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They were both complicated people, with complex identities. And that was what made things simple between them, at least most of the time. Jonathan Crane and Pamela Isley. Husband and wife. A homosexual man and a lesbian woman who married in 1973 for convenience. They would say they fooled everyone if only they had more than one mutual friend. In reality, they knew that was one of the main reasons it worked—loneliness.
No one ever visited them. Yet they had a “guest room” that was, in reality, Jonathan’s room. That left Pamela with the main bedroom all to herself and her plants. And even though they had separate rooms to accommodate their differences, they had one thing in common: spending most nights in their labs. Jonathan turned the basement into his horror house; it was cold, dark, and full of cobwebs. It was perfect for drawing inspiration to study fear and conduct experiments. Pamela asked for the attic, mainly because of the window that let in a good flood of sunlight in the mornings and woke up the plants she was growing and researching. They could spend the entire weekend holed up in their trenches, and that was the best way to enjoy their days off. Being apart was what brought them closer.
Or at least that’s what they believed during their first year of marriage.
The first week after getting married, they bought the house they had seen before. It was tall but small, as they weren’t planning to have children and would only be the two of them, with the plants and books taking up most of the space. They would paint the off-white exterior a creamy yellow and replace the roof with new dark green tiles. It had lifeless front and back yards, which, as soon as the land saw Isley's hands, it didn't let her go. When they moved in, the first thing Pamela did was plant a mandarin orange tree in the middle of the backyard. Jonathan, for his part, prioritized bringing the boxes full of books into the house. The first piece of furniture to come through the door was a dark wooden bookcase that stretched from floor to ceiling in their living room. He filled it with books, ranging from heavy encyclopedias to memoirs, scientific journals, and classic novels. The books on psychology and the gothic genre were stacked at the top, and those on botany and classical literature were placed below them so Pamela could reach them. After he finished arranging them all, Jonathan went to check on her outside in the sun.
“I hope whatever you’re doing here will feed us for the next twenty years because that mortgage could make me even thinner,” Jonathan remarked, stepping out onto the patio with two glasses of lemonade. The gesture and his plaid flannel shirt made him look like he fit into a domestic life, even if only on the surface.
“Trust me, Crane. You’ll never run out of tangerines.” Pamela got up from the ground, dusted off her gloves, and went for that glass that was sweating more than she was.
“Well, then that means they’re all mine and no one else’s,” he said, taking a sip of his lemonade and looking out at the patio, which had nothing green on it except for Pamela’s garden outfit. “And why a mandarin tree?”
Pamela looked at him for a few seconds, waiting for him to come up with the answer. Jonathan looked back at her and raised an eyebrow. Isley just shook her head and turned to go inside through the kitchen door. Then, without looking back, she said, “You know you don’t have to question my gardening.”
“I’m not questioning it. It’s just curiosity,” Jonathan defended himself from where he stood, watching her leave. “But will you leave me all the tangerines?” he called out.
Pamela didn’t answer the question that made her both leave and stay. At least not until the tree bore its first fruit and the early September autumn turned more orange thanks to the tangerines. For a first harvest year with that small, slender trunk, it yielded a vibrant abundance that made her hum and smile as she gathered the tangerines into a basket. Even the tomatoes, calendulas, and colchicum that had grown there before were surprised and came closer to take a look.
However, that very gratitude she gave the tree caught the attention of pests. The neighbor next door peered over the not-very-high fence and fixed his eyes on the orange color that didn’t burn like the sun when looking directly at it.
“Hello, neighbor!” the man greeted from his backyard, waving his hand.
Following the custom of good neighbors, greeting each other only when they saw one another, Pamela returned the gesture. “How’s it going?” She went back to what she was doing, picking more tangerines, thinking the game was over.
But the man interrupted again. They always did, just like the obstacles they were. “I see your fruit is ripe now,” he said, leaning against the fence. He let out a long whistle that cornered her and the tree. “You had a very good harvest, huh? Are you planning to sell them?”
“No.”
“Oh! With the amount you have there, I thought you’d make money off them besides juice. So, would you give me a couple?”
Pamela picked up her full basket and stood up. “No, I’m sorry. I can’t. They’re all accounted for.” And she turned to go back inside her house.
“Fine! If you don’t want to give them away, I’ll buy them from you!”
“Go to the market,” she replied without looking at him.
“They’re just tangerines. And you have plenty! You don’t have to be such a bitch about them. They’re going to go bad.”
Isley stopped right at the door before going inside. She took a step back.
By the time Jonathan returned home after going to the bookstore and heard the shouting from the backyard, all the tangerines had already fallen. He ran over and found Pamela and the neighbor nearly tearing down the fence as the man dug his nails into the wood, about to jump over and hurl insults and arguments at each other with no division.
“What the—? Hey!” Crane intervened, walking over to them and standing beside his wife. “What’s goin’ on here?”
“The man of the house finally shows up,” said the neighbor, relieved. “Your wife should learn to share a little. She won’t give me a single one of her tangerines!”
“Because they aren’t yours and they’re not for you!” Pamela shouted immediately, pointing her finger at him, moving threateningly closer to the fence again.
“I wasn’t asking you, sir,” Crane clarified, shifting his gaze from the man to his wife. “Pam?”
She turned, rolling her eyes and crossing her arms. “I don’t have to explain myself to men. They’re the ones who need to control themselves and understand that no means no.”
“I just asked you for a damn tangerine!” The neighbor exploded, raising his arms. “Mr. Crane, you should—”
“You should just leave it at that,” Jonathan turned toward him. He might not have well-defined muscles, but his serious face and towering height made others shrink back when they looked at him, casting a shadow over his gaze. No one knew what he was capable of, but they had an idea, and even though it wasn’t close to the truth, it still paralyzed them. He would like to show them what he could do so they’d fear him even more. “You won’t tell either her or me what to do. Now, get away and don’t bother us again,” he said, and proceeded to pick up the tangerines lying on the grass.
The neighbor stood there for a few seconds, like a dry log. He blinked as he snapped out of his trance and turned away. “Tsk. Of course, the crazy plant lady has her own brainless scarecrow watching over her,” he muttered under his breath.
“Oh, that’s it,” Jonathan said upon hearing him and jumped to his feet, throwing the tangerine he held in his hand at the man’s head.
“Jonathan, no!” Pamela shouted, too late. The tangerine had already smashed against his skull, and the peel had burst open. Some juice dripped into her eye as she stood close to the man. She covered her eye with her hand. “Agh! Jonathan!”
The neighbor picked up the fruit after it fell next to him in his dirt yard and threw it back. “Keep your stupid tangerines!”
The fruit hit Crane right in the face, also splashing juice into his eyes despite his glasses. “Argh!”
“You’re both going to rot with your tangerines!” the neighbor cursed and finally left.
Inside the house, the couple rinsed their eyes at the kitchen sink. There was a window in front of it with its white, flowered curtains open, revealing Pamela’s garden, which had gone from a sanctuary to a battlefield.
“You’re out of your mind!” Pamela blinked several times, letting the water run from her eyes. Once she was clear-eyed, she turned to look at Jonathan, who was washing his face thoroughly.
“You heard what he said to us! He’s already on my list of bullies. And besides, what’s the problem with the tangerines?” He turned to look at her with his face still wet.
Pamela grabbed the spray hose and aimed it at her husband with full water pressure, drowning him. She growled and leaned against the sink, mumbling something Crane could not quite make out.
“Hey!” Jonathan blinked and, foolishly, went back to washing his face to wipe away the water his wife had sprayed on him. He turned off the faucet and dried his face with a rag, then put on his glasses. “I’m serious, Pam. I know how protective you are of your plants. But we are supposed not to draw any attention. What would it have cost you to give him one?”
“They’re not his. He doesn’t deserve them,” was all Pamela said without looking him directly in the face. “And throwing one at him, even if it was to hurt him, means a loss.”
“Sure, sure. Anyone other than your hand doesn’t deserve to touch life. Everyone else contaminates your paradise, doesn’t it?” He leaned toward Isley, almost expecting the same reaction from her as he saw from the neighbor who shrank away.
But she only turned to look him in the eyes after a long while, standing up to his height. “You are an imbecile.”
“Oh, I see. So other people aren’t the problem. Then what’s so special about these tangerines?” He straightened his posture.
“Because they’re only for you!” Pamela slammed her hand on the kitchen counter, startling a little jasmine plant that was in a clay pot she had made herself and placed by the window. The little one had fallen sick, so she had separated it from the others in the garden to care for it better. She blinked as she watched the pot wobble until it regained its balance. She sighed and then turned toward the window. Her reflection in the window confronted her. “You said it yourself the day we moved here. Not to give them to anyone. I didn’t argue on that because I used the seeds from that tangerine you left me the first night we talked.”
Jonathan blinked and raised his head. “You mean the night you ran me over?”
Yes, that night. They were both at Gotham University at night, working on their doctorates. They didn’t share labs or buildings since they were in different departments. However, they had the same schedule. And the path to the parking lot and the bus stop was only a few meters between them. They had seen each other walking calmly to their classes and running so as not to be late, bumping into each other from time to time and apologizing faster than their feet could carry them. After class, on a moonless, rainy night, Jonathan missed the last bus. No one else was passing through there at that hour. He kicked a stone, and halfway across the street, his curses were censored by the honk of Pamela's car, which, instead of warning him to get out of the way, froze him in place.
The tangerine that Jonathan had kept in his jacket and forgotten to eat during his break rolled halfway down the street. Isley stood even more motionless inside the car than Jonathan, who lay sprawled like a run-over dog. When she got out and saw Jonathan still responding, she walked in her heels to pick up the tangerine first. She tossed it onto the passenger seat and then carried Jonathan inside to take him to the hospital. She was a minute away from arriving when Jonathan told her, in a whisper, to turn left so she could drop him off at his apartment. Pamela looked at him, even more distressed than she already was; that soaked man, with his head pressed against the window, on the verge of fading away along with the rain, just asked her to leave him behind. Crane muttered that he wasn’t going to go into more debt by going to the ER after all the student loans. He insisted he was fine, and Pamela ended up following the directions Jonathan gave her. When he got out of the car, alone and limping, Pamela shouted that he was forgetting his tangerine, raising her arm with the fruit in her hand. Crane didn’t turn to look at her, telling her to keep it since it was the first thing she had saved.
Now that Jonathan thought about it, was Pamela upset when he saw her planting the tree and didn’t remember that? Didn’t she remember that she had hit him with her car and that he had hit his head when he fell? More likely, she didn’t care about that fact.
“I saved the seeds for later. I never thought I’d end up cultivating… our story.” She sighed and looked down. “We aren’t the happiest couple, but we didn’t get married with that intention.” She looked back out the window. “The tree understood that from all the times I talked to it about you and us. It’s the only one in the garden I can trust with that part of us. I talk to the other plants about other, more interesting things.”
Jonathan stood beside her, also looking at the tree through the window. The tangerines lay scattered on the grass like ammunition. “Did you tell it how you almost killed me on our wedding night?”
A breeze carried the joke to the tree, waving its green leaves. “It was one of the first stories I told. It still makes it laugh, you know.” She pointed at the tree with its swaying leaves.
“As soon as you became my wife, you wanted to make yourself a widow,” Jonathan remarked with a slight smile. In the reflection of the window, he saw himself watching her.
“I was so angry that you did everything I told you to do, except die.”
“Forgive me, my dear. Nightmares don’t die that easily.”
“Oh, I know that. I hear you screaming from your room.”
Amid their playfulness, Jonathan tapped Pamela on the hip with his own, prompting her to look at him. “Hey,” he began, his voice and eyes softer. “You can have some tangerines too… Just one or two.”
After they gathered all the tangerines and Jonathan peeled the first one for Pamela, they shared a little more of their married life together, so much so that Jonathan even spoke to the tree, but only when Pamela wasn’t home. And only in whispers. She already teased him when he fell asleep on the grass next to the tree while reading in the sun, standing in front of him, and splashing him with her watering can.
But the tree listened even to the stories they did not tell it.
They started saying good morning to each other. They went a little further than expected when they shared a quick kiss before sunrise, the kind they usually saved for in public but ended up doing in private. It wasn’t always on the lips; sometimes Jonathan would plant a kiss on her shoulder while she made breakfast, or on her cheek when he was rushing out the door. Pamela would kiss him on the forehead when he was reading the newspaper at the table, or on his big nose when Jonathan asked her to smell the dinner he was cooking. They went from wiping away fake kisses to blushing at the real ones.
And even with all that and the years that followed, Jonathan still hesitated when he kissed her in front of other people.
“Your students are watching you,” Pamela pointed out, looking out the window at a trio of young people whispering to each other, their eyes fixed on the car parked in front of the university’s psychology building.
“No. They’re watching you,” Crane corrected without even turning to look. He was too busy putting some papers inside his briefcase. “They’re wondering how a man like me ended up married to a woman like you. You know? It’s ironic how I married you to put up this straight facade, but every time I say I’m married, they barely believe me.” He turned to look at her after finishing his sentence, his lips pressed into a straight line.
Pamela also turned toward Crane and took off her sunglasses for driving. The sun of April was strong. “You should give me a kiss before you get out of the car. That would help.”
It was still difficult for Jonathan to know when he should express his affection physically in public. Most of the time, it was Pamela who told him what to do and when to do it. After raising an eyebrow hesitantly at the instruction, he moved slowly toward Pamela. His lips landed on her cheek, colored with a blush that blended well into her dark skin, and when he pulled away, he saw her serious expression.
“On the cheek—are you serious?”
“What’s wrong with that?” Jonathan asked, clutching his briefcase to his body like a shield.
“You’re such a fag. Come here,” she said, cupping her husband’s bony cheeks and pulling him toward her for a kiss on the lips.
Jonathan whimpered, but he was more interested in the noise outside from the boys, who were surprised and then laughed. When Pamela pushed him away after the kiss ended, Jonathan was still a little dizzy and had the look of a shy little boy.
“By the way, I won’t be able to pick you up on the way back,” Pamela warned. “I have things to do after work. You’ll have to take the streetcar.”
The kiss had softened Crane’s grumpy mood, so Pamela’s note didn’t bother him as much. He accepted it and got out of the car after saying goodbye. And as soon as he set foot outside, the students watching them started whistling at him as if he’d won a tournament. He didn’t notice he had red lipstick on his lips from Pamela.
“Have a nice day, sweetie!” Pamela shouted from the lower window, throwing him a kiss before driving off. Crane knew it was more of a taunt to get his students to tease him than a genuine wish.
“Professor Crane, please give me some advice on how to date pretty chicks!” one of the students asked, following Crane from behind.
“Shower yourself. A lot of the ladies in the classroom will appreciate it,” he replied without looking at him, continuing on his way.
“Oof. He hasn’t gotten laid in a while,” one student whispered to another, then walked away.
Crane glanced back for a second to see his wife disappear down the street, like sunlight behind a gray cloud. He would only have known about the kiss mark thanks to a student who came to talk to him about an extension on her paper and mentioned it. How embarrassing. He didn’t even have the chance to test the student to see whether she deserved the extension. Maybe he’d return the favor of the good spouse by sending her a bouquet to work—a good checkmate, moving flowers from a garden to a coffin disguised as a vase.
Once home, he would say that whoever gets angry loses.
───
He lost. And he didn’t even go inside the house.
After taking the streetcar and walking a couple of blocks, the orange tulips in the front yard welcomed him with their spring scent. However, as he climbed the front stairs, he was stopped in his tracks when he tried to open the door. There was a rose wrapped around the doorknob, and without looking, he put his hand on it and pricked himself. He pulled his hand away immediately and saw the drop of blood on his thumb; then, he went back to the doorknob.
They had a code for when they brought someone else home and needed to be alone. Pamela would wrap a red rose around the doorknob. And Jonathan would leave his cowboy boots outside by the door. Of course, with all the blinds closed. Needless to say, the roses got more sun, and the cowboy boots gathered dust in the closet.
Jonathan threw his head back and sighed. He had been so eager to get home, only to be kicked out. Whenever this happened, he would go to the public library. Either he would look for something to read, or he would simply use the facilities to grade his students’ assignments or prepare his lectures for the next class. He would stay there until they told him they were closing. If the rose was still there, he would go to the corner café, open 24 hours.
When Jonathan walked into the house at midnight, more flowers awaited him. Only this time, they arrived in a vase.
“Pamela? Are you in your room?” Jonathan walked toward the only room with the light on. The door was open, but he knocked anyway before peeking in. “Pam? Hey, if you can hear me, I wanted to tell you that you could let me know before you meet up with—”
“You damn bastard!” Pamela yelled behind him, throwing the vase of flowers she had received from Jonathan at work.
Jonathan yelped as the vase shattered into pieces on his back. His bones were surprisingly stronger than the ceramic. He fell, landing on his hands on the carpet in Pamela’s room. “What the hell is wrong with you! Argh!” he groaned, rolling onto his back.
“What’s wrong with me? What do you mean, what’s wrong with me?” Pamela walked toward her husband, forcing him to back up and enter her room more with every step she took. “What the hell is wrong with you, Crane! Humiliating me at my job in front of all my coworkers? Are you serious?”
“You didn't like the flowers?" he asked as he picked up a pink gerbera from the floor next to him and weakly reached out his arm toward her. His sarcastic smile fell along with the flower the moment he saw Pamela from the perspective of an invading insect, about to be squashed.
"Oh, all my coworkers loved them. Saying how lucky I am to have a husband like you, so loving and thoughtful,” she said, mimicking the illusion her coworkers had on their tongues as they licked at her fake-perfect life.
She crouched down without taking her eyes off Jonathan and grabbed one of the white prairie gentians, letting it fall onto her husband’s chest. He was a dead man. This was his funeral, and Pamela was leaving him his last flowers. Nothing would grow on his corpse. He had dug his own grave, deep and dry like the basement where he worked.
“I know that sometimes we have to pretend too much—tell that story of how we fell in love. We rehearsed it for hours so there wouldn’t be any plot holes,” Pamela said. There was more pain on her face when she cut one of her plants so it would grow better than it was now as she looked at him. “Going to those university fundraising parties together and having people ask us about us. It’s fine! I don’t mind the fakery if there’s a genuine intention behind it. And this?” She looked at the mixed flowers scattered around her like a crime scene. “They’re going to dry up right along with you,” she whispered, close to his face but still looking down at him.
“At least let me pack a bag before you send me to a motel,” he pleaded, turning his face away from her, almost hiding within himself. “The last time you got mad at me, you kicked me out with nothing for a week.” In that past argument, it didn’t matter that they didn’t even sleep together in the same bed; Isley wanted him out of the house entirely. Heck, it didn’t even matter that Pamela was wrong in that fight.
“Oh, no, honey. I’m not going to let you slip through my fingers now; you’re staying right in them.”
“What are you going to—? Whoa!” Jonathan exclaimed as he was lifted off the ground by his shirt collar and slammed against the dark, floral wallpaper and wood paneling. His head bounced, making him groan. The fact that Pamela could lift him so easily wasn’t a surprise, considering the heavy flowerpots she used to move. To Pamela, he was more like a branch she could snap in half.
“Those students ask you for advice on how to flirt with girls when they see you getting out of the car with me. Do you know what my lab colleagues asked me when they saw your little flower joke?” She waited for an answer, but it would never occur to Crane, even with all his years of psychology. She scoffed and replied, “They asked me for advice on saving their marriages, rekindling the spark between them, and getting their damn husbands to stop hitting them and be gentle. And of course, I’m the one without marital problems; I should know how to help them. But I don’t know anything!”
“Just seduce the women! Take them home to eat them out and show them how perfect our life is if all that fakery bothers you so much.” Jonathan tried to step out of the way between her and the wall, but Isley shoved him again, and this time, he got a slap in the face as well.
He should have been afraid. No. Shame was what Jonathan Crane should have felt for speaking to his wife that way. Living in a house filled with fear was one thing, but shame? That was where he needed a firm hand. And Pamela certainly had a heavy hand when it came to hitting. The slap left him dazed, which gave Pamela the chance to grab his slender wrists and pin them above him. Their wedding rings met face-to-face, not very happy to see each other.
“I should kill you for that, but, oh, sweetie,” Pamela exclaimed with feigned pity for him. “If you fall for my games yourself, no matter how fake I am with them, they’ll keep believing them too.”
Jonathan’s eyebrow rose, and he shook his head. “What are you sayin'?”
Pamela slid her thumb over Jonathan’s, which was imprisoned. She pressed on it until a drop of blood emerged to reveal the prick he had given himself. “How many women do you think I’ve brought in here?
“I—um…” He cleared his throat and shrugged. “Well, I don’t know exactly. I mean, you could have brought the same woman several times, but if you mean how many times you’ve put the rose out there, well… yeah, I suppose I could make a whole bouquet out of them. But I’m afraid I still don’t get your point.”
Then his mouth fell open as he understood.
“Damn it, Pam!” Jonathan barked like a tied-up dog, without even managing to spatter his saliva on the one he wanted to bite. “When was the last time it was real?”
“It’s been a long time since I’ve been intimate with anyone, but I started doing it… well, always.”
The house all to herself. Hot baths in the tub. A few glasses of wine. Black-and-white dramas in the living room, with lines she’d later repeat when they seemed perfect to use in conversation. Chats with her indoor plants. Just existing. It wasn’t that she couldn’t do that with Jonathan around. He kept himself busy reading in silence or down in the basement doing chemistry. Still, it was a different feeling when it was just her, the house, and her plants. Maybe that’s how it was meant to be. Maybe she was used to hiding everything.
“Do you know how many midterm papers I’ve graded in cafes, thinking you’re here with someone? Hundreds! I’ve even spilled coffee on them!”
“And do you know how many times I’ve wished there was no one home!” she replied with a sharper tone in her voice and gaze, cutting her husband off.
Pamela's dagger fell after being buried, but Jonathan didn’t react until she looked for the cut on him.
“If only things were different, huh?” Jonathan said. They might be different from one another, but they were accomplices in each other's life frustrations. “I know.” He leaned his head against the wall, looking away.
The drop of blood stopped clinging and let go, sliding down until it stained Pamela's thumb. “And yet you keep pricking yourself until you bleed.” She applied more pressure until another red drop appeared on Jonathan’s finger. “You’ll always keep touching my thorns, won’t you?” Pamela brought Jonathan’s bleeding thumb to her mouth and cleaned it. It was more of a kiss, almost a bite, in which the tip of Jonathan’s finger bumped against her teeth.
“Is your saliva healing?” he replied to her question with another, in a tone that was both obvious and low.
Pamela slowly guided Jonathan’s hand back up with the other; it was no longer a punishment. “Neither healing… nor curable.”
“Why are we still here?” he murmured. The question was directed at him as well. He could lower his arms, and Pamela would no longer push him back. Even the earlier argument had already gone to sleep before they had.
“For the same reason we’ve always been here,” Pamela said in his ear, and kissed the line of his jaw. His facial hair tickled her like when she grabbed flower stems, but this time in her mouth. She liked it until the taste of Crane’s skin burned her tongue like acid. “You taste like misery. Decay,” she murmured against his skin.
Jonathan’s mouth hung open, a sigh lingering on his lips, unwilling to fall. He moved his face slightly toward Isley’s, as if seeking one more kiss from her, and replied even more faintly, “I know.”
They both stood still, with only their hearts moving, beating fast. It should be the other way around, Pamela thought. To be able to move alongside him with a still heart. And to make matters worse, there were tiny movements that only she could feel. Her lips still tingling from the tickle of Jonathan’s light stubble, and her tongue bubbling with the mixture of his sweat and his old cologne.
“You’re scared too,” Crane murmured without moving, breaking the silence that lasted barely a few seconds, yet felt like an eternity in hell.
“Don’t start.”
But he had already started long before.
“Have any of your precious flowers ever wilted?” he interrupted, lifting his face until he was looking at the ceiling. Isley’s face fell, and she hid in his neck.
There was no immediate response. Jonathan heard a sound before a word—the rustle of skin against fabric. Pamela ran her right hand down his chest, stroking it up and down. It took him by surprise, but he didn’t react. At least not on the outside.
“When I was a child.” Her voice had grown more serious. Frightened. Was it because of the past she was referring to, or the present she was living in?
“I bet that’s why you became who you are—that protector of nature. Not because of your love for plants, but because the fear of seeing them die is greater,” he said, then sighed. Pamela had stopped holding his wrists and was now squeezing his waist. His arms were free now. And he, unfamiliar with freedom, surrendered himself to Pamela, wrapping his arms around her neck and lowering his head until his lips were level with her ear. “Everything in this life moves through fear,” he whispered. “You and me. Getting married out of fear of being discovered. But by making decisions to move away from fear, we draw closer to it. You married a withered flower, Pam—your greatest fear. Dry, crumpled petals, their color faded. A weak stem that can’t even bear its own weight.
Pamela turned to look at him. “You’re pathetic,” she spat, then lowered her gaze to his neck, exposed to her by their closeness. “With that taste of death,” she said, and immediately pressed her lips to Jonathan’s neck, kissing it. “Of sourness.” She kissed him again. Her hands gripped tightly where she held Jonathan: his waist and hips. “Like a flower that got tangled in its own stem and suffocated.” She had never kissed that part of his body before. Never. “Like a flower poisoned by chemicals meant to save it.”
Jonathan trembled. He clung tighter to Pamela, pressing their bodies even closer together. Both were firmly on each other. His eyes had been closed for a while now, and he didn’t have the strength to open them. He was weak. He sighed into the kisses, and before more moans could escape his mouth, he asked, “And why, if I’m not to your liking, do you keep kissing me?”
“Because I’d only ever seen it with my eyes,” she replied between kisses. She couldn’t tear her lips away from his neck for more than a second. “I’d look at you, and you’d remind me of that flower lying lifeless in my flowerpot. But I never tasted it with my lips. Nor did I caress it with my hands. The flower—you.”
“Pamela,” he sighed her name and then moaned loudly. He brought his face close to his wife’s, blocking her kisses for a moment to whisper, “I want you to taste me and feel me from the inside.”
“From the inside?” she asked, moving her kisses up to his cheek and chin.
“Fuck me.”
“Fuck, Crane,” Pamela blurted out, taking Jonathan’s face to tilt it toward her and kiss the corner of his lips. She felt Jonathan’s sighs coming straight toward her; it was like having a flower opening and brushing against her mouth.
“Please, Pam. I need you,” he murmured again. He opened his eyes, then asked her with them now.
He wasn’t the only one who needed the other. Pamela didn’t even know when they started rubbing against each other, but when she realized it, she grew stiffer. She took Jonathan’s hips in both hands and then pushed hers against him, giving a slight thrust.
Nothing had prepared Pamela for the sensation of Jonathan’s bulge pressing against her. She was left breathless, and as if she wanted to stop breathing, she stayed there and moved in circles with him. Without stopping or taking her eyes off Jonathan’s eager gaze, she ordered, “Say it again. Say you want me to fuck you.”
“Take me. Take me now,” Jonathan barely managed to say, before choking on his own tongue, which tangled between moans. He threw his head back, pressing against the wall, and returned immediately with his face red all the way to his ears.
“Say please.”
The tears came just in time to beg. Jonathan’s voice came out broken and desperate. “Please, Pam. Fuck me like one of your girls.”
Something in Pamela pushed her after hearing that. She released Jonathan’s hips and reached for the back of his neck to press their lips together. She kissed him, and he reciprocated instantly. All the hesitation that had always been in Jonathan seconds before a kiss was crushed against her red lips and annihilated.
They moved away from the wall, but not from each other, continuing the kiss as Isley guided them close to the bed they had never used together. Pamela’s hands unbuttoned Jonathan’s light brown shirt, while his pushed Pamela’s green suit jacket outward until it fell from her shoulders.
“I’ll do it. But not like one of them,” Pamela said, and she caressed his cheek as she moved down to his neck to kiss him. “I’ll do it like the husband of mine that you are.”
“Should I leave, then?” Crane joked.
They shared a laugh. It reminded them that they were dealing with each other, that they didn’t have to pretend, and that whatever happened would remain a secret within the walls of the house, just like everything else in their lives. Jonathan pressed his forehead against Pamela’s, stroked the back of her neck with one hand, and looked down at her busy hands, which were almost done unbuttoning his shirt.
“Can we… both keep our shirts on?” Jonathan asked, looking away from her with a blush.
It wasn’t new for them to see each other naked. They lived together, and part of the comfort of their home was precisely that. Jonathan would iron both of their clothes for the next day while wearing only his underwear. Pamela would come out of her room topless to grab a snack from the kitchen. And many times, both would forget a towel when showering and yell to the other for help. Over and over, they saw each other changing and undressing in the middle of the house. It was never a problem to be naked, to have a body.
“Yeah. Yeah, sure,” Pamela agreed. “Then let me…” She lowered her hands and looked at her husband’s pants, wanting to unbuckle his belt, but Crane’s prominent bulge made her nervous. Why did he have to wear pants so tight on his skinny legs? It just made him look even more like a scarecrow. Her fingers pulled away every time she got close to touching it, tangling together and making her palms sweat. “Damn it,” she cursed under her breath.
Jonathan snorted with amusement and lifted her face so she could see him, stopping her hands without touching them. “I’ll take care of it. Why don’t you get ready? You know…”
“Yeah, that’s better.” Pamela pulled her hands away and shook them awkwardly. After Jonathan gave her a small nod, she turned around to head for the dresser.
Before opening the special drawer, Pamela took off her high-heeled ankle boots and her formal, green-striped pants. She always kept up with the latest fashions. She kept on her panties with green leaf lace. Then, she took the two-piece strap-on, the harness, and the dildo out of the drawer.
Jonathan was also down to his briefs when he turned to see how Pamela was doing; she was pulling the harness up to her pelvis. Seeing her like that, focused on getting ready to take the top role in sex, clashed with the image Jonathan was used to seeing of her. An image that lacked detail and attention to her body. But now, as her white blouse rose, it revealed a trail of hair that guided lovers to kiss her from her navel to between her legs to eat her out, making even him crave it. Her belly and a few rolls of flesh peeked out as well. Her thick thighs, embraced by stretch marks like roots sprouting from her skin, were exposed. Simply her body in its natural state, her tousled red curls reaching past her shoulders, unshaven, shameless, and with that fear that stripped her bare without having to take off all her clothes, because even Mother Nature felt fear.
As if hypnotized, Jonathan walked over to Pamela. His left hand fell onto the strap to help her attach the purple dildo to the harness, while his right hand reached up to cup her face and kiss her on the lips. Pamela moaned in surprise but returned the kiss and wrapped her arms around his waist.
“Your clumsy hands were screaming for my help,” Jonathan murmured as he pulled away, with a teasing smile.
“Or maybe it was the plastic dick screaming at you to touch it,” she said, slipping her hands under Crane’s open shirt, touching his back.
His eyes and mouth widened as far as they would go. “How rude!” he shouted, more amused and surprised than offended.
Pamela laughed too and defiantly leaned in toward his lips again. “Are you going to give me a handjob now, baby? Hmm?” she teased, then gave him a kiss that echoed tenderly.
“If you asked for it without sarcasm, I would,” Jonathan confessed, a little more seriously. Then he looked at her lips and whispered, “I’d do it so well you would feel it.”
The words and the gaze on her lips were like a spell for Pamela. She exhaled heavily and pressed herself against Jonathan’s mouth with desperation. She held him firmly by the back and waist when he lost his balance from the kiss and clung to her thick arms. Once again that day, her kisses reached his neck.
“Pam,” Jonathan gasped and let out a long sigh that left his mouth open. Both of their hands were already wrapped around each other’s bodies, caressing themselves over their clothes. “Let me open myself up for you,” he asked breathlessly.
“What do you need from me?” she asked, continuing the kisses.
“D-Do you have lube? And… And I also want you to turn around while I do it…” He was going to add a ‘please’ at the end so that Isley would pity him, but she anticipated it. He received a tender kiss along his jawline and a ‘sure’ that made him blush.
They parted, and Pamela went to get some lube from her drawer. She handed him a small, thin glass bottle with a cork stopper. As soon as Jonathan took it, she turned to face the wall, hugging herself, not knowing what else to do.
“I promise I won’t take long,” Jonathan said before climbing onto the bed. “D-Don’t watch,” he repeated his request as he pulled his briefs down his slender legs.
“Relax, Crane. I’m not excited to see you sticking your fingers up your hairy ass.” She waited for Crane to lash out defensively as he usually did, but instead, the only thing that hit her was a soft moan from Jonathan, followed by the sound of skin slapping, probably his hand covering his mouth to silence himself. And even so, she could almost hear the internal scolding Jonathan was directing at himself.
“Fuck I’m sorry. I’ve never used lube like this before. Just ignore it.” He wouldn’t have said anything if it weren’t for the way Pamela’s arms dropped and her back straightened completely.
If Isley seemed to hear Jonathan’s silent voice, he could see how Pamela’s eyes, which were turned away from him, widened completely.
“I… don’t want to ignore it,” she said in a low but firm voice. She lowered her gaze, just enough to turn toward Jonathan, but still unable to see him. “Let me hear you. A few moments ago, your words were calling for me. Now I want to hear how your voice calls for me without words.”
“Just to clarify,” Jonathan cleared his throat, “I don’t actually make much noise during this specific part.”
Pamela scoffed. “Don’t fake anything. Fake moans are so easy to spot. Plastic, exaggerated, and monotonous all at once, they don’t tell you anything.”
“I won’t.”
“Oh, and Jonathan…”
“Hmm?”
Jonathan heard a dresser drawer open, followed by the ‘pop’ of a cork being pulled, the same sound that came from opening the small glass bottle of lube.
“Don’t look back at me either.”
Rules without consequences. Or maybe there were consequences, but because of the trust they shared, they didn’t need to say them out loud. And at the same time, that temptation urging them to break the rules aroused them even more than the actual act of turning to look at each other. As soon as Pamela suggested she’d join him in the act, Jonathan whimpered in surprise, but he didn’t let the shock freeze him. Quite the opposite, it sped him up—his heart, his mind, his hands. He continued opening himself up, now with more excitement and confidence. He bit his lips and moaned softly like that.
Simultaneously, off the bed, Pamela put a couple of drops of that lube in her palm. She returned the little bottle to its hiding place and lowered her hand to the rubber phallus, stroking it slowly.
The lies never reached Jonathan’s lips. Just as he said, touching himself didn’t elicit loud or constant moans. Still, every time he gasped or growled softly, Pamela felt something blossoming in her stomach—a poem of their identities and their relationship that began each stanza with one of Jonathan's sounds. Not all of them were in tune or pretty; some were broken, raspy, and uncomfortable, but, at the end of the day, they were natural. The true melody of passion. Pamela closed her eyes and sighed, tilting her head back, letting Jonathan’s rhymes set the rhythm for her wrist, spreading the lube well.
“Pammy, come now…”
The plea nearly snapped Pamela’s wrist as she stopped so abruptly. She opened her eyes and blinked. Her breathing was rapid. “Are you—are you sure you’re ready?”
“I want you now.”
The words took Pamela by the hand and finally made her turn. Jonathan was lying there, waiting. He fit so harmoniously among the pillows and the elegant, dark red blankets. It seemed as if the bed recognized the time Jonathan had spent waiting for everything and nothing, and had placed him comfortably as compensation. A pillow beneath his head and another beneath his hips, lifting them like a trophy, ready to be taken. His hands were on his chest, covering some of the skin his open shirt revealed, and his legs were bare of clothing and covered in hair, closed together, one of them bent.
They were less than a meter apart, and Pamela felt she couldn’t reach him. Admiring Crane made her steps slower. She should already be spreading his legs, but then she looked at his face. His messy black hair falling across his sweaty forehead, his glasses now sitting just right. The devotion to her as she approached widened his brown eyes.
The word ‘pretty’ was on the tip of Isley’s tongue, but she didn’t let it slip out. She leaned in and kissed Jonathan instead. Crane had never been called pretty, not even by his ex-lovers, and Isley refused to be the first to do so. Likewise, Jonathan was smart enough to translate body language into messages. And, from the way his wife caressed his cheek while kissing him, it told him that at least there was something about him that could be treated gently.
Jonathan ran his hand over Pamela’s shoulder and gripped the fabric of her blouse. In the middle of the kiss, he pulled her up onto the bed, noticing that she treated the bed as a barrier rather than a refuge for their bodies. She gasped, but as soon as she was up in bed, she positioned herself next to Jonathan to continue kissing him. She caressed that bent leg of his that had been begging her to touch it ever since she turned to look at him. Without paying much attention, Jonathan slowly began to spread his legs, and Pamela slipped between them.
“Bring your knees up to your chest,” Pamela ordered him.
The position exposed Jonathan too much. It showed how flexible he was and other parts of his body. However, Pamela was only interested in him being able to take her well and deeply. One of her hands pushed against the back of Jonathan’s thigh to hold herself steady, and the other grabbed the strap and aimed it at her husband’s entrance. Both parts were well-lubricated, so it was easy to slide inside.
“Oh, Pam,” Jonathan moaned, biting his lip as he saw that more than just the tip was already inside him. “You’re really getting inside me,” he said, turning his gaze toward Pamela. Lust mingled with menace in his eyes and words, as if he were about to scare her.
But Pamela was hard to scare. She, too, had experienced pure terror. She buried herself completely inside him, maintaining that insistent eye contact that begged her not to close her eyes so she wouldn’t see monsters. The hand that pushed the strap joined the other to grab Jonathan by the thigh. He moaned again at the force exerted on his body. Hearing no complaints, Pamela began to move gently.
“Mmhm,” Jonathan whimpered, his lips and eyes closed. He opened both after a few waves of movement. “Can you feel me through the strap?”
“Yes,” Pamela replied. She, too, had succumbed to the sensations, for her eyes were closed. “I can feel you, Jonathan.” Her lips trembled, and she struggled to catch her breath to continue. “I feel how needy you are. Your desperate loneliness that squeezes me, not wanting me to leave when I’ve barely entered. Your fear.”
It was too early in the sex for Jonathan to be already crying. It didn’t hurt that much, nor were they being rough enough to make him tear up—quite the opposite. But tears were already welling up in his eyes as he looked at Pamela. Touching him was like putting a hand in the fire, and she, instead of pulling it away immediately, let the flames consume her.
“Then why don’t you get out and run away?” Jonathan asked, keeping his mouth slightly open. He didn’t understand why she didn’t leave him, the room, their marriage, his life. He didn’t understand how she could have stayed so long. Even if they didn't always spend time together, a minute should have been more than enough to run away from him in horror.
“Because I don’t want to stop feeling you,” Pamela murmured, her voice racing with the speed of her movements. Fast, desperate. “I don’t want to.”
That only confused Jonathan further. He cried more. Her response and the sudden thrusts rattled his brain. He threw his head back and spoke then. “Y-You, more than anyone, should be disgusted by me.”
“I should,” Pamela replied without opening her eyes yet, without stopping her movements. A string of pants attacked her throat because she was moving so fast.
“You said I tasted awful,” Crane spoke again, turning his gaze back to his wife. A tear slid down his face and fell onto the deep green-colored pillow.
“I did,” she affirmed and squeezed Jonathan’s thighs, going deeper inside him. Being like this with Crane was like a physical manifestation of what it felt like to hit rock bottom, to be dragged into the abyss. People said the best thing about being at the lowest point in their lives was that they could only go up from there. Pamela was experiencing that every time her hips moved backward and pulled away slightly from her husband, and then she fell hard back into him. She was in a loop of hitting rock bottom and reaching the highest point of her life, giving her intense peaks of euphoria and pleasure.
Jonathan’s tears forced him to close his eyes and let himself go completely. His body writhed with pleasure beneath Pamela’s. He spread his arms above his head, tilted his face, and rested his forehead on his arm.
“Oh, and you’re fucking me so good.”
“I am, sweetheart.” Pamela opened her eyes and watched Jonathan eagerly take her. “Shit. You’re really such a dirty fag. Your body is twitching with every inch of me.”
“Fuck. I am, I am,” he affirmed without being asked, and wrapped his hand around his hard cock, finally stimulating it.
Pamela leaned closer to Jonathan, just enough to keep looking down at him. She took his chin and gave him an order, “Open your mouth.”
If only Crane were this obedient outside of bed. It would save him a lot of marital problems with Pamela if he did things the moment she asked, like moving his students’ essays off the dining room table and using his own desk instead. But of course, saying out loud that he wanted her to fuck him, spreading his legs, and opening his mouth were tasks that he completed the moment Isley finished giving the order.
Jonathan watched intently as Pamela spit straight into his mouth. Immediately, she gently pushed his chin to close his mouth and make him swallow.
“Take it like the good fag you are.”
For a moment, Pamela thought Jonathan would choke, cough, or turn away and spit her spit back out, rejecting her like a bad seed from which chaos would blossom. But none of that happened. Jonathan closed his eyes and savored it before it slid down his throat. She forgot that Jonathan was bad soil, that he swallowed everything and everyone, no matter what, until he had a field of phobias and anxiety inside him. After taking her into his depths, Crane trembled and sighed, as if the roots of that seed had immediately sprouted with force to spread throughout his body.
“I feel you burning in my throat,” Jonathan said, breathless. “Like poison.”
But it didn’t turn his stomach either.
Pamela breathed heavily and, unconsciously, thrust harder at a steady rhythm. “God, you—mphh, you’re tasting and feeling me too.”
“And I’m taking you so well, darling,” Jonathan replied, his voice almost a sigh as he looked directly into her eyes, seeing through her. “Ahh!” he moaned loudly, throwing his head back and arching his back.
Pause. They both looked down at the same time. Some semen fell onto Jonathan’s abdomen. His cock, which he was gripping with one hand, was dripping. Crane let go of it and, embarrassed, looked up in unison with Pamela.
“Is that it?” Isley asked, unable to believe it had just happened so suddenly.
“W-What do you mean, ‘is that it…?’ Don’t look at me like that!” Jonathan’s shyness shouted, and then he covered his face with both arms. “I-It’s because you hit my spot. God, I can’t believe I’m tellin’ you this.”
“Do you want me to pull out?”
“No!” he shouted too quickly and too loudly, uncovering his face. It was a surprise even to him. Usually, penetrative sex became tedious for him after a few minutes. But the uncertainty of whether Pamela and he would ever be like this again was what stood in the way of her suggestion to end it all right then. He just wanted a little more to savor and say goodbye in case this was the first and last time. “I mean—you can keep going until you… come, too.”
Isley found it amusing to see him like this, a nervous, stuttering mess, saying he wanted more. To her, he was hiding behind the excuse that she had a right to come too, and she scoffed. “Oh, Crane. You don’t want to be the average husband who can’t give his wife an orgasm, do you?”
“Or would you rather fake one to get this over with?” he countered.
“No,” she replied curtly, shrugging her shoulders and brushing the idea aside. “I—I’m going to keep going, then,” she announced, looking down at the strap-on to refocus on the movements. “Did you say this was where—”
“Ah! Yeah. Yeah, damn it. Right there, Pammy.” Jonathan fell back into pleasure, breathing heavily.
And then Pamela continued right where Jonathan liked it. The sweat from giving and receiving dripped onto each other, making the heat between them grow. The thrusts of Pamela matched the beats of her heart against her chest. And yet, with all the sounds of their skin, their moans, and their heartbeats in the room, she couldn’t stop hearing Crane’s voice in her head, telling her she married a wilted flower.
Seeing him there, lying on the bed and arching in ecstasy, really reminded her of that dead flower lying on the soil of its pot, whose stem she had grabbed and shaken desperately to make it rise again, and all she managed to do was make the petals fall off. Every time she caressed Jonathan, every time she thrust into him, she felt him fading away in her hands just like her flower.
But then Jonathan brought his hands up to Pamela’s waist. He didn’t pull her closer to him or caress her. He just held her. His eyes were closed; ironically, he looked so calm even though he was agitated. Pamela slowed down a little since Jonathan had responded to her. Maybe he hadn’t fully risen from the dead, but his hands clung tightly to her so she wouldn’t give up. Isley also grabbed him by the waist. She squeezed him, and Jonathan took a deep breath, as if it were the first time he had ever breathed.
It didn’t take long for Pamela to have an orgasm. Crane had come again at some point earlier. When Pamela finished, she pulled away from her husband, took off the strap-on, and fell onto the bed next to him. They didn’t speak for a while. Pamela just asked if it was okay for her to take off all her clothes, and Crane said yes, doing the same. They covered themselves with the red blanket once they were both completely undressed. Pamela was lying face down, hugging a pillow, and Jonathan was beside her, staring at the ceiling every time he opened his eyes, exhausted.
Pamela was ready to sleep like that, sharing their nakedness together, but not a word spoken, when suddenly she felt caresses on her back. Jonathan ran his hand over her creamy, sweaty skin and leaned in to plant soft kisses on her back, moving up toward her shoulder. Isley knew Jonathan wasn’t doing this out of romanticism. Romanticism was more about painting flowers than planting them, and Pamela felt that with every slow kiss, a flower was blooming on her back.
“Are you going to ask me for a divorce?” Jonathan said softly, as if he didn’t want to disturb her sleep with his question, as if it weren’t anything serious. His hand lay still on the curve of his wife’s back.
Pamela turned to look at him. Her cheek was pressed against the pillow she was hugging. “The sex wasn’t that bad.”
“That’s exactly why I’m askin’.” And Jonathan smiled.
But Pamela didn’t seem threatened. On the contrary, she smiled too and lifted her face from the pillow, moving closer to Crane. “Doesn’t good sex save marriages, Doctor?”
“We’re not an ordinary marriage.”
That sounded a little sad, and Pamela’s smile was infected by it.
“Do you think we’ve just made something that was already complicated even more complicated?” Pamela asked, looking away from him.
Jonathan also broke eye and physical contact and sat up in bed with his back against the headboard bars. “We’ve had several marital problems over the years, and… what we just did didn’t feel like a problem. However, I’m afraid that very thing could be a problem…”
They were used to silence in the middle of their conversations, but this time it was painful. A silence that begged them to let it cease to exist.
“Feelings have always been a burden for us, haven’t they?” Pamela spoke after a few seconds, offering her conclusion.
Jonathan turned to look at her and lay down beside her, staring into her eyes. “But it was more like a weight being lifted off our shoulders when we were together,” he whispered.
But the words were heavy. Even though they came in a whisper, they hit Pamela hard. “What do you expect from this, Jonathan?”
“I don’t expect to stay here every night, I assure you. Just this one, if you’ll let me.”
“Do I seem so mean to you that you’re afraid I’ll kick you out after we made love?”
“Do I have to confess that one of the reasons I married you was because you scare me?”
“God, what have I gotten myself into?” Pamela murmured, rubbing the bridge of her nose.
And it was so sweet that Jonathan laughed, leaned toward her, and rubbed the tip of his nose against her cheek.
“Oh, in your worst nightmare, my dear,” he said, his voice as soft as his earlier laugh, and continued to caress her with his face. “Sleep well,” Jonathan murmured, as if he didn’t want to scare the moon away after saying that and have the night end as he uttered the last syllable.
They didn’t cuddle.
“Yeah. Same,” Pamela replied. “Oh, I forgot to tell you.”
They didn’t even touch toes, let alone hands.
“What?”
“When you asked if I was going to ask you for a divorce… I would never do that.”
“Oh.”
“I’d rather poison you,” she interrupted. “Less paperwork and loss of benefits.”
They kept space between them and slept on opposite sides.
“Good night, Pamela.”
But they didn’t turn their backs on each other. They lay facing each other all night long, like sky and land.
───
The next morning, the car pulled up near the psychology building, just like every weekday.
Their routine was the same, except for the fact that they woke up together. After stretching out, Jonathan was able to open the curtains on the window in Pamela’s room, right next to the bed. He saw the tall mandarin orange tree saying good morning to him through the window. The shadow of its leaves fell across the blankets and caressed parts of their skin with the sun’s rays, reviving yesterday’s caresses. That kiss Jonathan gave Pamela in the mornings came earlier and on her tousled hair, letting him smell her rosehip shampoo. But apart from that, everything else was in its usual place, even the three students from yesterday who were whispering when they saw them together.
“You should fail them,” Pamela remarked, frowning as she looked at them after taking off her sunglasses.
“That would mean seeing them here for another semester. I’ll have them participate in the studies we’re conducting in the research department. Four hours as lab rats on a weekend, and without pay.”
“One of the worst fears a university student can have.”
Jonathan laughed, mostly out of mischief and excitement. Then he unbuckled his seatbelt. “I have to go,” he said, leaning toward her to say goodbye, but a twinge of pain in his sciatic nerve stopped him before he could reach her face. “Sss.”
Pamela placed her hand on Crane’s lower back, slipping it under his jacket, but said nothing. Neither did he. They looked at each other, blushing, then looked away in different directions. Outside, a couple of laughs and immature reactions could be heard from the students watching them. If Pamela’s touch had already made him blush, now his students’ behavior embarrassed him even more.
“Are they still watching us?” Crane whispered, referring to his students behind him.
Pamela glanced over, leaning slightly to the right. There they were, looking so brazen that Pamela sensed their intentions to dare to greet her. Before she could answer, Crane placed his slender hand on her cheekbone and kissed her on the cheek, then on the lips.
“Whatever. Doesn’t matter anymore,” Jonathan said quickly as he pulled away.
“That was even more faggoty than yesterday’s.”
“Well, now I know how you like ’em,” he teased back, watching Pamela’s smile fade and her eyebrows rise. “See you later, darling,” he said, and got out of the car.
The students surrounded their professor like pigeons pecking for crumbs. “Professor Crane! Tell us, what do we do to leave a woman speechless?” one of them asked.
Jonathan rolled his eyes and continued walking toward the door, leaving his students behind and waving them off with a hand. “Please, don’t ruin my morning before class.”
The three young men looked at each other and then watched Professor Crane walk away. “Yep. He definitely got laid yesterday.”