Page 68 of Darling

“He was great, yeah. Total gentleman.”

I hadn’t told them about Christian being there, about him coming with me at all. I wasn’t sure how they might view something like that. Amata certainly wouldn’t judge, but she knew the story of the photographer in New York (he was top of her castration list), and I guess I was scared she might assume Christian was of the same sort. I didn’t want her to think that about him.

“Then I can’t wait to watch.”

Am tells us about an altercation she had with a woman at a beauty parlour the day before. Am’s trans and has been going to the same place for years, but today, some soccer mom bitch had made a fucking scene over the tone of Amata’s voice. Since this is something Am already has some insecurities about, by the end of the story, I’m ready to castrate something my fucking self.

“In the end, Krystal told her to get the fuck out of her store and never come back. She refunded her, too, because get this, she’d been having her fucking moustache waxed. Bitch had more facial hair than me.” Theo and I both burst into uncontrollable laughter. “Krystal told the entire fucking place, loudly too. So the bitch has gotten all her little Facebook fascists to rate the place one star. So I said I’d ask everyone I knew to leave a glowing review.”

“Absolutely. We’ll do it tonight.”

By the time we’ve eaten our bodyweight in veggie chilli burritos, Theo and Am’s update well is dry, and the focus is on me. Theo is lying horizontal on one end of my couch, hands splayed over his stomach and eyes closed as he breathes his way through a food coma. Am has her head in my lap as I stroke her hair. I’d just told them Christian promised to take me to Paris.

“That’s so romantic,” she sighs dreamily. “Maybe he’ll propose on the Eiffel Tower.”

“You watch too many films, babe.”

“I’m a romantic, I will not apologise for it.”

“Is that what you want? To be proposed to on the Eiffel Tower?”

“I mean… sure. But I don’t think I’ll ever get married, it’s just not in the cards for me.”

“Why not?”

She cracks open her eyes and smiles a sad smile. “It’s hardenough for women to find decent men as it is, and then when I tell them—if they haven’t already guessed—the chances of them sticking around reduce dramatically.ThenI have to hope they want to marry me. It’s just… I gotta beat a lot of odds, you know?”

“Well, if anyone can, it’s you.”

She looks back at me and smiles. Quietly, she says, “Thanks, Thomas.”

She calls me that now and then, usually when we’re discussing something heavy, like she wants to know she’s talking to therealme when she opens herself up like this. I’ve told her she always gets the real me, but she still does it.

I smooth a hand over her forehead as I smile back. “Love you,” I tell her.

“Love you, too.”

“I need a shit,” Theo declares, springing up from the couch.

We both groan before falling to laughter, shouting for him to open the window in the bathroom when he’s in there. Am sits up too, reaching across for her wine.

“So, will you let him take you to Paris?”

“I would, yeah. But I can’t leave the country until I sort my passport.”

“Shit, I forgot about that. Look, I have some time off coming up, why don’t we drive to Ohio and just get it sorted?”

“I should turn up at Jeremiah’s place with my girl shorts, cami, and my trans best friend and demand that birth certificate.”

“Yesssss,” she sings, snapping her fingers. “Let’s do it, diva. I’m so fucking down, I wanna look this Jeremiah bitch in the eye.”

“You wanna castrate him.”

She hums and takes a sip of her wine. “I wanna castrate a lotof men, what do you think that means?”

“That you hate men?”

“I mean, yes. But I love you. And I tolerate Theodore, I have no idea why.”