oh!” I said and stood up. “Bottle opener, sorry,” and plonked the item unceremoniously in front of him.

He just stared at me, then looked at the meat, then back to me. “Your eye make-up,” he noted.

“Do I look like a crack-whore?” I asked with a grin.

“Well…” he began, “I’m not acquainted with many crack-whores, so I really can’t say whether you look like one specifically. However, the cinematic depiction of a crack-whore…maybe a little.” He smiled easily and twisted the cap from the beer.

Asshole screw top making me look like an idiot with my bottle opener.

Before he even took a sip of that beer, he started, “Katherine…”

“I’m right here. I mean, there’s no one else here but you and me, so, the whole formal introduction when you’re about to say something to me…just sayin’, it’s like a big ole waste of time.”

“I overheard everything Mark said to you this evening.”

With a forlorn sigh, he eyed the roast like he wanted to put on some Barry White and have a moment alone with it.

“And?” I prompted.

“And, I felt I should be upfront with you that I was a witness to his…ugliness.”

“Yeah. He’s a dick. I’m fine now, so help yourself.” I nodded toward the carving knife.

“I…it’s been years since I’ve actually carved a roast.”

“I could turn on you at any minute. You really want me holding a sharp knife? I mean, the knife block is right there, but at least, if I had to lunge for a weapon, you’d have some time to work out your defense.”

He picked it up with a small smirk, and I watched as the tendons and muscles in his hands flexed. It was like watching hand porn right there at my kitchen table. I made a mental note that I needed to add some male hand pics to my Tumblr page.

He took a bite of the lamb…and moaned. I was pretty sure I saw tears in his eyes.

Then he murmured, “So goddamn good.”

“You two want the room?” I teased.

He swallowed and asked without warning, “Are you an alcoholic?”

The smile on my face died instantly, but considering I was his business partner, I answered him honestly. “I used to drink…excessively. Since Tori and Cam got together, I’ve been drunk three times, two of those, you’ve seen.”

“Do you drink every day?”

“Nope. Like I said, the last three times I drank, I got drunk, and outside of that, I’ve stopped. The beer is for guests, and Diet Coke is my new poison. When I really want a wild night, I get jacked up on cherry syrup and Diet Coke.”

“Katherine, what he said to you tonight…”

“Do me a favor and please, don’t rehash that scene with me. Eat the food I know you’re gonna go home and masturbate thinking about it and I’ll try not to be a raging bitch to you anymore.”

“And why are you, in your words, ‘a raging bitch’ to me…do you think?”

I stopped and looked at the edge of my simple, white plate. “It’s a defense mechanism, totally misplaced anger. I think I’ve got it in check now.”

He laid his fork down and confessed his own truth. “My ex was a vegetarian, and we split about a year ago. I just never started eating meat again.”

“You gave up meat for love?” I asked in horror. “I mean…bacon.”

“Vegetarian, not Vegan. I still ate fish and, very occasionally, I had turkey or chicken.”

“Pescetarian,” I said.

“Yes. The day I moved out, I told her I was going to gorge myself on baby animal flesh.”

“But you didn’t?”

“No,” he said and picked up his fork.

“Why not?” I asked, curiously.

“She used to show me pictures of how they slaughter lambs, calves…the baby animals. I said it just to piss her off. Now, why don’t you tell me why you hate to be called Katherine.”

“Yeah, I don’t foresee me sharing that information with you, H.”

“H?”

“Is it annoying?” I asked.

He finished chewing and replied, “Do you want it to be annoying?”