Everywhere.
Tonight’s prospect is gorgeous, petite, curvy, with big teeth, just a little buck. My goal is to reign it in and listen to her throughout; got most of the built-up chattiness out with some friendly folks on the subway. This one gave me her number in my hat, and most of those ones go for me because they want a guy who can shut up and listen, so that’s what I’m doing.
Then I realize I can’t remember if I checked my nostrils. I must have. I always check my nostrils before a date. But I don’t remember doing it. But it’s one of those things like you can’t remember if you turned off your kitchen light or locked the door to your apartment. But now I have it in my head that I forgot to get the paint off the inside of my nostrils, and I can’t listen to what she’s saying. But we’re in the middle of a conversation, or at least she is, and I can’t focus. I need to make an excuse to go to the bathroom, but the timing is all off. So now I either sit here thinking about my nostrils and nodding and smiling, or I awkwardly skirt off to the bathroom. Thank God the waitress comes. A break in the conversation.
I go to the bathroom. It’s a single person one, so I can take my time checking for make-up residue without drawing attention, even though the light is a little dim. No makeup. Though there are a few flakes in my beard under my chin. People are always surprised I keep a beard: more things to itch while I’m in a freeze, more shit to get the makeup stuck in.
*******
It’s going well. We’ve made it up to my apartment (all 5 flights of walk-up), with the excuse that she wants to see how a modern-day mime prepares for a day’s work: stretches, acting exercises, and most importantly costume and make-up. I show her the tubs of gold body and face paint— important to use both. Body paint is cheaper, but use it on your face and you’ll skin will start peeling off in no time. She leans over to smell the tub of body paint and I can see down her shirt a bit… I follow the thought process through until it leads to my bed where it occurs to me that I haven’t changed my sheets in a week, which for a normal person isn’t a big deal, but for a guy who slathers himself in body paint every day, it means that one night of coming home from work too tired to go through the routines and you have a whole lot of laundry to do. That night was the night before last, and my sheets are smeared with gold. It’s gonna take more than a quick trip to the bathroom to fix this one. Fuck.
She’s saying something. Holding the tub of makeup out to me.
“Put it on.”
“Really?”
“Everywhere.”
“Everywhere?”
She cups her fingers into the tub then runs her hand down my jaw and neck into the open collar of my shirt.
“Everywhere.“
