Page 124 of Perfect
“Hmmmm?” He sets down the coffee and panettone in front of me.
“I’m accepting any and all gifts for todayonly.” His face lights up, and he kisses me hard and fast before heading downstairs. I sit on the couch and eat some of the panettone, warm nostalgia running through me at the taste. I haven’t had one in years. Danny wouldn’t have cared, but it was a small way I kept things separate, a defined before and after. It feels weird to have it now, here, in this situation, but I’m not thinking about that. Theo comes back up and puts a pile of bags under the tree, and I squint at them.
“Why are there somany?”
He looks up sheepishly. “Uh, there are a bunch of gifts that I gave you that first weekend that you’veneverused, so I thought I’d give them to you again.”
I shake my head at him, sipping my coffee. He’s insane. Sweet and thoughtful, but kind of insane.
I open his gifts first, finally putting on the cashmere cardigan and perfume he got me months ago, some small part of me thrilled to have things I wanted but felt like I couldn’t have or shouldn’t accept. I let myself react honestly, telling him how much I love everything, and he seems thrilled to have pleased me. He’s especially happy about me wearing the perfume and tells me he loves how it smells on my skin. The house is warm enough from the fire that I put on some of the lingerie he bought me, slipping the cardigan back on but leaving it open, and he’sdelighted, constantly running his fingers over my skin.
I look at the few gifts I got him with increasing anxiety. Me deciding to get him something was so last minute that the giftsaren’t perfect, maybe aren’t exactly what he wants or likes, but I think he’ll appreciate the thought more than anything. I give him the sweater first, explaining it’s to replace the one I ruined when I threw a wineglass at him, which he seems to find funny. Next is the large enamel-coated Dutch oven, which I tell him I’m sure he already has a better version of, but it was the nicest cooking thing I could find at the store. He seems touched, and when I teasingly tell him I’d love it if he could make me coq a vin with it sometime, he tells me he’ll do whatever I want, although he seems less than enthused at the idea. I turn over the last present in my hands for a moment, hesitant. I know he’ll love this, but it feels like a point of no return.
I swallow the feeling. If I get to be happy, he gets to be happy.
He smiles when he opens the small Polaroid camera and film, but he seems a little confused until I take it out of his hands and load it. I lean against him and angle the camera back at us, kissing his cheek and snapping a photo. He looks at me in surprise, his bright eyes wide and focused intently on my face, and I feel a little embarrassed as I hand him the developing photo.
“Um, I thought you’d want a photo of us, and these ones can’t be seen online.” He looks at the photo of us and back up at me with a tender, overwhelmed look on his face. He kisses me gently, telling me over and over again that he loves it, kissing me harder and pushing me back on the couch, his hips fitting between my legs easily, like they’re meant to be there.
I’m glad I bought him more than one pack of film, because he’s a menace with the camera for the rest of the day. He takes a photo of my face right after he kisses me, of me in lingerie with my legs on his shoulders as he fucks me, of me laid out on the couch, blissfully zoned out after, of me drinking coffee, of me putting panettone in my mouth, of me pulling out his laptop to put on a movie, of us curled up together. I take the cameraoccasionally, snapping photos of Theo smiling and relaxed in a way he’s usually not.
There are small piles of polaroids on the coffee table and dining room table that I sort through as he starts to make lunch. Many of the photos are washed out or out of focus, giving them a hazy, dreamlike quality, but there’s one of us that I can’t stop looking at. It’s us in front of the tree, the tree dark and barely visible in the background, and we’re smiling. Our smiles are so different, but they seem like a matched set. Theo’s is crooked and his dimples are showing, and mine is broad and toothy and reaches my eyes. As I look at the photo, I realize both our smiles are completely real. We look like we fit together, like we’re a real couple.
In the moment, we were.
For one second, it breaks the fantasy, and the feeling I’ve been pushing down hits me hard, and I choke down a sob. Theo sticks his head out of the kitchen and asks if I want champagne, and he looks so genuinely calm and happy that I’m able to swallow the feeling again. I put the photo down and join him, sipping champagne while he snaps the ends off green beans, taking a picture of him lovingly preparing his goddamn ham. I bring the laptop into the kitchen and make him watchA Muppet Christmas Carolwith me while he cooks. He says he never watched it as a kid, and he doesn’t seem to like it, but eventually admits that it’s shockingly faithful to the book.
“You’resopretentious,” I tease, and he laughs.
“You’re worse than I am!” he protests. “Look at the perspective in this painting. You can tell Monet was strongly inspired by his collection of ukiyo-e prints,” he parrots back at me in a high, snobbish voice with an exaggerated Boston accent. “If you’ll notice the color choices -”
“I donotsound like that,” I interrupt, shoving him gently.
“You do, a little.” He winks at me and kisses me quickly before refocusing on the green beans.
It feels normal to tease each other and have fun with him like this. I want to be happy like this all the time, but I’m not going to have any of this for much longer, so I just focus on being present in the moment.
I snap a photo of Theo pulling the ham out of the oven, laughing at his excitement. We sit down to lunch and Theo eats alotof ham, the look on his face pure bliss. He explains, without prompting, that he got out of juvie and moved in with his grandparents right around Christmas, and that’s why he loves it so much, especially the food. While we eat, we watch a storm roll in off the ocean, the wind whipping through the trees and the rain pattering against the large windows.
We curl up on the couch afterward and watchIt’s A Wonderful Life, which is Theo’s favorite. We fall asleep on the couch facing each other, our legs tangled together under the blanket, breathing each other’s breath as we drift to sleep. It’s dark when we wake up, and we spend a long time holding each other, kissing lazily, enjoying just being together. Theo opens another bottle of champagne, and we drink by the fire, completely comfortable with each other.
I’m fully immersed in the fantasy of a perfect Christmas with my perfect boyfriend in my new, perfect life, and I want it to be real so badly.
This is so far beyond fucking and playing house. Weknoweach other now. I’ve told him things I’ve never told anyone else about, and I know he’s done the same.
I wish, not for the first time, that I was as delusional as he is.
I know how I feel about the situation, abouthim, but I don’t let myself think about it. I don’t let myself feel it because I don’t wantmyfeelings, I wanthisfeelings. If I can’t have those, I want the warm and hazy way he makes me feel after sex.
Adored. Cherished. Cared for.
I climb into his lap, and his hands span my back and grip my waist, pulling me into him. He slips my cardigan down my arms, trailing kisses along my collarbones and up my neck. We kiss slowly, feeling the warmth of the fire, feeling the warmth of each other as we take our time, being present in the moment together.
I let myself be happy in his arms, because I get to be happy sometimes.
I close my eyes, just trying to feel the pleasure and his adoration and ignore the feeling in my gut. I’m not feelingthat, I’m feeling him inside of me, his fingers moving against me, his lips on my chest. He’s doing what I need him to do – he’s making the feeling disappear. I moan, my hands gripping his shoulders tighter as tension builds in my spine. He exhales hard and grips my hips, thrusting up into me, and there’s no reality right now, just the fantasy of us.
“I want you so badly.” It slips out of my mouth, and my voice is so achingly affectionate that it hurts to hear myself. The feeling swells and starts creeping into my chest, tightening around my lungs.
