Page 33 of Tell Me Lies: Manlove Edition

So, instead, I appreciate the sand and the sun and the fact that I’m doing something with a guy that isn’t entirely sexual. This is very nearly friendly. Maybe I could end the jog by asking for his personal cell phone.

“Which lot are you parked in? North or South?” he asks eventually.

“Oh, I take the trolley. I don’t drive.”

He looks confused. “Like at all?”

My license had been put on probation for unsafe driving when I was in my early twenties. Even after I got it back, so many of my invasive thoughts involved the winding cliffs of Galway City and simply not turning, that I’d opted to sell the car and settle for taxis, biking, and the shitty public transit system. “I mean, I have a license, but I don’t drive.”

“Keeps costs down, I guess.” He hums. Then smirks. “Want a lift home?”

I cannot imagine he’d drive me all the way up to East Quay and not fuck my brains out. “Yes, please.”

****

Giddy as a golden retriever, I follow him into the lot.

What kind of car does he drive? Jeep? Motorcycle? Got to be a pickup. Assholes drive pickups so it’s perfect for Laur. When he beeps his keys, a silver Corolla blinks back.

I laugh. “What a demure little car.”

“Better than no car.”

The front passenger side carries a box overflowing with various loose papers and manila folders. Two briefcases and a laptop are precariously stacked on top of the papers.

“Get in the back.”

It’s a cramped backseat for a gorilla like me to squeeze in. He opens the door on the other side, letting the sea breeze blow through the toasty backseat. I suspect nothing until the slick black rope loops around my neck.

I know this leash. He’s used it on me more than once. My back and arms are stronger than his broken fingers. Still, I go where he drags me and curl up across the backseat.

“Comfy?” He rewards my obedience by slamming the leash in the door to keep me down.

****

His car rattles as we climb the main road. I flex my legs to keep them from cramping, and try to follow our path by looking at the tops of buildings and the open blue sky. We stop at a red light.

East Quay is a left at that light. Is his house straight up the hill or to the right into the residential parks? “Hey, Laur, take me to your house. I want to play with your toys.”

“My toys are only for big boys.”

I know he wants me to beg, but before I can, his phone rings and the car announces mechanically, “M.O.H.A. house.”

“Fuck.” Laur mutters. “I got to take this. Don’t say anything.”

I nod and swallow hard, which makes my Adam’s apple rub against the leash. The light changes and Laur turns to the right as he answers the call, speaking in a bright cheerful tone and in another language I don’t recognize.

I expected a military supervisor, but instead it’s a throng of children and whatever he’s said disappoints them. A dozen little voices chatter all at once in various languages.

One girl takes over quickly. “Mr. Trockie, you say you like to talk to us?”

He answers gently. “Of course I like talking to you, Telenaz. But today, I have no time.”

“But why?” All the children take up her chorus.

His good eye flicks to the rearview mirror and I give him a little wave.

He switches back to the language I don’t know.

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