thursday morning - 1:50 a.m.

chinatown.

A & D. sitting on a fire escape outside her living room.

he sucks the meat off a mango pit and she carves the inside of the skin with her teeth. diced lemon bits float around in a large bowl of water that sits between them.  first date. winding down.

the alley below them is alive with the sounds of kitchen restaurant back doors.

she’s got to catch a plane in a few hours. convention in the usa.

he’s wide awake as usual. he wonders what it is about whenever he meets a woman he’s keen on, she gets on a plane.

they haven’t touched. they’re getting to know each other the old fashioned way.

she asked for ten things she should know about him. that was an hour ago and now she can only recall six:

-- he once had a relationship with a russian spy.

-- he’s never completely alone.

-- with the exceptions of making love and procrastinating, he can do nothing slowly.

-- he’s often paralyzed by his pursuit of perfection. he’s working on it.

-- he would much rather get his partner off than his partner get him off. ("besides, it’s just easier.")

-- he honestly believes he can do, have, or be anything he wants, but he doesn’t know what he wants to do, be, or have.

she knows that the other four had nothing to do with women.

he asks for two times that she overcame a fear to get something she wanted.

-- she teaches, but hates public speaking.

-- she wanted to invite him in but could only get up the nerve to sit with him here on the iron slats. ("can i get half credit?")

he watches her. she’s good at this. with the fruit. her chin’s a little wet but there’s barely a drop on the napkin in her lap. he’s always felt weird about eating in front of strangers. she’s confident about it. she doesn’t look up. doesn’t wonder what he thinks.

he likes her short dark hair. he likes her tiny frame. he likes the way she unsuccessfully attempts to mask her vulnerability.

she likes his confidence. she likes his experience. she likes his shoes.

she imagines, for a second, that he’s licking juice off her fingers instead of his own. but just for a second.

she wonders if he likes road trips, being read to, and long hot baths in big deep tubs. she pictures what he looks like in the morning: sleeping late and naked with bedhead hair while she makes orange juice and putters about. she knows he’s a night owl and rarely gets up first. she thinks of him, surronded by covers as the morning light yells for him to stir. he hears her in the kitchen, eating eggs and reading the paper. she’s put on pyjama bottoms and a tight tank top. her ripe nipples burst forth from her tiny breasts, creating art in the cotton, which brushes them each time she turns a page.

they could cut glass, he thinks, and his own arousal causes him to let out an unconcsious “mmm”.

she looks up.

smiles.

“what are you thinking?”

he moves over to her side of the bed, making space on the mattress between them. she crosses the room and starts to remove her top. “no. leave it on,” he says. she takes it off anyway. another triumph for the closet exhibitionist.

she puts one knee on the matress and stops. “wait. what would you like to hear?”

she scurries to the stereo.

he scans down her strong back to the plaid that covers her bum. “are you looking at my ass?” she asks. “no.” she gives it a little shake. “now?” “yes.” she blushes.

she puts a cd into the player and skips to track 4. it takes him a second, but he smiles when he realizes what it is. laughs at its inappropriateness. she turns and faces him and leans back against the cabinet.

“why this?”

she raises her right index finger and says “shhhh.”

they wait. both of them sing along in their heads. he moves his lips, silently. she taps her bare foot. though it hasn’t come yet, he knows what she’s looking forward to in the song. it’s the same part he likes.

back on the fire escape, they hear the phone ringing. she collects his fruit and napkin and crawls in thru the window. he waits, dangling his feet off the edge. two chinese guys and a caucasian chick smoke in the alleyway.  they’re bitching about one of the restaurant customers.

from inside the apartment he can hear snippets of her conversation.

“still going,” “because,” “oh, for fuck’s sake,” “yes, on the fire escape,” and “i can sleep on the plane.”

he dips his hands in the bowl that sits next to him. shakes them dry.

he turns his attention back to the people below. one of the boys has left. the girl talks ceaselessly to the one that remains.

“it just seems like there’s a constant demand on my flesh--not for my flesh, but on my flesh. it just seems like every day i’m in a busy struggle trying to chose between what i should do and what i want to do. what does it do to a person to have to make these decisions over and over and over and over and over again?” he counts the ‘overs’ so he can remember later when he wakes from his own bed. so he can type it and share it with others while she’s someplace else dealing with someone else, wondering what he’s writing about her.

she crawls back thru the window. he can hear that she’s put some music on. she speaks but he’s straining to make out the stereo’s sounds.

he hears “say our love is a big white chevy. we are its two black racing stripes--”

he thinks Jason Molina.

he hears “--and she wanted to know how the date went.”

he says “what did you tell her?”

she says “i told her that it was still going and that i wish i didn’t have to get on a plane.” but he hears “it’s getting late. maybe we should call it a night.”

she says “she asked if you were sleeping over and i told her no so then she asked if you were gonna phone her when you left. i told her not to be crass.”

he thinks “why would i call her? especially tonight.” and “why would i call anyone again? we had fresh mango.”

she asks, “so, are you?”

“am i what?”

“going to call her?”

“i didn’t bring her number.”

she thinks about this. she crawls back into the apartment. she returns with the cordless. she climbs out onto the fire escape and dials. listens to it ring.

“hey,” she says into it, “here.”

she hands him the phone.

he takes it. says hello.

he doesn’t take his eyes off her. as he talks, she listens. “where do you live?… where’s that?… it is, is it?… well, it’s pretty late.... you do, do you? what kind of tricks?” and he puts the phone down next to him, still connected.

“you know any tricks?” he asks.

“why’d you do that?”

“what?”

“talk to her.”

“you started it.”

“you said you didn’t have her number.”

“before that. when the four of you put your pretty heads together.”

she considers.

“yeah, i know some tricks.”

she picks up the phone and hits END. she tosses it thru the window onto a pillow on the floor.

she steps inside and turns to look at him. “you coming?”

he likes this girl. he wants to see her again. he wants to see more of her.

he thinks of her in a hotel room in another city. ten days. she’s got a laptop in front of her, reading her email. there are letters from her friends and letters about her friends. as she reads, she thinks back to their one date. to this night. she remembers being surprised at how slow he moved. how tender he could be. she remembers him breaking all her expectations--not once was he as she imagined. he likes this contradiction. he feels power in being unpredictable.

“no,” he says.

forty minutes later she’s in a cab on her way to the airport. he’s walking north on spadina, headed toward the baldwin steps.

he wonders whether he should have said no and worries she’s thinking bad things about him. she wonders whether she should have said yes and worries that he’s not thinking about her at all.

they both, though not together, think it’s gonna be a strange ten days.