Mikey and the Chickadee

Chapter 5 - Part 1

I showed Mikey to the bathroom so he could clean himself up, then used my underwear to wipe down my own torso. When I finished I dropped them into the hamper and retrieved a new pair from my dresser. I waited until Mikey returned to begin dressing, since he remained naked and I did not want him to feel vulnerable.

"Still big, even when you're soft," he said, stepping over to his clothes.

"I'm not completely soft yet," I said. "And look who's talk-ing."

"If we don't change the subject I'm going to get hard again."

As far as I was concerned, he wasn't joking. I felt my own corporeal response occurring as we spoke.

"Do you mind if I stay awhile longer?" he asked as he dressed.

"Of course not."

"Cool." He sat down on the couch and looked at his phone until I was dressed and came over to sit next to him.

"Although it would be pretty hilarious if you just left after that," I said.

He laughed. "No words. Just walked out the door." He picked up the sea glass from its perpetual home on the coffee table. "We can joke, but seriously, I'm not about that at all. That's not what this is."

"I know." I stared blissfully ahead into the void of the powered-down television.

"What are you reading?" he asked, exchanging the sea glass for the paperback novel I'd left near the edge of the table. "Fuck, this is a long book." He flipped through the pages. "A Suitable Boy, huh?"

"Yeah, it's really good. If you like to read I can lend it to you when I'm done. Might be a while, though."

"I should say so," he said. "Fourteen hundred pages. Jesus. Yeah, I'll give it a try when you're done." He turned it over and skimmed the back for a few seconds. "You're sure this doesn't say something about you? I mean, I get that you're not looking for a boyfriend, but still..."

I laughed. "It's about a lot more than just that."

He set the book down. "Do you read a lot? I always feel like I don't read enough."

"Sometimes," I said. "I go through phases."

"So what do you like to do? You can't possibly just go to work and read at home and that's it."

"Well, let's see," I said, pretending to recount my activities from some mental schedule, "there's work, reading, movies, porn, listening to music, the gym... Nope. No free time after that."

"Oh, come on. You're keeping something from me. Porn only takes, what, two or three hours from your day?"

"Fine," I said, laughing. "I like to write. But I haven't done it much since I was in school. My job's been a little overwhelming."

"I knew it. You're too creative to be someone who just sits around. What do you like to write?"

"Poetry," I said. "And sometimes prose. Fiction. But it has to be spare and important, like poetry."

"Is all poetry spare and important?"

"All good poetry is," I said.

"Whoa." Mikey raised up both of his hands. "Sit down, Emily Dickinson."

I laughed and punched him lightly on the shoulder. "You don't know anything about it."

"Hey, look who's getting violent now." He rubbed his arm in feigned injury.

Over the next several minutes we discussed combining our talents into some kind of illustrated book of poems or stories.

"What would we call it?" I asked.