I am the least patient person maybe ever, so I rushed to put up chapter 2. Since there's no image embedding on FFN please check out a great illustration by Nhaingen over on my Tumblr, where I can be found at skrtomg. Thanks for reading, and feel free to let me know what you think!
Craig's existence continued. He endured. That was the best he could say about his life at present. His work became consuming as he was hired to consult on the refurbishing of the South Park Community Center. It was an exciting project in the sense that he had never thought about the look of a community center before, and presented a real challenge. Unfortunately the challenge was that he did not give a shit about the town community center, and had no feelings about what it should look like. He suggested a color palette of earthy browns, spruce green, and berry-toned magenta. He hoped this was mature, refined, and a little bit bold. He didn't want to shock most of South Park. He suspected he had only been approached about this at the influence of his father, who had after many years of plodding attempts to become elected, finally made his way onto the town organizing committee. Not that Craig much cared for the town or its committees. He kept his head down and did his work.
One afternoon he came home from a meeting at the town hall to find a moving van parked in front of his building. Dread enveloped him as he went upstairs and saw old blankets laid down in the hallway. The door to the apartment next to his was open. Craig never saw an open door he didn't walk through. Unfortunately, he found Stan and Kyle on the other side of this one.
"Well," said Kyle, putting down a small potted fern. "So it seems we're neighbors now."
"Seems it. You bought this apartment?"
"Yes."
"Why was I not informed?"
"Why would you be informed?" Kyle put his hands on his hips. He was wearing women's clothing again; a three-quarter-length-sleeve modal cranberry sweater this time. It looked stupid with his hair and Craig had half a mind to say so. "It's none of your business, actually."
Craig felt it very well must have been his business, since a giant moving truck was taking up a lot of space outside of his apartment building and, more to the point, he had lived in this building since day one. Surely it was his right as a property owner to be informed of comings and goings in the condo association? "I suppose not," Craig said. "Welcome. Congratulations."
"It's really a relief," Kyle said. He pushed the fern away with his foot. Craig would not have done that. It might have scratched the floor. "Stanley!" Kyle screamed. "Come meet the new neighbors!"
Stan came hustling down from the loft, only to see that the new neighbors happened to be Craig. "Oh," he said, as if this were a major let-down.
They all stood there for a moment, looking at each other. Stan looked to Kyle, as if for an order to be carried out; Kyle looked at Craig with some kind of caution. Craig looked at both of them in disbelief. It might have gone on forever, had some movers not begun to wheel in heavy-duty kitchen equipment. Only then did Craig notice that the kitchen appliances in this apartment had been totally stripped out, leaving only hookups in the wall and gaps between the counters and sink where before there had been a fridge, oven, and range.
"Very good," said Kyle, rushing over to deal with that.
Stan shook his head, as if it had been charming, the way Kyle had skipped off. "It's our first place," he said, and only then did he begin to grin. "We're pumped."
"Where were you living before?" Craig asked.
"My parents' basement. Denver, before that."
"So you figured you'd buy all new kitchen appliances?"
"Sort of," said Stan. "I cook."
"Cook!" Kyle exclaimed. "Please." He sauntered back over. There was a kind of unnatural rhythm to the way he walked; it was not what Craig would call "masculine." Too articulate. Kyle's hips tottered across his frame like his torso was loosely pegged into his ass. "Stan is a chef. Don't be modest!"
"We don't own anything," Stan explained. "Except some clothes, this kitchen equipment, and a plant."
"The plant is a housewarming gift from my mother," said Kyle.
"Hey," said one of the delivery men, a guy with a clipboard. "Who's gonna sign for this?"
"I'll do it," said Stan, and he left Kyle standing with Craig.
"What are you going to sleep on?" Craig asked. He looked closed at Kyle's posture, at the way he held his hands: limp at his sides, until he caught Craig looking at him. Then he picked them up and held them slack in front of his belly, just crossed at the wrists. It called Craig's attention to both Kyle's wrists, which were slender, and his stomach, which was not. The cut of his sweater was flattering but Craig could see some extra padding underneath it.
"The floor, I guess," said Kyle. "I mean, we don't have a bed."
"You could go back to Stan's parents' house and sleep there and then get up tomorrow morning and go buy a bed."
"No! Don't send me back there," Kyle said, quickly. "We'll just sleep on the floor. It's fine. It'll be romantic."
"There is literally not one thing romantic about being an idiot," said Craig.
"Craig. This is our first night together in our beautiful new apartment. Don't fuck it up!"
Stan came back over, thanking the delivery guys and holding a copy of their receipt.
"Don't you think it's weird you don't have a bed?" Craig asked. "Or any furniture?"
"Well, we just moved in," said Stan.
Though he found himself thinking that he should by no means offer them a place to stay, Craig heard himself asking, "Do you want to sleep on my couch?"
"Craig, shut up!"
"Well," said Stan, "it seems better than the floor."
"Just come by whenever you want to go to sleep," Craig said. "See you soon."
Craig went home and sat on his couch, wondering why he had just done what he had done. To be nice, he told himself, though he didn't really believe it. He wasn't nice. He was an asshole.
When Stan and Kyle knocked on the door Craig considered that he might simply neglect to answer it. He let them in despite his urge to be nasty; Stan was holding a duffel bag straining at its seams. Kyle had already changed into pajamas of a sort, flannel pants and a hoodie commemorating his brother's bar mitzvah.
"It's really nice of you to let us stay here tonight," said Stan. "We'll go buy a mattress tomorrow."
"How old are you?" Craig asked. "Don't buy a mattress and just put it on the floor."
"I assume it would come with a frame of some kind," Stan said.
They were still standing in the doorway, Craig leaning with arms crossed on the frame. No one had ever stayed the night at his apartment before. He felt uneasy about letting them enter. Kyle did so without being invited, pushing his way in with his flannel pants dragging on the floor.
"Holy shit," he said, gazing up and around him. "This place is spectacular."
"It's the same as yours," said Craig, though he knew it wasn't true.
"It's really not." Kyle sat down on the couch, looking everywhere with wide eyes. "It's like a fucking magazine spread."
"Thanks." Craig finally stepped out of the doorway. He was nervous that Kyle was sitting on his precious couch, probably getting it dirty with his greasy little hands, shedding weird red hairs all over. Craig would vacuum for hours and never be rid of the traces.
"Seriously." Stan took a step inside and shut the door behind him, which Craig found presumptuous. "Your place looks great."
"I know."
"Did you do this yourself?" Kyle asked.
"Yes."
"How did you afford all this stuff?"
"Afford what?" Craig asked. "The couch was a floor sample at Design Within Reach. And I built the table myself."
"Are those flowers? Like, is that a greenhouse?" Kyle got up to wander toward the bromeliads, in asymmetrical squarish black pots. His rusty terra cottas were stepped like inverted pyramids, hand-built by some old women who lived at a commune in the Ozarks. Neville had known them. They'd stayed on the commune for a month and Craig had bought as many pots as would fit in the backseat of the car. He had long since strategically planted the remainder of his stock in the living rooms of his earliest clients.
"They're just flowers," said Craig, "hot-house flowers."
"What even," said Stan.
"I did not invite you here to gawk." Craig began to blush. He knew the creeping heat on his cheeks was not merely the humidifier he disguised in this corner behind a plant stand.
"This just makes me jealous," said Kyle. "Our house will never look this good."
"It could," said Craig, which was merely being charitable. Their house would never look this good.
"We don't even own any furniture," said Stan.
"Well, do you have some money?"
Kyle snapped, "Rude!"
"On the most basic level you need at least a small amount of money to buy furniture. Though you don't have to furnish your whole apartment right away."
"Yes we do," said Stan.
"Okay, whatever. It's none of my business." Craig turned to walk away. He no longer wanted to linger with them in the corner. Flowers were best appreciated from a distance, he felt.
"It could be, though," said Kyle.
"Hm?"
"I mean, our furniture. It could be. If we paid you to do it for us."
Craig paused and turned around. He crossed his arms, regarding them with curiosity and doubt. "You could," he said, "but I wouldn't take the job."
"Why not?"
"How do you know what I do for a living?"
"Everyone knows what everyone does for a living," said Stan, "in South Park."
"Clyde told us."
"Clyde."
"Yeah," said Stan.
"What else did he tell you?"
Neither Stan nor Kyle said anything, though Stan looked at the floor, and Kyle crossed his arms to mirror Craig's posture, a forced neutral expression plastering his face.
"Oh. Good. I'm not going to take your business."
"Well, why not?" Kyle asked.
"I have enough work to do already as it is. Furnishing and styling your entire apartment? No thank you. I'm not sure my aesthetic is right for you guys."
"Why not?" said Stan.
"Please?" Kyle whined.
"I'll go shopping with you," said Craig. "As a courtesy. Free of charge."
"That almost sounds like a friendly thing to do," said Kyle.
"Yes, well." Craig sniffed. "I'll get some sheets for the couch." He walked away this time, ascending the stairs and heading toward the chest at the foot of his bed where he kept his ridiculously nice linens. Here was a cotton-flax flat sheet, oatmeal in color, the fabric flecked with ornate, hand-stamped steely aqua geometrics. They were both simple and ornate, extraordinarily comfortable. He hesitated to let anyone else use them, for there was no set like this anywhere else in the world. The best thing about artisanal goods, though, was that there was no lack of supply of talented and desperate people delighted to shower you with opportunities to buy their hand-churned goose-fat soap or oil-rubbed bronze mortar and pestle. Craig's personal philosophy had somehow morphed into one of excess in minimalism: the less one had, the better everything could be. All of his sheets were a work of art, but he laid them on the couch for Stan and Kyle anyway, along with a hand-crocheted quilt his grandmother had gifted to him, back when she had been more with it.
The beauty of the couch was that, as the star of the apartment, it was generous in depth and fit two relatively normally sized men in something like but not quite approaching perfect comfort. He pulled the tall curtains shut and directed them to the bathroom. "Help yourselves to whatever," he said.
"It's really nice of you to let us stay," said Stan.
"I would have been fine on the floor," said Kyle.
"No, dude," said Stan, "your back."
"Floors are good for the back." Kyle looked to Craig as if he might agree.
"Sure? I guess." Craig shrugged. "I have a bed, so. It's not an issue for me." He paused, then needlessly added: "My back is fine."
"Well," said Kyle, "lucky you. Mine's so fucked-up. I don't even think I did anything to it. I think it's just like this from being alive."
"That sounds really awful." Craig stood there for a moment, looking at Kyle curled up Stan's arms on his incredibly expensive and tasteful sectional sofa. "I'm going to bed now."
"Thanks for having us," said Stan.
"Good night!" said Kyle.
"Good bye. I mean, good night." Craig he went upstairs. Only as he was flossing, staring at his unnaturally even teeth in the bathroom mirror, did he realize that he had a guest bedroom and he could have put Stan and Kyle in it. It seemed a consciously cruel oversight, but it had not been intentional. He rinsed with Listerine, the golden antiseptic kind, and wondered if perhaps he shouldn't go tell them that he had a wonderful full-size bed in a room downstairs that had no windows but a lovely rice-paper lamp the cast elongated Indonesian forms on the wall, dancing if someone gently spun the lamp's convex, weightless body. It was a tacky lamp and its loveliness did nothing to diminish its tackiness, or the fact that it painfully reminded Craig of the Christmas he had received it from Neville, Craig age 19 and stupidly touched despite the fact Neville had just told him that enrolling in his 300-level theory seminar next semester was compulsory. Craig had read over the course bulletin again and again but he found nothing about a requirement constraining him to take such an elective.
Craig had not gone home for Christmas, as he had been uneasy about his relationship to the rest of his family at the time, and so he had spent all but one evening of his break at Neville's in Capitol Hill, only to crawl back to his dorm room one cloudy afternoon, lamp in his arms, wondering if perhaps this was wrong, or rather, if the lamp was ugly. It was scarlet in color, the shadows murky twilight blue through the fragile paper, and try as he might no amount of looking could tell Craig whether or not he found the lamp gorgeous or ugly. He sat in his dorm room and spun it by its spindle top, watching the figures waltz across his dormitory wall. That had been 10 years ago. Now he stood at the top of the stairs and decided once and for all it was ugly and it was tacky, and that was why he had put it in his underused guest bedroom, the one he had just forgotten existed. Though, why should he remember? He had never had a guest.
He stood at the top of the stairs and took two steps down, then one up, then retreated all the way, then sat squat on the top step. From here he could see that Stan and Kyle were sleeping, and it would have been insensitive to wake them. Beyond that, he did not want to appear rude. Though their apartment had a similar layout they must not have realized they had been slighted. Then again, if they had been sleeping in the Marsh house basement and now considered it a significant improvement to sleep on the floor, a couch probably seemed beyond generous. At this conclusion Craig stood and got into bed.
The next morning Stan and Kyle were gone, either to work (whatever work construed for them, cooking or whatever, Craig figured) or to buy a bed; whatever those two did, and Craig hated to consider it. The linens were folded neatly and left on the couch, and Craig was of a mind to have them dry-cleaned until he realized they carried now a soft, unusual smell, perhaps their scents mingled together. Though to Craig it did not necessarily smell good there was something nice about it all the same. He put the unwashed sheets and his grandmother's quilt away at the foot of his bed and went into the guest bedroom, where he found that horrid lamp, the one had he been considering as he wondered if extending new hospitality would make him seem like a bad person. He picked it up and then unplugged it, then put it on the kitchen counter as he showered and dressed.
He made himself a much-needed cortado and drank it in front of the windows, looking down on the building's parking lot underneath his balcony. It met Stan and Kyle's on the left, where their spaces were divided by a steel railing. This was all secondary to the building, part of its conversion. They were here now, and pending some ill happenstance Craig did not wish on them (a death, a breakup, the accumulation of an unusually large personal fortune) they were probably not going to leave. He washed out his cup, put it in the dishwasher, and took the lamp next door.
He knocked once and waited, then twice. No one was home; that seemed to be the case. He left the lamp by the door. Then he went home and scribbled a note to leave with it:
This is a housewarming gift. - Craig Tucker.
He considered hinting at the story behind it, too, lest they not understand exactly the significance of shadow puppets and their value to a certain type of whimsically frustrating person. So now Craig stood there, next door to his own apartment in the chilly hallway, contemplating whether this was a meaningful and generous act or if he was using these poor saps to get rid of something ugly that reminded him of an ugly part of his life. They had been terrible assholes growing up, so annoying that Craig had refused to LARP with them at age 10, siding instead with even more obnoxious people, and also Clyde. But there was something self-congratulatory about their partnership and it had always bothered Clyde. Stan, for example, was so sentimental that when a girl he had been dating for nine months broke up with him (to date Craig's friend Token, actually), he had gone essentially catatonic and just laid around the locker room moaning. A boy of 9, Craig thought to himself. Such dramatics.
Kyle, on the other hand, had always been a bit prissy, the sort of boy whose self-worth was astronomical. He was very invested in being right and on occasions when he wasn't refused to concede. It was infuriating if it wasn't cute, though it was often cute, and Craig forced himself to admit that his bad hair and effeminate chubbiness were still cute, and yet Craig did not imagine Kyle would ever have been into someone like him, because there was something plainly normative about the way he wore flannel pants to bed and kind of wanted to sleep on the floor. Craig decided that it was kind of him to gift them his lamp and that perhaps living near them wouldn't be horrible.
Craig spent the day on the phone with a carpenter, as he had several work orders to place. He had imagined this would take only a couple of hours, but when he finally hung up it was in fact nighttime. He decided to have hummus for dinner later in the week and began preparing to soak chickpeas. The knock at the door came as he was on a stepladder getting his dried beans and legumes down from their spot in the cabinet over the microwave.
It was Kyle, and he was wearing a sort of cream-colored scallop-edged collarless blazer. It was the sort of thing Craig would expect to see the "creative" daughter wearing to her family's Memorial Day celebration on a yacht. Kyle clutched what would have been the lapels were the blazer not horrifying and said, "Thank you for the lamp."
"You're welcome."
"It's really sweet of you," said Kyle. "Stan and I are really touched."
"Good." Now Craig was glad he hadn't woken them up and told them to relocate to the guest bedroom.
"It's a little symbolic, you know, getting up a lamp—"
"I did not get it for you. I gave it to you. That was my lamp. It was given to me by my lover."
"Your lover?"
"Yes, my ex. He studied puppetry arts and performance. He gave it to me for Christmas not long after we'd gotten together."
"Craig," said Kyle, his little voice breaking. "You don't need to give us something that means a lot to you."
"What's the point of a gift if it doesn't?"
"Oh." Kyle let go of his blazer, crossing his arms. "I guess that's true."
"He took me to Indonesia once."
"Oh? How was it?"
"Muggy. Unsanitary."
"Oh. Um. Do you think I would like it there?"
"I'm sure you wouldn't," said Craig.
"Oh. Okay." Kyle cleared his throat. "Well, we're grateful you let us stay last night, and Stan is very happy about the lamp. So how would you like to come to dinner?"
"Right now?"
"No, not right now. Tomorrow, maybe."
"I suppose I could." It was just next door, after all.
"Well, great."
"Thank you for the invitation."
"Do you have any food allergies?" Kyle dropped his arms to his hips. "Stan told me to ask."
"No."
"Is there anything you don't like?"
"No," said Craig, "I really like everything."
"Well, great!"
This was how Craig came to find himself sitting on the concrete floor of Stan and Kyle's apartment the next evening, eating a tagine of merguez and harissa-scented carrots from a steaming vessel that rested on a towel. There was a loaf of baguette, and it reminded Craig of his favorite bakery in Denver. He mentioned this casually, sopping up spicy, murky broth with a warm crust.
"Yes," said Stan, as he poured Kyle a glass of red wine.
"That's ours," said Kyle. "Well, not ours. I mean, Stan's."
"You own that bakery?" Craig asked, eyes wide.
"No," said Stan.
"He's the culinary director," said Kyle. "I was the business director for the capital group that owns the bakery until I got a job with Chipotle."
"Chipotle?"
"Yes. But I'm quitting that as soon as our place gets off the ground, obviously."
"How are you opening a restaurant? Wait, never mind, I don't care."
"Well, we lined up some investors—"
"Kyle, he said he didn't care."
"Look," said Kyle. "You like the baguette?"
"I buy these stupid baguettes all the time," said Craig, "so, yes."
"That's great," said Stan.
"So, we were really hoping you'd help us decorate this apartment."
In the middle of chewing, the baguette somehow began to taste like an obligation, which was weird because Craig thought of food in very literal and non-allegorical terms. "So you haven't bought a bed yet." It should have been obvious; after all, here they were eating a restaurant-quality meal on the floor.
"We got a queen-sized mattress but nothing to put it on," said Kyle. "Except the stupid box spring it came with."
"It would be doing us a serious favor, so we'd like to take you out to brunch."
"We could make a day of it," said Kyle, "this weekend."
"Do you guys not have any actual friends?"
"That's so rude." Kyle angrily tore off a hunk of baguette. "Of course we have friends! They're just tasteless and horrible."
"Uh huh."
"We're just trying to be nice," said Stan, and he sounded a bit hurt.
Craig was unused to people being nice to him, genuinely. He had dealt with many clients, contractors, and suppliers in a cordial yet professional way, but that was hardly the same thing; his parents had been about as distant as it was possible to be while living under the same roof. Which wasn't to say that they had been bad or uncaring, mean or unloving. But he couldn't describe them as "nice" and it was hard to know what Stan really meant by that. Surely he didn't mean kindness, because here they were, asking Craig to spend his weekend on the thankless task of — what, helping them pick out a sofa? Craig did not even consider Stan and Kyle especially nice people themselves. His worst and strongest childhood memories involved them getting him into serious trouble. Sometimes as a kid he had felt as if he were a recurring character on a 60-minute drama on which Stan and Kyle and their friends were a central feature. They had both tended to act like put-upon heroines resistant to being rescued, insisting upon doing it themselves. Craig had always had his own friends in grade school and into high school, but he had rapidly detached from everyone once Neville had commandeered his attention. Since then he had more or less concentrated on his work.
He found himself saying, "Sure. I'll go with you guys to brunch."
On Saturday morning — Stan's day off, Craig learned — they sat down for a 10 a.m. reservation at a small teashop in the city. It was in a rustic old bungalow, untreated floorboards and exposed brick walls. Craig had neither been there nor heard of it, though Stan described it as an "industry hangout."
"We're stealing the pastry chef," Kyle bragged.
"Are you serious?" Stan asked. "Don't talk about that."
"She's good."
"Kyle, dude. Calm down." Kyle then sulked until he ordered.
The menu was small, with only four dishes: a spring vegetable timbale with an herb salad and ricotta salata; buckwheat "johnnycakes" with rhubarb compote, honeyed mascarpone; chia pudding, "rustic" house granola, macerated strawberry; steak and coddled eggs, truffled griddle potato "cake," chicory-scented carrot hash, hunk of baguette. "They use our baguettes," Kyle said. He had gotten the steak and eggs. This was an enormous plate of food, autumn colors in the hash and thyme-flecked eggs. Stan ordered the chia pudding, which was what Craig had wanted. For just a moment Craig felt weird about that, but he then decided that if someone was stealing the pastry chef from this restaurant it might be smarter than a mere faux-pas to copy his order. Ultimately the chia-seed pudding was good, a rich custard of delicate textures married to the strawberries. The granola was full of pepitas and appropriately salty. Craig ordered a cortado and smiled at the fussy mother-of-pearl teacup it came served in.
"This place is perfect," Kyle gushed, letting Stan co-dependently carve his steak and sneak a bite. "It hasn't broken yet. Aren't you impressed?"
"I'll tell you when I'm impressed," said Craig. "Don't worry about that."
"We really hope you can help us," said Stan.
"I don't know what you want from me."
"Your perspective," said Kyle.
"We don't know what we're doing."
"We've never furnished an apartment before."
"Well," said Craig, "I wish you the best of luck." And he did, because he felt wishing them luck might absolve him from his forced trip to Crate and Barrel at Cherry Creek directly following the meal. Still, he was grateful when the chef came over, shook Stan's hand, and announced gregariously that the meal was on the house.
"We couldn't," Kyle cried, in a tone that definitely implied he would take as many free meals as he could get. "We're just so pleased with everything, honestly. We brought our friend, see?" He gave a limp gesture toward Craig, who was leaning back in his iron-slatted chair, arms crossed.
"Great place you have here." Craig sat up and shook the guy's hand. He was a somewhat burly man with very built arms, his T-shirt nearly busting at the width of them. For a moment it felt to Craig as if perhaps he was being set up with this guy romantically, but the way he shook Craig's hand and said, "Thanks, yo," was pretty straight, unmistakably. Still Kyle sat there nodding in appraisal, as if he might be picturing the two of them together. Stan seemed more detached, elbow on the table, drinking his black coffee with a cautious eye toward Kyle. The dynamic between them was fascinating, in that they seemed to relate almost like partners in a television legal firm, rather than spouses or whatever. Craig had not managed to unlock the specifics of their relationship, though he also didn't care. The chef chatted with Stan for a moment about a farmer's market Craig had visited once and personally deemed overrated. Stan had become very animated and was discussing Sugarloaf Farms' crop of watermelon radishes.
"I prefer the sunchokes," said the chef.
"I could grow sunchokes on my balcony," Stan replied, which only said to Craig that perhaps he might soon have sunchokes growing on the balcony next to him, and maybe he didn't want that.
"That's right!" The chef smacked his forehead as if suddenly remembering: "The new place!"
Craig looked to Kyle, hoping to communicate something like "how can you stand this?" Yet Kyle just grinned and nodded, a lecherous look on his face. He was still soaking up some of the au jus and yolk from his plate with baguette scraps.
It did not take long for Craig to realize that the worst thing about a free meal was that the check never came, which meant there was no natural place to pause, finish, and leave. So an hour melted into two hours as Stan ordered another coffee.
"Didn't you want to buy furniture?" Craig asked.
"We have all day!" Kyle insisted. He had asked for another menu and was reading it over, despite the fact there were only four things on it. Ultimately he ordered a latte.
"I tend not to idle."
"Just relax," Kyle chided.
"You are so unrelaxed I could play you like a violin."
"What?"
"You're high-strung," said Craig. "Lots of tension."
"That's not true!"
Stan merely shrugged at the suggestion, sipping his coffee.
"What is your deal, anyway?" Kyle asked.
"I was hoping you'd clarify what my deal was here."
"No! I mean, Craig, what do you do with your life?"
"I am an interior designer," said Craig. "I thought that was why you asked me to get involved in this deal in the first place."
"Yes, but what are your, you know — goals?"
"To help you pick out at least one piece of furniture, and then go home."
"In life!"
Craig looked at Kyle, dumbfounded. "I don't understand."
"Don't you have anything going on? Are you dating anyone?"
"No."
"But — didn't you sleep with Clyde?"
"I did."
"So are you guys, like, dating?"
"No."
"Oh." Kyle scooped some foam off the top of his latte with two fingers. "That was all I wanted to know."
"Okay. Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why do you care who I'm dating?"
"Just making small talk."
"I don't believe you."
"You should!"
"Kyle," said Stan, "leave him alone. Stay out of his business."
"I'm not in it, I'm curious! What happened with that?"
"With what, with Clyde?"
Kyle nodded.
"Well, we slept together and went out once, and then I chose not to see him again."
"Why not?"
"Why not? Because he is a hot mess. Didn't you get the story from Clyde already?"
"Well, yes. But now I want it from you!"
"That's enough, Kyle."
"Stan, shut up."
"Man, he doesn't want to talk about it," Stan said. "Leave him alone."
"I'll talk about it," said Craig. "It's very simple. He's a big fat closeted baby. Why should I have to justify not wanting that? To you, of all people, Kyle?"
"We bought you brunch!" Kyle cried.
"No, you didn't," said Craig. "It was free." He stood up and pushed his chair back. "I'll bide my time outside until you're done with your coffees."
He had expected them to get up and follow him out, but to Craig's great surprise they took their damn time, leaving Craig to sit on the steps and watch the late-morning traffic pick up. He wondered why nearly anyone else couldn't have bought the apartment next to his.
Tensions were high in the car, with Kyle blathering frantically about how rude of Craig it was to walk out on their brunch. Craig made no excuses, choosing to stay silent until they arrived at Crate and Barrel. These were not his people, a fact of which he was highly conscious. They gravitated toward the ugliest couch.
"No," Craig decreed. "No, you will not buy this." It was chartreuse and unbalanced, with a wide and deep seat against a shallow, stunted back, flanked by scroll arms and heavy, ornate legs.
"Why not?" Kyle sat down on it, crossing his arms. "It feels regal."
"Sure. But your apartment is not regal. It's an industrial great room."
"So?"
"So, don't buy a stumpy little green sofa. Don't buy any green sofa."
"Why not?"
"Because you want to accessorize with color and let your big pieces be neutral. Because you will end up without enough furniture to actively fill your space and end up buying a dozen smaller crappier pieces, none of which go together. You need one big sectional couch to 'anchor' the space, let's say, and that's it. One big sectional couch."
"That's it?"
"You may add a large cocktail table and an interesting floor lamp."
"Seriously?" Kyle asked.
"Yes. I'm serious."
"Well, great! Thanks a lot, that's a ton of help!" Kyle got up, pulling his purse off the floor. "My whole life all I wanted was a green couch!"
"You are a man of very simple wants, then," said Craig.
"Ugh!" Kyle whirled around and stalked off into the store.
"I didn't like this couch anyway." Stan then went chasing after Kyle. Craig watched him stride away, marching with his arms out on a deluded mission to reign in Kyle's passions.
"Good luck with that," Craig said aloud, to no one.
He wandered through the store, keeping near the front in case Stan and Kyle decided to storm off without him, leaving Craig stranded in Denver. He fingered all of the table linens, marveling at the ones he found high-quality yet overpriced and lamenting the cheap dyes on most items. It was a shame he had no one to entertain for; perhaps he'd offer to host Thanksgiving this year. A vision of his sister's toddlers choking his bromeliads and smearing their greasy fingers on his stainless steel appliances dissuaded him before these thoughts gained further traction. Perhaps when they were older.
Tucked into a corner in the front of the shop, but off to the side, Craig spied the perfect couch for Stan and Kyle: it was rectangular and boxy, comprising many sections, including a louche central ottoman that doubled as a cocktail table. It sat upon a brushed aluminum frame and, most fitting, it was not a green couch in and of itself but there was green in the weave of the heavy, structured canvas the floor model came in. It would pick up other greens in the room without being green itself; the ultimate effect was that of a very commanding beige, neutral to the point of character without going further. It was not something Craig liked, but he liked it for Stan and Kyle. He hunted them down in the store and brought them to see it.
"This is okay," said Stan.
"No," said Kyle. "No, uh-uh. No way."
"What's wrong with it?"
"I want a sofa, Craig," Kyle whined. "I want something people want to sit on. I want something you could pose with in your family portrait."
"Family portrait?" Stan asked.
"God, it's like you barely know me."
"I don't know you at all," said Craig. "Which is why it's so weird that you asked me to come shopping with you."
"Look," said Stan, "I'm fine with this. It's without objectionable qualities."
"A nice piece of furniture should be divisive," said Kyle.
"Normally I'd agree with you. But that's not what you want."
"How dare you tell me what I want!"
"You invited me along," said Craig.
"You did, dude."
"Oh, shut up, Stan."
"How about this." Craig sat down on the sofa. "Tell me three things you like about this couch."
"I don't like it," said Kyle.
"Fine. But what are three things you like about it?"
"I like the color," said Stan.
"Okay." Craig patted the cushion next to him.
Reluctantly, Stan sat down. "I like the shape. I like that it's simple. There's no wacky ornament happening. I like that it's plain."
"I hate that aspect!"
"Well, what's something that you like about it?"
Kyle stood there with his arms crossed. "If I had to pick? I guess the, um. How do I put this? It feels expensive."
Craig laughed. "Yes. It is expensive. A couch is the most important thing you'll buy for your house. You'll never get rid of it. You'll reupholster it and you'll move the sections into different rooms and you'll eventually get sick of it and let it bother you when you stare at and think about your worst life decisions. So don't fucking pick some awful scroll-armed piece of shit because that'll be more expensive to reupholster, it can't be split into sections if you move and can't fit it in your new place, and above all else you'll forever powerfully associate it with this afternoon at Crate and Barrel. The good news is that you can look at couches today and figure out what you're looking for, then figure it out over the next few weeks—"
"We were planning on buying a couch today," said Kyle.
"Okay. Why?"
"We need to furnish our apartment!"
"Yeah. But not today."
"Yes today!"
"Have you considered one of those rooms-to-go stores? They sell you a whole room. To go."
"No! I want nice furniture for my grown-up apartment! Surely you understand that, Craig!"
"I understand that you are a 30-year-old man having a tantrum in a Crate and Barrel," said Craig.
Stan stood up and put an arm around Kyle's shoulders. "Maybe Craig is right," he said, softly. "It won't kill us if we make a list of things we like in the store and then go home, think about it—"
"Stan," Kyle said, in such a small and pleading voice that it made Craig want to apologize for having said that thing about Kyle having a tantrum. Though he totally was and this was infuriating. This was exactly why Craig had dreaded the thought of their moving in near him.
"I know, I know." Stan looped his arms around Kyle's waist, pulling him near. "I know it's hard but it's all going to work out."
"How is it going to work out? People keep telling me I can't have what I want."
"Look," said Craig. "Nobody gets what they want."
They ignored him. "We just have to compromise sometimes, okay?" Stan rocked Kyle gently, kissing his shoulder. Things had gone from law firm to gay in about 30 seconds. Craig was nonplussed. "We'll come back to couches. Let's look at stools for our kitchen island."
"Okay." Kyle's posture improved and he slipped out of Stan's arms, straightening out his blazer. He smoothed out some of his curly hair. "I like the idea of sitting at the counter while Stan cooks, so I want something comfortable."
"So you want something comfortable," Craig repeated.
"Yes," said Kyle. "But we need something you can wipe down. Because it's the kitchen."
This sounded reasonable enough to Craig, and he stood up. "Stools are over here," he said. They followed right behind him.
Stan and Kyle bought everything save a couch that afternoon. "We'll think about that one," Kyle said, getting back into the car. It was afternoon now and the day had become cloudy.
Despite having done nothing but eat chia seed pudding and float through Crate and Barrel, Craig felt exhausted. He wilted into the backseat of their car, a bulbous floor sample lamp on his lap. "Well," he said, unprompted, "I hope this was useful to you."
Stan said, "Yeah, thanks. I think so."
Kyle said, "We'll see."
"You guys got some okay stuff."
"Just okay?" Kyle asked.
"I only care about the kitchen."
"Jesus, Stan, you would. Could you please try to feign excitement over furnishing our apartment?"
"Wouldn't you prefer I let you do whatever you wanted?"
"I'm just listening to Craig!"
"I don't actually care how you guys furnish your apartment."
"We have to live with this stuff forever!"
"Not forever, Kyle, it's just furniture."
"The furniture you put in your home relates very closely to how you are perceived."
"That is true," said Craig. He looked out the window now that they were on the highway. He had lived in Denver for nearly 10 years and leaving it made him somewhat anxious. The arguing in the car did not help.
"Watch your speed."
"I am watching my speed."
"I just don't want you to get pulled over."
"When I have I ever been pulled over? I'm driving the same speed as everyone else."
"Well, everyone else is an r-tard, so be careful, is all I'm saying!"
"Why wouldn't I be careful?"
"I don't know, Stan! It's just a thing people say."
Slouching against the window, Craig exhaled all the tension he seemed to be feeling. These guys were idiots. When he stepped out of the car he'd never have to deal with them again. Sure, they lived next door, but Craig had a peephole. He didn't have to answer for them. It wasn't, like, some kind of rule. They could take their clean-wiping kitchen stools and chia seed pudding and driving the same speed as other people on the highway and shove it.
Around the time they were rolling back into town, Kyle turned down the volume on the radio, contorted in his seat so that he was facing Craig, and said, "We should do this again."
On impulse, Craig just said, "Okay."
"And um." Kyle gripped the back of his seat, his weird old-woman hair falling into his eyes. He brushed it away with a well-manicured hand, trembling. "Would you like to fuck me?"
"Excuse me?" Craig asked.
Stan instinctively veered out of the road and parked the car at the curb. They were on a street of houses near the old playground. Craig had not been friends with anyone who lived on that street growing up, though this wasn't far from the street they'd all lived on growing up, which Clyde still lived on now. "Kyle, Jesus," said Stan. "Really?"
"That was the deal!" Kyle whipped around almost as if he had forgotten Craig was sitting there, let alone that he had just asked Craig to have sex with him, maybe? "I get to pick whoever I want!"
"And you want Craig?"
"I'm flattered." Craig unbuckled his seatbelt. "Look, maybe I'll just … walk home."
"That's stupid," said Stan, "we're going to the same place."
"Don't remind me," Craig replied.
"Look," said Kyle. "You're single, right?"
"Yes. But that's doesn't mean I want to fuck you."
"Are you not attracted to me?"
"Um." It was weird, because Craig had to admit that he was, a little. Stan he could take or leave, but Kyle had a cute ass that waggled behind him when he walked, perhaps because Kyle walked with specific intent to cause his ass and, to a lesser extent, his hips to waggle. It was performative in a way that Craig did find attractive, though no one could argue that the offer was being made in an appealing manner. "Would Stan be there?"
"Not if I can help it."
"Yes," said Kyle, "he'll be there."
"Um. Can I have some time to think about it?"
"I guess," said Kyle, "though I'm horny now."
"Shopping for furniture makes you horny?"
"No! But I've been thinking about you fucking me all day."
"Jesus Christ," said Stan, and he leaned his head on his arms, folded over the steering wheel.
Craig cleared his throat. "Here is the thing," he said. "The offer is theoretically intriguing. But I don't like to fuck guys." Though it was quiet in South Park, generally, an occasional mother with a double-stroller did jog by, or a monster SUV would roll down the street, twice as fast as the speed limit. It was very quiet in the car and the activity of weekend life outside the window could be shocking. "If you're looking to get topped I'm no help there."
"Do you like to bottom?" Kyle asked. "Stan would fuck you."
Raising his head, Stan sighed. "I did not sign up for that."
"But you'll do it because you love me!"
"Look," said Craig, "I don't know what you guys have going on between you, but I am not into that, either." Not so much because he did not like to be fucked, though he had certainly found it enjoyable with his lighting guy. The idea of Stan being cajoled into fucking him did not strike Craig as fun. Perhaps it was because of the dubious consent issue, though he was also just not that into Stan.
"That's okay." Kyle brushed some hair from his eyes and made a disappointed face. "I probably wouldn't be into that anyway." To Stan, he said, "I don't know that I'd want to watch you fuck someone else."
"I don't want to fuck anyone else!"
For a moment there was silence in the car, just as the mother of an old high school classmate, Bebe Stevens, went power-walking by. Bebe had gone to the University of Minnesota for college and returned from Minneapolis only at Christmastime, last year with an engagement ring and a bland fiancé from Connecticut, the diamond uncharacteristically small. Her mother glided down the sidewalk with determination, too much eye shadow to be taken seriously, her bosom jerking in her windbreaker with every step. She had weights in her hands and Craig wished he had one, too, for he might be able to bash the window open and climb out of it, fleeing. For all he had been back in town for several years now, this was the moment when Craig decided moving home had been a bad decision, late in the afternoon as Stan and Kyle propositioned him for sex.
"What if you just watched?" Kyle asked.
Craig tore his eyes off of Mrs. Stevens' ass as it strode away. "Watched what?"
"Stan fucking me."
Good taste and common sense demanded that Craig decline the offer, yet his lingering curiosity over what Kyle might look like naked forced him to sigh and say, "Okay."
It did not take long for that curiosity to be satisfied. Kyle tore off his clothes once he walked into the door, told Craig to put the lamp down, and barked at Stan to wait until later to empty their shopping bags. "But, there's towels in there," said Stan. "What if we need those?"
"Wait until later!" Kyle was shaking with nervous impatience, his clothing a pile at his feet. Craig had assumed once naked he would curl up or hold his hands across his middle like a sort-of maiden, but Kyle but his hands on his cushy hips and grinned, his half-hard dick just visible from under its cover of untrimmed, voluminous hair. Craig had never seen a man, in porn or real life, with so much and so prominent a crop of untrimmed pubic hair. It crept down the insides of his thighs and tapered up his soft stomach to his navel, thinning but without losing much of its spread. "Do you like it?" Kyle asked.
Craig needed a moment to grasp that the question was for him. "I do," he said. He had most certainly not been turned on like this at Crate and Barrel, but now he was hard and conscious of it. He stood fully clothed in the open, mostly unfurnished space of the big apartment, and yet Kyle thrust his nude chest forward like he knew what he wanted while Stan just stood there trembling.
"Good." Kyle crossed his arms over his chest and looked down. When he lifted his head again he was laughing. "I always wanted to do something like this."
His round ass was bedazzled with cellulite, though it was perkier than Clyde's, or any ass Craig had ever seen. He sounded pretty when he whined, when he arced, when he curled underneath Stan and wrapped his thick, hairy legs out from under Stan's thrusting hips and around Stan's waist. His heel knocked into his ankle, he said, "Ow," and then he whined for Stan to fuck him until it dissolved into inarticulate gasping. Craig was pleased he was no part of this, for there was room between Stan and Kyle neither literally nor figuratively; their bodies fit together expressly well, like nesting dolls. Like the pit in a nectarine; you'd get your hands dirty forcing these intractable bits apart. It was poetic and awkward; they moved together like they knew what they were doing, and yet they were doing it on a mattress on the floor. Craig sat with his arms crossed and his back to the wall of their loft bedroom, intrigued and repelled.
A moment came when Kyle tore his lips from Stan's and looked at Craig, catching his breath. "Oh," he said, "I'm sorry, are we boring you?"
"No."
"You could touch yourself, or something."
"Kyle, don't tell him what to do."
"Is that an order?"
Stan thought about it and said, "Yes." There was a lot of tussling and a lot of stopping and starting. Stan's nondescript body did nothing for Craig, but Kyle's was fascinating. Craig held his erection through his jeans until he finally got a peek at Kyle's ass being penetrated, cheeks spread open with one hand, then two. Stan and Kyle collapsed together, their backs to Craig like he wasn't there.
Craig felt used, but turned on anyway. These guys and their shit! He jerked off angrily, trying to get the best possible view of Kyle's ass. It was meant to be fucked, that much was clear, and Craig felt bad that he wasn't willing to do it. Then again he couldn't imagine Kyle fucking anyone, either. The more Craig tried to improve his view the more of Stan got in the way, until Craig finally decided it was preferable to shut his eyes against the offensive sight of Stan's balls and just think about Kyle's ass sitting in front of him unobstructed. It became increasingly difficult as Craig found he was able to think only of Clyde. Craig came to a vision of Clyde's fat dick. Though Craig had to admit to himself that he thought of Clyde's dick often, the specifics of it deserted him, leaving only a general impression of its girth and the fact that it had been arousing in some dimension, though other than "thick" Craig no longer remembered what those dimensions had been. Anyway, it was enough to get him off. He opened his eyes to Stan and Kyle, continuing to go at it.
"You guys are taking forever." He wiped his hand off on his jeans. It wasn't dignified, but nothing about this was. Craig longed to hear Kyle's response to this, but it wasn't forthcoming. Stan had flipped Kyle onto his back and they were fucking in missionary position. It was taking well longer than any single sex act in which Craig had ever participated. He was of half a mind to leave; after all, his bedroom was on the other side of the wall against which he was leaning. But something about walking out on your neighbors fucking felt seriously déclassé. Craig willed himself to stare at Stan's hairy ass until they finished, applauding Kyle's theatrical cries of "I'm coming!" with a sarcastic slow clap.
"That's so rude," Kyle panted.
"No," said Craig, "it would have been rude to leave. I sat here and watched you get pleasured for—" He glanced around, unsure of the time. "Quite a while."
"Tell me you didn't enjoy it," said Kyle.
"It was interesting."
Stan grunted, pushing himself off the bed. "Now I guess we can die knowing what Craig Tucker thinks of our sex life."
"Stan."
About to disappear into the bathroom, Stan turned and Craig got a full-on view of his relatively normative, softening dick. It looked vaguely threatening framed in straight black hair, and sort of ridiculous, slick with frothy post-sex wetness. The whole scene was objectively revolting, but it did nothing for Craig either way. He watched Stan lean over Kyle and kiss him deeply, cupping Kyle's chin.
When Stan had disappeared into the bathroom Kyle rolled onto his side with an arm stretched out, fluids leaking from his ass.
"I hope those aren't nice sheets."
"They're fine." Kyle grabbed for the covers and pulled them over his limp body. He curled into the comforter like a security blanket. "They're from Stan's parents. Maybe they were nice once, I don't know."
Behind the bathroom door, the shower started. Craig figured he might be free to go now, but something about leaving Kyle alone felt ... well, not quite rude. Undesirable. "I put towels down if I'm going to have sex. Or I would. If I were going to have sex."
"When was the last time you had sex?"
"Not for a while."
"Not since Clyde?"
"Why do you care about that?"
"It's interesting to me."
"Yes," said Craig. "I see that. Why?"
"You know," said Kyle, "childhood friends falling in love is relevant to my interests. Didn't you live next door to him?"
"You know I did. Who said I was in love with him? We hooked up once."
"Whatever," said Kyle, "you know what I mean. It's just ... interesting to me."
"We didn't even do it, if you must know."
"Was it good?"
Craig shrugged. He gestured to the bathroom door. "Was that?"
"It was good, but it wasn't what I wanted. Don't take this the wrong way, but it's daunting, thinking I'll never get to do it with anyone else. Why don't you top? Have you ever even tried it?"
"Yeah. Almost exclusively. But I'm put off by it."
"Me too," said Kyle. "Is it the pressure? To do a good job, I mean? I hate the idea of fucking it up somehow, of being bad at it."
"Everything you do gets better with practice," Craig said. "Except for that. Either you're into it or you're not. I'm not. My ex—"
"The performance artist?"
"No. He studied puppets," said Craig. "He didn't do much performing himself. Literally. He just expected me to fuck him. I mean that literally too. He was my college advisor, and he didn't give me much choice."
Kyle sat up, putting a hand to his mouth. "Jesus, Craig!"
"It wasn't like that exactly. He didn't have to force me. But he was in a position of power, and I sort of liked him, so it didn't occur to me that I didn't have to top him, or even that I didn't have to sleep with him. And I was a little shit and it seemed like a cool little shit thing to do. At the time I had no preference. I was a virgin. I got deep into that relationship before I realized I didn't like topping, though I'm still not sure if it's because he expected me to do it, or if I really just don't enjoy it. Anyway, I never want to do it again. Now I'm single and I can choose which sex acts I want to participate in." Craig stood, towering over Kyle and the mattress on the floor. "I chose to be here," he said. "It was weird. I could have left during. But I didn't."
"I know! I appreciate it."
"I don't want to do it again."
"It was a one-time thing." Kyle nodded, agreeing.
"I'll see you around." Just as Craig said this, he heard the shower go off. "In the building or whatever."
"Or whatever!" There was some strain in Kyle's voice. "You're okay, Craig. Thanks for being cool."
"I'm not cool and I don't care if you think I'm okay. Tell Stan I said thanks for the brunch. It was a goddamn delight." Craig turned and walked down the stairs, careful not to hurry from the apartment. As he walked he heard Stan come out of the bathroom, and perhaps Craig caught a glimpse of Stan coming to the edge of the loft to make sure Craig did not steal anything on the way out. Or perhaps it was a figure of his imagination. In any event, Craig patted his pocket to make sure he had his keys; he did. He then let himself out without slamming the door, and padded up to his own. At home, he shed his clothes at the foot of his bed and crawled into it without dinner.
