Jake was the kind of guy who doesn’t make eye contact. I don’t know why I thought making out with him would ever be a good idea, but it was too late for that; I was already wiping someone’s spit from the corners of my mouth. For the first time, he looked me straight on, face to face, and said:
“I never thought I’d meet my soul mate tonight.”
“Mm,” I said, smiling politely and shifting my gaze down into my lap where our fingers still lay, entwined. I looked out the window as a rusting yellow snow plow cleared the street of gray slush.
“I’m serious,” I heard him say, his high voice slightly cracking.
How do you tell an ugly guy that he’s ugly and not your soul mate?
“You’re too nice,” I said. I unlocked my fingers from his and ran my hand through the dark buzz cut on his head. The bristly hairs combed across my clammy palm. It reminded me of the time I rode a horse in the summer when I was nine.
“You’re too nice, Pony.”
He actually called me Pony. Ugly. Pony. Two strikes, you’re out.
“I have to pee,” I said.
I didn’t have to pee, but I headed to the bathroom anyway, where the dim light illuminated my face as I looked in the mirror. I ran my fingers through my own hair, and I didn’t feel like any kind of animal. It felt like normal hair. Why did his feel like he belonged in a barn? He dared to call me Pony? I pulled on my eyelashes, stretching my eyelids and pulling out single mascara drowned hairs. Rolling my thumb and forefinger together, little balls of black greasy dirt collected, and I flicked them onto the floor. His bathroom needed a little decoration; the only noticeable element against the stark white walls was the dust that had collected on the top of the toilet tank. I realized it had been a moment since I had left and I hadn’t peed yet. I turned on the tap and quietly let a pool of water collect in my palm, then poured it slowly into the toilet. Flushed, stood there for the appropriate amount of time it would take one to pull their pants up, and continued.
I spent an expert amount of time washing my hands; somehow they smelled like the cigarettes he smoked on a much too regular basis. I used my fingertips to scrub the white lather of soap into my fingerprints and the crevices on my hand, getting rid of the reeking tobacco smell as well as any mascara still stuck to my skin. It hit me that I needed to go back out there in order to get out the door. How do you ditch an ugly guy without becoming a heartbreaker?
He was looking very deeply into the carpet when I pulled myself out of the bathroom, but once he noticed I was back, a grin spread across his face. When I looked at his uneven teeth a sudden awareness flooded through me that my tongue had been inside that mouth. The mouth that called me Pony and told me that I was its soul mate. The mouth that emanated high pitched bullshit, the smoke of Newports, and its own revolting saliva to mix with my own. It hit me that they can do DNA testing with samples of spit, that my DNA clung to his when I wiped it away from my mouth and onto my jeans.
He reached out to me, like a child with separation anxiety, as I lingered as long as possible near an end table whose only content was a pair of wind-up chattering teeth. I picked up the teeth, winding the key as slowly as possible, and set them back on the table. The moment they hit the wood they made an awful buzzing sound which stopped when he too suddenly put his hand on top of them. His appearance startled me, so I backed up slightly, bumping the wall.
“What’s wrong with you?” he smiled again.
What’s wrong with me? You smoke goddamn Newports. I thought.
“Nothing.”
“You sure?”
“I feel kind of sick.”
“I have Advil,” he said. “Or Pepto-Bismol.”
“No,” I said.
“Woman troubles?” he sighed.
I was honestly astonished that he not only knew what woman troubles were, but that he had basically given me a free ticket out of this shitty apartment where he lived with his mouth.
“Yes,” I sighed in return, “it’s just so heavy this month. I don’t know how I haven’t died of blood loss.”
He picked up the chattering teeth to wind them up again. They buzzed on the end table.
“And you know, sometimes you just can’t cork it up well enough,” I said over the sound of the teeth, and shrugged passively.
He looked at the clock ticking on the opposite wall and I walked over to the couch to retrieve my coat. The corners were tucked into the cushions from the coat being sat on.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m not feeling well,” I said.
“But you’re leaving already?”
“Well, I mean, I wouldn’t be much fun.”
“I disagree,” he smirked, avoiding my eyes.
“Actually,” I improvised, “can I bum a cigarette?”
“We can’t smoke in here,” he said, grabbing his pack off the arm of the couch.
“Oh! Well, that’s fine.”
We walked out onto his porch, and he put his arm around me to shield me from the January air. His coat smelled like three day old Taco Bell. He handed me a cigarette and I pressed it delicately between my lips, pulling out my own lighter to set it on fire. The smoke curled attractively in front of my face, but there still wasn’t enough distance between my head and his. I coughed from the taste--it reminded me of the mouth that was much too close to mine. The mouth like burnt coffee and rubber that’s lost all of its elasticity. The feeling of drinking milk while you still have morning breath. I needed to clean my mouth, but first I needed to stub out the abomination of a cigarette on his face to give future women something pleasant to look at.
He leaned his head onto mine and the bristles of his hair touched my bare skin again, this time on my cheek. I was literally beginning to feel ill at that point; the taste of his concentrated cigarettes and the feel of his buzz cut were almost too much to handle in combination with the presence of his face. How did I not throw up with his tongue in me?
“Excuse me,” I said, running down to the bushes in the front yard and pretending to vomit.
“Are you alright?” he called.
“No.”
“No?”
“No!”
“Do you need some Pepto-Bismol?”
“I…I don’t think so,” I said, straightening up and wiping my mouth. The cigarette lay limp and wet in the snow at my feet.
“I’m just gonna, you know, head out.” I pointed to my car.
“Well,” he sounded disappointed, “call me tomorrow then?”
“Actually,” I said, heading for the driver’s side door, “I think I’m pregnant.”
“What?”
“Yeah, preggo,” I shrugged.
“You shouldn’t smoke when you’re pregnant.”
“Really? Huh. Well thanks for the tip.” My foot was halfway in the car.
“Wait! Pony!” he yelled, coming toward me, “Whose do you think it is.”
“My friend Tim,” I replied, shuddering again at the word Pony. “I think he’s my soul mate.”
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