VIII.

After dinner she spat into a napkin and said, “You have something on your face.” She rubbed the sloppy cloth across my upper lip, poking her finger into my mouth and letting her drool slip in as well. “There. All clean.”

I sort of felt like I should spit out her saliva but didn’t. Instead I just sucked it into my throat and swallowed. I felt the corn muffin grit and tasted the inside of her mouth: smoky teeth and expensive fillings.

Corn muffins have always been one of my favorite foods and over a recent period of just a few years, I had become an expert on which brands of corn muffins were worth eating and which ones were simply bland, gritty corn-flavored cupcakes. When I didn’t feel like going to the store to buy some, I would make my own from the stockpile of corn muffin mix I kept in my bedroom. Sometimes I wouldn’t even cook the batter; I’d just eat it with a spoon like it was thick soup.

The corn muffin from her mouth tasted like a generic brand from the local supermarket. I guess the restaurant was trying to cut corners. That’s not a bad thing, really. Many of the “gourmet” brands taste so unlike corn muffins I am shocked they could even be advertised as such. So in this situation, I was pleasantly surprised.

“Want dessert?” she said, licking her fingers sloppily, drool hanging like glistening vines. “I can go for a brownie sundae. You?”

I didn’t really want anything else to eat but I also didn’t want to disappoint her or give her any reason to reject me. So I said, “Yeah, I guess.”

“Want to share one?”

“Sure.”

She grabbed the dessert menu, looked at the picture of the brownie sundae, and then up at the ceiling. “You know, I think I’m going to get my own.”

“Oh, okay, that’s fine.”

The waiter then walked over as if by magic. He looked at her menu, saw her finger tap the picture twice and he walked away.

She said, “Do you read?”

“Uh, a little bit, I guess.”

“What do you mean?”

“I, uh, don’t read much anymore, you know. I mean, I don’t really have the time anymore.”

Her eyebrows perked up. “Oh? Busy, are you?”

“Well, I mean, yeah, I guess. You know, with working and shit like that.”

“Don’t you get a lunch break?”

“Yeah but…”

She leaned forward, opening her mouth ever so slightly and blowing her sweet, corn-bread breath into my face along with tiny sprinkles of spit. She said, “You know you could eat and read at the same time. Eat your little sandwich with one hand while holding up a book with the other, right?”

Where was she going with this? I didn’t know. She actually didn’t strike me as the type of person to read but there she was giving me tips on how to be more literate.

I said, “I guess I just never found that many books I wanted to read.”

“Maybe you’re not looking in the right place.”

I decided to turn the tables on her. I don’t know why, really. After being careful not to risk her rejecting me, I was going to take the risk of questioning her. I said, “How do you find time to read? You know, with your busy schedule. Do you have an assistant read the books and then give you a summary?”

She leaned back in her chair and before I could open my mouth to apologize, the waiter placed the desserts on the table in front of us. He had practically come out of nowhere as if waiting to put the food down to distract from the awkward silence. I mentally thanked him for that.

But then the waiter looked at the both of us and said, “How long you guys been married?”

My throat dried up. My temples pounded. My cheeks burned. What the hell was the waiter thinking? What wrath did he just unleash?

I looked at her, expecting the worst. But she looked me right in the eye while answering the waiter. “A month.”

The waiter shrugged, probably wondering why newlyweds were having such a tense dinner. I wanted to punch the guy square in the nose but knew I would never be able to do something so violent. Besides, he looked creepy and pathetic as it was. A punch in the face would probably just devastate him.

Once the creep walked away, I said, “What the hell was that about?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Were you offended?”

“Not really.”

“I saw your face when he asked us. You were petrified. Were you afraid I was going to flip out? Were you afraid I was going to scoff as his implication? Or that I was going to be embarrassed to someone believe we were a couple? Admit you were scared.”

I looked down at my dessert and wished I hadn’t ordered it. The brownie sundae looked disgusting, like shit covered with wet cotton. I said, “I don’t feel well.”

“Bullshit.”

“I don’t.” I looked up at her. A few seconds before she hadn’t been wearing her sunglasses but now they were on her face: huge black bug eyes.

“You are not going to leave,” she said. “You are not going to leave until I do.”

So what was I going to do? Get up and leave? I didn’t have the guts to do that and she knew it. So what the hell else was I to do?

I started eating my dessert.