“Faking it,” I tell Carlos, “only has to happen once. Then it’s part of the entire texture. The whole thing would be over.”
“What are you talking about?”
“What scares me. You know, act euphoric and you feel euphoric.”
“Malcolm, I’ve waited all my life for this! Don’t get squeamish. Take a pill.”
[This post is an excerpt from Diary of a Heretic, the novel. Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.]
“If I wasn’t a little scared, I don’t think I could do it, Carlos.”
“Where’s Maggie?” he asks. “Talk to her. Because right now, I’ve got to work.”
“Sure, but what you’re setting up, the big financial picture, et cetera, scares me, too. What’s happening with your projections, Carlos?”
“Oh please. I understand every factor here and I am not going to blow it.”
“I want some idea, though. I want to meet the accountant.”
“The accountant!” Carlos scoffs. “You are defining a sacred, transcendent realm—which four nights a week you share with all kinds of people, and you want to spend your days talking incomes and outlays with Herb Plochman?”
“Herb Plochman? That’s a real guy?”
And Carlos steps back, holds his chin, grinning with delight. “Do you have any idea how much I love you, Malcolm?”
“Huh?”
“Filled with grace and as paranoid as ever.” And then Carlos drapes his forearms over my neck. As enthralled as I’ve been, he hasn’t run his hands down my back in weeks. If he was ever going to kiss my lips like he needed them to survive, you’d think he’d do it now.
But oh, he does more. He sinks to his knees and slips his head under my gown. Suddenly, Carlos is all mouth and rough tongue.
(Click here to read the next episode.)
