Bez is laying on my sofa in a thin yellow dress, the buttons undone from the top and down to a dangerously revealing level. There is a fleck of sky blue paint which nests inside the hollow of her throat, something she\u2019s picked up from the painting she was working on this afternoon before coming to see me, I assume. I haven\u2019t seen her in almost two weeks, and I have been missing her more than I had realized until she came through my door.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow are you feeling right this second?\u201d she asks. She folds one arm under her breasts and allows the other the drape off the sofa and onto the floor.<\/p>\n
\u201cTired,\u201d I say. \u201cFoggy. Ghostly.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYour boyfriend not letting you get any rest?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBoyfriend? Nikola isn\u2019t my boyfriend.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSeriously, Turtle,\u201d she says, using her nickname for me, which I haven\u2019t heard from her in a long time. \u201cI\u2019d say that you two are definitely dating by now.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a difference between dating someone and calling him a boyfriend. I\u2019ve slept with you more than I\u2019ve slept with him.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, but we\u2019ve never had sex,\u201d she points out.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, neither have Nikola and I.\u201d<\/p>\n
She sits up on the sofa and crosses her legs beneath her. \u201cAre you serious? Not even once?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t judge,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not judging. I\u2019m just stunned. That\u2019s one serious sexy piece of Serbian man-meat you\u2019ve got there. I\u2019d have been on him five minutes after he walked through the front door.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know what it is. I\u2019m not feeling myself these days.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cApparently,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m serious. I haven\u2019t eaten anything but junk food the past few weeks. I don\u2019t leave the house unless I have to, and I haven\u2019t been motivated to get anything accomplished, anything at all.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou still shower, don\u2019t you?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course I do.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThen I think you\u2019re going to live,\u201d she says. \u201cAlthough you\u2019d live better if you\u2019d just sleep with Nikola.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to,\u201d I say, realizing it\u2019s the truth as the words come out of my mouth. \u201cI\u2019m not ready. I need more time.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not a race, Turtle,\u201d she says. She takes a box of tissue from the table beside the sofa and hands it to me. \u201cHere. You\u2019re about to start crying.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not going to cry,\u201d I say, and then of course I immediately begin to. Bez takes my elbow and makes me lay on the sofa beside her, with my head in her lap. She strokes my hair and doesn\u2019t say anything for a few minutes, until I am done making a fool of myself. I don\u2019t get up though, but stay where I am, enjoying the nearness of her.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re very complicated,\u201d she says. \u201cDo you know that?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t feel complicated.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYour complications have complications, that\u2019s how complicated you are.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re job is to not point these things out to me,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy job,\u201d she says, \u201cis to make sure that you\u2019re happy.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo that makes you my girlfriend then? Only we don\u2019t have sex?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t have sex with your boyfriend, either,\u201d she says. \u201cSounds like I meet your requirements.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBez,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have paint on you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI always have paint on me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWould you spend the night here tonight?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOnly if you don\u2019t try to have sex with me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo promises,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bez is laying on my sofa in a thin yellow dress, the buttons undone from the top and down to a dangerously revealing level. There is a fleck of sky blue paint which nests inside the hollow of her throat, something she\u2019s picked up from the painting she was working on this afternoon before coming […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,3,90],"tags":[254,108,256],"class_list":["post-296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bez","category-in-my-house","category-nikola","tag-bez","tag-complicated","tag-nikola"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kamekomurakami.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kamekomurakami.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kamekomurakami.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kamekomurakami.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kamekomurakami.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=296"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.kamekomurakami.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":766,"href":"https:\/\/www.kamekomurakami.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296\/revisions\/766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kamekomurakami.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kamekomurakami.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kamekomurakami.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}