Applying the Lesson

I'm gay. Actually I'm not, but I want people to think I am, for my own protection. You see, my good looks have made me into an irresistible chick magnet. I'm tall, athletic, with curly blond hair. My green piercing eyes are set into a symmetrical face with a strong chin. I'm gorgeous, so to speak, and I have the same problem as gorgeous women: people of the opposite sex are always hitting on me. There are way more straights than gays, so my feigned orientation keeps down the number of times I'm harassed.

Doesn't eliminate it completely, though. Rita, a cute, pleasant girl in my analytics seminar saw right through my ruse. After a class discussion on beauty and retail, she whispered to me that one day she was going to ring my cash register. I brushed her off, and she smiled.

It's not bad getting hit on by beautiful women. Most men would kill to experience it. But I'm more than just a gorgeous body. I'm also smart, sensitive, caring, and I have a strong sense of justice.

Did I mention that I'm also modest?

I'm doing a joint Law and MBA degree, while working part time at a leading legal firm. My undergraduate degree was a joint Major in History and English Literature. I'm a well read, well informed man who likes to get into deep discussions on esoteric topics. But when I start talking with most women, what comes out of their mouth resembles drool, rather than intelligent conversation. By feigning homosexuality, I'm able to reduce the drool factor.

I have another wonderful character trait: I'm loyal. If you're someone I respect, if you're a friend, I'll stick by your side. I'll do whatever I can to help you out. For example, at a meeting with one of my professors, I could tell that he was distressed by something and we got to talking. (Did I mention that I'm a good listener?) He had just received a report that his wife was cheating on him. My employer had an affiliated investigative agency, so I offered to follow her around for a bit to see if the story was true. Sadly, it was. I then had the unhappy job of serving divorce papers on her. Professor Anderson was so distraught that he resigned from the university and left town.

One of my loyalties is to John Seldon, the senior partner in the firm I work for. He's a soft-spoken man who does nothing spectacular. He's not a brilliant orator, he doesn't overwhelm you with his razor-sharp wit, nor does he pound his opponents into dust. But everything he does, he does well. When he commits himself to doing something, it's not just a thought, it's not just words. He will get it done. And he will do it in the most honorable way possible. Unfortunately, well maybe fortunately for me, he had decided to find me a suitable girlfriend, if not wife. Given my loyalty to him, I wasn't going to refuse to date any of the matches he set up for me. I had been thinking of calling Rita, but Carrie was the daughter of a close and wealthy friend of his.

When I called Carrie to set up our first get-together, I proposed dinner and a movie. I was pleased when she suggested the Cheesecake Factory. When I asked her why that restaurant in particular, her response was simple.

"I like cheesecake."

"I do too; both kinds."

She laughed. When I suggested the latest Tom Cruise flick, she mentioned the Akira Kurosawa retrospective at the university theater.

"Who's Akira Kurosawa?"

"Rashomon, Ran..."

My silence informed her I hadn't heard of any of those.

"Seven Samurai. You may have seen the American remake, The Magnificent Seven. It had Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, and Charles Bronson."

"Okay, that rings a bell. So it's Seven Samurai. What time is it playing?"

"No, no. Friday is Ran. It's a Japanese version of King Lear. Do you mind violence, or would you prefer a romantic chick flick?"

Carrie was different from other women I'd dated. Most would have opted for Tom Cruise or romance. I was concerned that maybe she was a bit kinky, opting for a violent foreign film. But if it was really an adaptation of King Lear, this could be an interesting evening.

It was, from the moment I picked her up at her parents' sprawling suburban ranch house. I knew very little about the Shakespearean King Lear, but Kurosawa's adaptation was an emotional storm that blew me away. I was still trying to get hold of myself as we walked back towards my car.

"So, Mike McNeil, who do you identify with? Are you a senile warlord, the loyal son, or are you Tsurumaru, wandering alone with no eyes on top of a cliff, waiting for a rescue that will never come?"

"Why don't you think I'm one of the betrayers?"

"That would allow for the possibility of you betraying me one day, and I won't allow that to happen. We have to start off on the right foot."

"I'd like to be like Saburo, the noble son. Honest and loyal, but he ends up dead. I don't identify with that part. How about you, Carrie? Who are you?"

"The jester, no doubt."

""Man is born crying. When he has cried enough, he dies." Are you so disconsolate?"

"No, but I am a practical joker, an artist. I amuse myself, and sometimes others. That makes me a jester."

I smiled and put my arm around her shoulders. "Be careful about the jokes you pull on me. I may have to put your eyes out or cut your head off. Maybe even both!"

Carrie took my hand that was draped over her shoulder. "We're on our first date, and you're already making romantic threats. How insensitive are you?"

"Try me." I bend my head and lightly kissed her lips. Her lips responded, but when I tried to press, she pulled back.

"Too soon for that, mister."

Most women that I kissed, however lightly, wanted to take things all the way into bed. As I walked her to her front door I understood that my companion putting on the brakes. For the first time in years I wanted to pursue a woman, rather than her going after me. Carrie was cute, well read and intellectually curious. I was smitten.

"I like Kurosawa. Shall we do another one?"

"I'm going to Rashomon on Sunday."

"Okay. Do you want to do dinner first?"

"Uh, no, Mike. I'm going with someone else."

"Okay, let's make it a double date. I'll bring a guy for your friend."

"My friend isn't gay. He doesn't need you to bring him a guy."

It took me a few seconds to understand what she was telling me. "Oh" was my witty response. I wasn't used to being on this side of the equation. "When can I see you again?"

"Give me a call next week. I'm going to try to score tickets to the Fringe Festival. You can be my date."

I'd heard of it, but never paid any attention. "What's the Fringe Festival?"

"Avant-garde performances by progressive indie artists. Plays, dance, comedy... All very unconventional and creative."

It sounded sanctimonious to me, but Carrie had already proven herself when she chose Kurosawa over Cruise. "I trust your choices. Goodbye kiss?" I bent towards her. She turned her face, so I ended up kissing her cheek. She then grabbed my ass with both hands, squeezing my butt cheeks. Carrie knew how to keep me off balance. She took a step back.

"One day Mike, we will be cheek to cheek."

I don't remember ever being so bewildered by a woman.

When I got home there was a message from Rita, my former classmate. She was doing her doctoral thesis on the 'beautiful data point,' taking off from the question that had been raised in class about whether a good-looking cashier will do better than an ordinary looking one. I called Rita back; she wanted me to pass by the Kroger where she was working to check out her "sultry" look. I remembered her promise to "ring my cash register" and gave my regrets.

Seldon handed me a bewildering assignment at the office on Monday morning. A lot of people were complaining about retailers who harassed people passing by on the street, trying to drag them into their store. A pleasant stroll became a tense walk when you constantly had to fend off aggressive marketers. The city wanted to ban them but knew there were constitutional and legal constraints. City Council had already passed a First Reading of the proposed bylaw but came back to us saying they wanted penalties that would hurt, not just annoy offenders. My job was to identify all the potential issues, so we could work around them. The assignment was bewildering because Seldon was a fierce First Amendment advocate, having done a lot of pro-bono work in that field. I could imagine that after the city passed the law which he helped craft, Seldon would then volunteer to try to overturn it.

By two o'clock, his curiosity got the best of him.

"How was your weekend?"

"Most of it was spent trying to recover from my Friday date with Carrie."

Seldon turned red and averted his eyes. "I meant—"

"Sorry, I should have specified 'emotionally recover.' We went to dinner and a movie, and then I brought her home. She's different than other girls I've dated."

"Different-good?"

"Oh yes. I hope to see more of her."

Seldon sat down in the chair beside mine, looked at my computer monitor then turned to me. "Her father is a good friend. Carrie goes from boyfriend to boyfriend. Her dad doesn't know whether she blows them off, or whether they abandon her because of how 'different' she is. But as you've undoubtedly discovered, not only is she smart; she has a great sense of humor."

"Yeah, she told me she's a practical joker."

"One day one of her stunts will land her in trouble."

I wasn't surprised when Carrie told me she got us two tickets to the Fringe Festival's closing gala. Robert de Niro and Kathy Griffin were the headliners, and we had fabulous seats. Nor was I surprised when Carrie refused to accept payment for the tickets. After the show I felt bad for Carrie, but relieved that I hadn't paid a cent towards that horrible spectacle. De Niro wore a dress, Griffin a... I don't know what it was, actually. They spent forty-five minutes whacking a Donald Trump Piñata, all the while yelling "fuck the President." Most of the people who paid two hundred fifty dollars a ticket gave the performers thunderous applause.

I took her to a café, the same one where my professor's wife and her paramour talked about sex. I sat across the table from Carrie, and gently took her hand in mine. "I don't trust your choices anymore."

She laughed. "Was it that bad? I thought it was kind of feral."

"If by feral you mean thoughtless, uncultivated, yeah. Mindless swearing and violence doesn't speak to me."

"Do we politely avert our eyes from cruel, immoral behavior? When a government is cruel, millions suffer. Aren't we obliged to resist, however rudely?"

I had a feeling that if we pursued this line of discussion, our relationship would come to a screeching halt. I wanted to go a lot further with Carrie, and I'm not just talking about getting into her pants. "I guess we differ on how we should meet those obligations."

She scowled, shook her head and pointed to the menu. "Will you trust my choices here?"

"Huh?"

"I work at the beach shop next door. I eat here regularly. Do you trust me?"

I pretended to ponder the question. "Go for it."

She motioned to the waiter and ordered some kind of decaffeinated concoction, along with a 'cinnamon delight' pastry. I was glad I trusted her with the menu, but at the same time realized how little I knew about her.

"What's the beach shop? What do you do there?"

"It sells beach stuff. What would you think it is?"

"We're hundreds of miles from the ocean."

"There are lakes, there are swimming pools, there are people going on vacation all the time. I'm the Promotions Manager. It's my job to keep the cash registers ringing all year round, even during the slow season."

Her description reminded me of Rita's remark, that one day she was going to ring my cash register. Carrie was certainly closer to achieving that.

I spent the next month doing research for the anti-harassment bylaw. There was a civil rights angle that could perhaps counter the First Amendment issue. It seemed there was no way to seriously hurt the businesses, but we could go after, maybe even arrest the staff that was doing the dirty work. For the most part these would be students, or maybe the extreme poor working for minimum wage. If they would refuse the assignment to harass people on the street, they'd be out of a job. Did we want to make a Federal case out of kids handling out pamphlets? I didn't like doing this, but hey, that's what lawyers do, and I wanted to be a lawyer.

During the period I was doing extensive research for the anti-harassment bylaw, I was also doing superficial research on Carrie's body. Superficial, meaning she wouldn't let me go very far, certainly not deep. I managed to hold her ass as we danced close together, I got my tongue into her mouth a few times, I stroked her thighs... Nothing that entailed unbuttoning any buttons, lowering any zippers, exposing what couldn't decently be seen on a sunny ocean beach. I was getting frustrated and thought again of calling Rita. I prided myself on not being shallow, so I didn't.

When I took Carrie to a beach at a mountain lake she wore a bikini, fairly modest compared to what other women were wearing. I was glad I hadn't worn my speedo. It was a family beach, not a 'show off your hot body beach,' and the hottest things got was when we applied sunscreen to each other. A few mothers turned their attention from their kids' sandcastles to watch Carrie apply sunscreen to my chest, a few fathers turned as I rubbed cream into Carrie's thighs. It took us a bit of time, but we worked up the courage to wade into the cold lake water.

Carrie was in up to her neck when she grabbed my hand. "Don't stare, but keep your eye on the little kid with the blue striped bathing suit."

I tried to look without being obvious. "The pudgy one, who's maybe six or seven years old? With a deep tan?"

She nodded. "Is he still heading towards our beach chairs?"

"I guess he's headed in that direction. Why?"

"He's a thief. I saw him go to a set of chairs earlier and dig through the people's bags while they were in the water. He took something, a wallet I think, and brought it to another man at the other end of the beach."

Did I tell you that I'm a fast runner? I used to be on the track team. I reached the kid just as he started heading back to his pimp, or whatever you would call the guy sending him off to steal. The little thief didn't realize I was walking a couple of yards behind him, leading me right to the real culprit. The man had dark sunglasses, but I knew he was watching me approach, twitching like he was deciding whether or not to run.

The kid deposited my wallet in a rucksack, the man grabbed the pack and tried to run. He didn't get very far before I had forced him to the ground by applying pressure to his forearm. "Pull out a wallet, any wallet from the bag," I told the kid. He stared at me like I was speaking Greek.

"Come on, I don't have all day. You are going to help me return the wallets you stole, and then your father's going to jail." I glanced around. There didn't appear to be any mother around. The kid stared at me a little longer, and then started speaking gibberish. At least that what it sounded like to me. He definitely didn't speak American.

The father, or whoever he was, tried to make a run for it. I quickly dislocated his shoulder, then brought him down with a left hook. A crowd had started to gather around, not too happy with my violence. "Everybody check if their wallet, or phone or anything else is missing. This little thief has been stealing from people while they were in the water." I reached into the bag and grabbed something. It was a pink lady's wallet. I opened it and read out the name on a credit card. "Eva Hutchison. Are you here?" A pregnant blonde in a modest bathing suit called out in response. She ran up, holding the hands of two young boys.

"Harold Walton..."

"Mary Trellis..."

There were close to a dozen wallets and a few phones in the rucksack. The latter were harder to place with their owners. I was glad someone had thought to call the police. They interviewed me, some other witnesses, and hauled the thief and his little assistant away. Carrie and I returned to our chairs.

"I didn't know you're so mean."

I turned to Carrie, completely confused. "Why am I mean?"

"The two of them will probably be locked up, maybe even deported."

"Well they shouldn't steal."

"Maybe they were hungry, or just needed money. When I pointed them out, it was as a matter of curiosity. I didn't expect you to turn into Robocop."

"I should have let all those people get robbed? Why are a couple of thieves entitled to their money? How do you know that Eva Hutchison, or Harold, Mary or any of the others don't need their own money?"

Carrie leaned her chair back, closed her eyes for a couple of minutes, then turned to me. "Okay, let's forget it."

My strong sense of justice wouldn't let me forget it. But Carrie was a friend, someone I had feelings for, so my sense of loyalty urged me to work past this with her. She wasn't me, so of course she responded differently to the ebb and flow of everyday life. By the time we got back to the car in the late afternoon I was thinking more about removing her bikini than the kid removing wallets. Carrie threw a light sundress over her now-dry bathing suit, and after a few minutes of letting the AC cool things off, we headed off.

Carrie touched my leg. "My mother is redecorating, and the house stinks of paint. I don't like eating with the smell of latex; can we go somewhere for supper?"

Her touch made my flesh tingle. Never mind that latex paint doesn't smell, I wasn't going to refuse Carrie's initiative towards me. We went back to the Cheesecake factory. I had the Chicken Bellagio, she enjoyed the Grilled Pecan Salmon, both of us finishing with cheesecake.

"Time for more cheesecake?"

"I'm full. You have a gorgeous figure; I'm surprised you can eat a second slice."

"I had a different kind of cheesecake in mind. You said you like both kinds."

"My place? There's no paint smell."

Carrie reached under the table and squeezed my thigh. My body shivered in response.

Carrie was worth the wait. She was worth the pursuit. Her creativity in bed was stunning. As I dropped her off at home later that evening, I couldn't mask my enthusiasm. "When can I see you again?"

"We've got a big promotion going on at the store starting Wednesday. We have tomorrow and Tuesday to prepare. I guess that means that we can't get together for a week. Can you give me something to hold me over till then?" She accidentally bumped the horn as she leaned over and wrapped her arms around my neck. I was surprised the air didn't ignite from the heat of our kiss.

With her parents looking out the window to see who had honked, we couldn't do more than kiss, and we had to break that off faster than we wanted. I tried desperately to think of something witty and romantic to say, but she was out the car door before I could come up with anything better than "see you soon."

It had to be soon; a week was too long to wait. I was besotted, thinking of her constantly. Her promotion campaign was starting on Wednesday. So on Thursday I would go shopping for a speedo. Maybe she'd come into the changing room to help me try it on.

On Tuesday I stopped thinking about Carrie; I came across a shocking precedent while doing research for the anti-harassment bylaw. A store worker soliciting business on the street had interfered in a pedestrian's ability to get to his office on time, causing him to miss an important meeting, which in turn caused his employer to lose a major contract. The pedestrian was fired for missing the meeting, and he sued the retailer and the man who had delayed him. The guy who was paid minimum wage to hand out flyers and chat up potential customers faced criminal charges for obstructing traffic. He ended up spending three days in jail and ended up on the street. His employer settled quietly out of court for an undisclosed amount. This was mind-boggling.