excerpt from the novel Puppies

 

In Sophie’s bag: Chapstick, an Emergen-C packet, sunglasses, a condom, anxiety pills, a gummy edible, a small book she only reads when she’s out. She’s on her way to meet Dan, who needs some writing help. They found each other on Gigz, a freelance platform that pairs ‘seekers’ (their word) with ‘talent’ (their word); she lied in her bio that she’s trained. Though she enjoyed a couple of creative writing classes in college, her skills are pretty laughable. But anyone who pays for writing instead of chatting with AI is kind of a sucker anyway. Gigz is not her purpose, her destiny, it’s temporary work while she discovers her calling, which should arrive any day. She passes a bobbed woman with a briefcase and wonders about CEOing — too many employees. For now, she browses Gigz and picks up barista shifts to gossip with her coworkers and get free food. She honestly does try her best with every Gig she’s hired to do, and with an 84% satisfaction rate, she must be doing something right. 

Dan is a twenty-seven year-old who needs to write a small essay for the city’s elite soccer club’s application. Its really stupid, he messaged her, but i need help. She zoomed into his profile picture, his pixelated smile and indiscernible eye color, then planned her outfit, starting with some coconut butter slathered on her chest and shoulders. Sophie doesn’t often believe in the healing power of many things except being in the presence of an attractive person. Flirtation keeps her passionate, hungry, upright. 

He’s ordered an Old Fashioned, sweating next to his laptop. It’s four pm, and Sophie changes course. When she flags the waitress down she orders a glass of white wine. “I focus better when I drink,” Dan says.

“Are you sure you’re not a writer?” Sophie asks. 

He’s better looking in person; broad but not scary. He won’t listen to roided bros ranting on mics, but might, perhaps, let a sexist comment slide. His masculinity is gentle; if one of his big hands happened to rest on the small of her back, it’d feel protective, not creepy. His brown eyes look down into his drink as if he can’t meet hers. They’re a bit crooked, but Sophie has always admired God’s mistakes. A man shouldn’t be aware of any imperfections of his body. Once, she went on a date with a giraffe-necked Persian who showed up in a turtleneck and slumped in his chair. Back at his place with his head cradled in her hand, she ran her tongue from collarbone to jawline, a long journey that used a lot of saliva, to show him there’s nothing to be insecure over. 

Sophie and Dan pretend to work on his essay, 300 words about the impact of soccer on Dan’s personal life. There is none. 

“I mean, I played in college,” he says, shrugging. “I’m looking for something to do, meet people.” There’s a glinting gold necklace underneath his button-up that Sophie can’t quite make it out yet. 

“You’ve met me,” she says.

“Well, wanna play soccer?” he says. 

Sophie pretends to think for a moment. “I’ve never really been sporty.” 

“You look lithe to me.” 

He must own a word-of-the-day calendar. 

She shifts in her seat. “It’s been a while since anyone’s flirted with me. Guy or girl.” She sometimes decides to lean into bisexuality if she thinks it’ll serve her well. The openness interests people. She transformed theory to practice in college, but when she finally got face-to-face with a chatty Jew’s vulva, she froze, unsure of its operation, like the off-kilter perspective shift when tying someone else’s shoe. 

He takes a deep breath, moving his shirt and revealing a Jesus cross. Kind of a big one, actually. “We can flirt,” he says. “Only if I get a good grade on this paper, Miss.”

“I’m not into teacher roleplay,” Sophie lies. 

“Then why are we here?” Dan makes a circle with his open hand, meaning her writing gig, but also meaning this, you and me. 

“Extra money. I’m okay at writing. I also like doing other projects while I work on my other… projects. Just like you, trying to meet new people.” 

“Cool,” he says. She wished he’d ask about the other projects. “When I was in school, essays were chill, but now it’s physically painful. Like, for soccer, really? I hate going over what I write.” 

“Editing’s my favorite part, actually. I’m always right and I can tell people what to do.”

“Do you want to tell me what to do?” 

Sophie thinks. “I do.” This is the truth.

He kicks her lightly under the table. “What do you want me to do?” His face is open, ready.

“Let’s finish this, then I’ll tell you.”

 

They make up a story about a gay brother of his who was bullied off his middle school’s soccer team because of his prissy running and flimsy kicks. So me playing is, in a way, all for him, they end the paragraph.

“He needs a name,” Dan says. “What’s a gay name?”

Sophie thinks for a moment, looking out beyond the patio. “Matty,” she says.

They send off the PDF. Dan closes his laptop.

“Tell me what to do,” he says.

She smiles. “Go into the bathroom and take some photos,” she says. “Message them to me on Gigz, and I’ll let you know when you can come out.”

Dan gets up. He’s already got half a boner. She finishes her glass of wine, then takes a sip of his Old Fashioned. The waitress comes around to see if she’d like anything else, but she says not right now. Soon, her phone dings.

Dan’s sent her four DMs — one shirtless in the mirror, pants pulled down to reveal his underwear band, and three of his penis. She flinches at dick pics — they’re either ugly, gauche, unsolicited, or some combination of the three. She’s never gotten wet from one, like she’s never masturbated to an image of a dildo — it’s simply a physical object at the whims of the mind upstairs. In the first photo, she crops out his body, his face filling his screen, looking at the mirror, right in the eyes. There’s something sad in them, like an admission. She sighs, weighs the three dick pics alongside this promising one. She messages back Ok and he comes out of the bathroom, stands over her table. She lies that she’s paid and they go back to Dan’s place.

 

He’s a hairy man, a clingy fucker. He has no top sheet or interesting kinks for Sophie to try out. She told him anything goes, but he asks if everything is okay with every inch he pushes into her, as if he thinks he’s that impressive. Actually, when he was first slipping his underwear off, Sophie hovering above his crotch, her face dropped when it turned out to be smaller than expected. So small, in fact, she thought she was owed an explanation, or maybe an apology, some acknowledgement of the situation. Instead, she looked up to find his arms behind his head, eyes closed, ready for her to clock in despite her not having the proper material to get to work. She couldn’t help it, she smiled, coughed to conceal it.

“What?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she said. “I’m just thinking about a joke my brother told me.”

“Why are you thinking about your brother right now?”

“Not him, a joke he told me. A sentence. He’s a funny guy.”

She wonders what she’ll write in her journal. He has some moles freckling his chest in the dim light of the salt lamp. There’s a tooth in his mouth so crooked it looks about to fall out. He lives solo in a cold basement unit. His dirty clothes lay on the floor next to Coke cans and GQ. Is this sexy? Him kowtowing to articles by some other man on how to dress and smell? She can’t even picture him sitting down to read it. But at least he’s reading something.

Dan pulls out and warns Sophie he’s going to come. Before she can prove how much she wants his semen on her face and possibly even in her mouth, he’s coming on her stomach, hitting her lacy bra.

“Shit, sorry,” he says, breathing heavy.

“It’s okay.”

“Let me get a towel,” he says, then saunters to the bathroom. She lies there, thinking. People would probably be upset about how willing she is to be jizzed on if this wanting were public. Sometimes, even, it felt like she was born to be jizzed on, like that’s her only use in life. She wants to communicate this without seeming too pathetic or porny. But that desire isn’t fundamentally unfeminist; it’s just a desire. She can do with it what she wants, indulge or ignore it with ease. But Dan now might think he’s owed the satisfaction of his jizz on bare skin for the foreseeable future. Is she just one broad in a long line of women okay with being used? He’s lucky Sophie’s not some short-haired feminist who treats her body like a palace men have to read theory about. I’m not, like, some fucktoy rag you can just… use, she imagines someone saying, I’m not your bitch. Sophie would never say this. Sophie is easy, and nice to be around.

She gets a text from Krissie, the Ukrainian influencer she writes Instagram captions for. They met on Gigz a while ago and she’s Sophie’s longest-running client. It’s a photo of her on a beach on an island somewhere in a pink bikini, looking away from the camera. Her hair is masterfully teased and her eyes light up in the sun. Caption ASAP please asap <3, she writes. Sophie starts typing.

This gorgeous day on the planet I feel sanctified, at one with my surroundings. I pick up each grain of sand to turn it around in my fingers and bless the journey through time it’s on, starting with molten lava in the prehistoric age. Was it stepped on by dinosaur? I give kisses to the ground, bless the universe. We often forget that Earth can be sexy. I adore the beautiful people who watched me take this photo. I am in love with illustrious Earth and one day hope to travel to Moon to spread my warmth.

She sends it to Krissie, and within seconds, she types back Perfect XO, and sends Sophie $200 on Venmo. The photo is posted immediately, with no edits to the caption, even though she’s sure there’s some words in there Krissie doesn’t really understand.

Dan comes out of the bathroom, picks up his underwear on the floor. Apologizes for the lack of towel.

Sophie says it’s fine. There’s some cum on her bra, and she tries to sexily sit up and lick it off while maintaining eye contact, but it’s a pitiful endeavor and she looks like she has a double chin, making a goofy face as if that was the joke. She gives up and uses her finger. It’s an absurd five seconds.

“That’s sick,” Dan says. “You’re weird. I like it.”

She guesses he hasn’t met anyone actually weird. He’s probably only picked up girls with ADD at sorority houses who like to have sex in cars. Sophie is pretty normal, compared to everyone else; she has a job and doesn’t embarrass her parents. She is, perhaps, a little low on a hierarchy of classy Americans — when she gets home from her three shifts a week, she smokes weed, scrolls Wikipedia and complains online. But at least she’s aware of her stagnancy, and doesn’t delude herself into thinking she’s better than anyone else by refusing to get a corporate job. Her online friends insist they’re ‘smashing the patriarchy’ or undertaking a ‘radical act of resistance’ by wearing a funky outfit to a wedding or planting an herb garden at a nearby park. There’s nothing nuanced about Sophie masturbating on the couch at 3 pm, and she’s fine with that.

She and Dan watch Netflix on the floor for a while before she pretends to get a call from a girlfriend who wants to go out for drinks.

“I don’t think anyone called you,” he says as she puts her boots on.

“This is the friend whose father just got in a car crash,” she says. “She needs my support.”

“Hey,” he says as he pulls at her from bed. “Can I see you again? I wasn’t lying about the moving here a week ago thing.”

“Text me on Gigz,” she says as she exits. “My Uber’s here.” Women are bitches, but Sophie’s a puppy.

 

Back at her apartment, Matty’s on the couch, facedown on a pillow.

“God, Matty, why are you crying?”

She puts her keys into a dish and throws a blanket over Matty. He coughs, sniffles, turns his snotty face towards her. He is so childlike, so often, that she cannot believe he is two months older than her. That she has to comfort him after a bad dream. This man who is afraid of his brain. He says something that she hears as peanut butter, so she goes to the kitchen and gets him a jar with a spoon.

He sighs when she comes back with it. “We don’t understand each other,” he cries, then returns his face to the couch.

It’s not the first time Matty cried today. He is, after all, a twenty-nine-year-old who still likes to be called Matty. He doesn’t know how to tell Sophie about the puppies.

 

This is earlier today, before Sophie’s date, before she worked at her café and clumsily stole some muffins, before she even took her mid-morning nap — Matty finishes cleaning up a lesson on present participles and decides to go for a walk. It’s a nice, sunny day, one where he has to remind himself to take a break instead of spending all day indoors, even if his work allows it. He’s a translator at Verby, an online language-learning service where people two weeks away from Cancún vacations learn how to say Bien, y tu? to the hotel waitstaff. Freelance linguists write lessons and chat with students over FaceTime, pretending to be a barista to their customer, a tour guide to their sightseer. Matty likes to tell his students all about dropping particular s sounds from words so that their ¿Sabes? (“You know?”) sounds like ¿Sabe? to impress the Mexican on the other side of that conversation, even if they’re asking where the bathroom is. The company treats Matty well; the homework is quick to grade, the speaking sessions are enjoyable. He’s already fluent in Spanish after studying abroad in España, and he’s never been afraid of chit-chatting. Sometimes someone will ask why a particular verb is conjugated a certain way, and he’ll say, I don’t know, it’s just one of those things you have to watch out for, but other than that, it’s a job he can do on his laptop in front of a TV screen, which is all he asks for.

He often forgets the city is real and buzzing all around him. That he’s allowed to explore it, and should do so, to meet real people. In college, he had to spend all four years in a dorm that enforced sign-in sheets and curfews that banned inter-room mingling past sundown. Years of labeling groceries and avoiding communal toilet seats haunts him. There was so much trepidation to be a person. You are allowed to walk out your front door, Matty, tie your shoes, and start running, if you’d really like to; no one will think you’re a freak for doing so. People don’t care. It took him months before going to some museums because he didn’t know where they were, but now he likes to vape and wander the natural history exhibits.

He puts on sunglasses and goes downhill to Javaholic, a new shop that disguises their gentrification with an early 2000’s aesthetic, inspired by Barnes & Noble and the humble beginnings of Starbucks. Jazz pop filters softly through the speakers, and board games and weathered books sit decorate the shelves. Thick cinnamon bun rugs and mugs with hand drawn flowers. Nevertheless, everyone there is typing on a laptop, headphones on. People read in the park across the street with their maximalist swirly cups, and he wished he’d brought a book. All of the ones here are frail.

The two young guys behind the counter text on their phones, but recognize him as he walks up. They both have cool shirts, ambiguous races and artsy tattoos. Usually Matty would be embarrassed to be labeled as a repeat customer, but now he basks in it. This can be a new thing, he thinks with juvenile joy, coming here every day to chat. Maybe in a week or two, he’ll be friends with the guys. He knows straight companionship is rare, but still he hopes for a party invite or something.

They give him a stale croissant for free and go back to texting. Matty sweats as he eats in one of the plush chairs, his phone dinging with a notification from a group fitness app. It pulls from every boutique gym in the city and offers Pilates, yoga, strength training, CrossFit, barre, running, active stretching, IronMan, gymnastics, pole dancing, something called Gauntlet, something called HVRDCORE MVN, something called Wife Protector, and puts them into one app so that he can scroll and decide what classes he’d like to take. He purchased five credits a month and never uses them all. Today’s deal is a class called Ancient Body, advertised with a picture of a bare patch of land with a wire fence wrapped around it, smattered with stones and wood. You’re supposed to run around and climb trees and jump up and down and crawl and hit rocks with other rocks or anything else Neanderthals did, except for going extinct. Matty is skeptical at first but remembers the science textbook illustrations of his ancestors — they did look pretty jacked.

He sends the link to Nate, his best friend, to see if he wants to join.

9:48 a.m.: Want to go today? ancientbody.com/run-and-smash

9:50 a.m.: Btw there’s a half-off deal if I buy two slots in 15 mins

9:53 a.m.: Hey just checking bc of the deal

9:57 a.m.: 7 min left if you wanted to go

9:59 a.m.: [Missed call from Matty]

9:59 a.m.: Sry to call, deal runs out soon

10:00 a.m.: [2 missed calls from Matty]

10:02 a.m.: Hey deal ran out sorry!!! But still down to go later if you’re around

Matty finishes the croissant and throws the crumpled paper bag in the trash, picks up his iced coffee and waves goodbye at the two guys. He leaves a 5-star review on Yelp. Maybe Nate had something better to do on a Wednesday afternoon than work out with Matty. He could be trying recipes with Alexis or working on his ground strokes. Matty decides to walk further.

The city opens up, he always forgets it. He thinks about stopping by Sophie’s coffee shop to get a drink, but thinks better of it, since she says he always “distracts” her. He walks by HAVEN, a new apartment complex, the salon where tightly-coiled gay guys get buzzcuts, EASE, a new apartment complex, the meatball restaurant, RISE, a new apartment complex, a bomb shelter, and the feminist library. Matty does sometimes wonder about how the city has changed under his thumb, that nagging sense of guilt he gets every time he walks past a homeless person with a dirty blanket. But there’s no way he, one single person, Matty Matthew Roth, the (unbeknownst to him) great grandchild of novelist Philip Roth and grand-cousin once-removed of Senator William V. Roth, who co-created the Roth IRA, could contribute to something so sprawling and meticulous as gentrification. It doesn’t really matter, he convinces himself, that he orders take-out from a place with glossy counters instead of a noisy place staffed by the owner’s iPad kid. But he should at least stay informed. Maybe he’ll read a book about it if he can find one under 300 pages. At a bus stop his phone dings — not Nate, but instead, a girl. Tinder introduces him to Jessi, a blonde who enjoys farmers markets, volleyball, oat milk lattes, and democratic socialism. She asks what he’s been reading. He stops in the sidewalk and writes back:

Oh hey! That’s a loaded question lol I’m kind of in a reading slump at the moment bc of my job (it’s just a freelance gig that’s really not interesting… can tell u about it over some drinks [maybe like 5!] if you’re willing…) but anyway I got my library card a while ago but I don’t go that often because of this thing I have where I feel like I’m gonna get stabbed on the metro since I keep seeing stories about it. And not like I’m scared of the city or anything, I chose to live here and I’m enjoying it so far, it’s just kind of an intrusive thought I need to get over. Gets worse when I smoke weed. Know any good therapists in the area? Jk lol I have one. But anyway let’s see, the last time I was at the lib (which one do u go to btw? The new remodeling on 8th street looks cool) I checked out a book that was about what happened if all the roads in the world disappeared. I thought it would be a good sci fi novel but it turned out to be a sociological study that was just *not* interesting… I thought infrastructure was a pillar of society but the characters ended up fine I guess? Been trying to read more by women of course so I finally got some Toni Morrison books and I thought she’s a good writer but I didn’t really understand most of it? Prob bc of misogynoir, I know! So I’m down to check out a feminist rec if you have it, or anything else about unlearning toxic patriarchy. Can’t do realism, I need a book that’ll take me out of my body. Cyborgs and space and fairies and monsters and shit like that. I wanted to read Malia Obama’s memoir but I saw it didn’t get great reviews…? Anyway I’m rambling lol what are you reading?

She messages back instantly, saying that she has a thing for autistic guys, asking if he’s free tonight.

 

They meet at a hotel bar at the center of town with plush loveseats designed to physically push people together. Matty buys a vodka soda for her and an Old Fashioned for himself, which he sips slowly. He overestimated the dress code with a button-up over a shirt and nice shoes; she arrives in a band T-shirt tucked into some baggy pants. She’s beautiful in the orange light; freckled and small. Her short hair’s tucked behind her ears, filled with hoops and jewels, small stars and sparkly studs.

“I have some feminist recommendations for you,” Jessi says after they sit down.

“Yes, please!” Matty says.

She pulls up her Goodreads, rattles off the books she said helped reframe her thinking. She has some good podcast recommendations as well. He writes all of this down in his Notes app.

“Thanks so much, honestly,” he says.

“Sure,” she says. “But you shouldn’t go around asking women on dating apps to do the work out for you. I’m doing this because I feel nice.”

“Of course,” he says. “I totally get that.”

“I’m into helping people,” she shrugs. “I work for a homeless center.”

“Wow!” Matty says. He’s imagining dirty clothes, hands-on work, scrubbing malnourished bodies, cooking hearty meals, building sturdy homes. “You’re a hero.”

“Thank you. It’s not too big of a deal. I just write grant emails asking for money.”

“You’re, like, an activist.”

“I guess you could say that. I do post on Instagram a lot.”

“I need to use my platform more,” he says, looking down into his drink. “People like you are why I have hope for the world.”

She smiles. “So what do you do?”

“I’m a translator for Verby. Have you used it?”

“I like to stick to one language at a time.”

“Oh, that’s smart. Anyway, it’s remote and freelance so I schedule my own days, which is nice. I’m not sure I want to be doing it forever, though.”

“I thought you were only gonna tell me after five drinks.”

Matty laughs. “I would get pretty wild if I had that many. Not, like, violent — I’m a nice drunk.”

“I don’t trust men who are mean drunks.”

“Usually I just call my mother and tell her I love her. And then she’ll say I’m being too loud. But I’d spill secrets, too.”

“Like what?”

“Stuff people trust me with. I’ve spoiled two engagements. But nothing crazy. I’m not that important.”

“I think I disagree,” Jessi says. “You know another language and you teach it to people. You’re making a difference.”

Matty shrugs.

“Slowly but surely. Even if some days it feels pointless.”

“Well, I didn’t say that.” He tilts his drink back and the ice block hits his nose.

“Why don’t you want to do it forever?”

“I wouldn’t know what else to do. I don’t really have any other passions. This is just something I know, but that’s not interesting. I’m waiting for something else to pass me by that I’ll immediately latch onto and say, ‘Yes, this — this is what gets me happy.’ It doesn’t look like it’s coming.”

“Just because it’s taking a while doesn’t mean it’s not coming.”

“I’m twenty-nine.”

“So? What about writers that get published after 40 years of trying? Or people that come out as transgender when they’re 60? Caitlyn Jenner’s an icon.”

“Have you found out what you want to do forever?”

“I’m just patient. I just know that it will be delivered to me, whenever it does. You can’t rush it.”

“You’re putting a lot of faith in the universe.”

“Hell yeah, I am,” she says. “Is that a problem?”

He grins. “No.”

They do this for a while, silly nonsense talk. Both of them are convinced they’re glowing in the corner of the bar where no one can see. As if the night outside isn’t as dark as ever.

 

Walking back to her place, Matty rationalizes having sex on the first date as a sign of great chemistry instead of overzealous enthusiasm. They’re well-adjusted adults, not nymphomaniac loners. He thinks about holding her hand, but that’d be too much. When they get to her front door, her keys in the lock, he puts a hand on her waist, dizzy with excitement. She turns to him and smirks.

Jessi doesn’t offer him wine or anything. They leave the door open as they kiss and she pulls his button-up from his arms. He runs his hands through her hair, careful not to catch on her earrings, until his hand gets around the back of her neck and pulls her close to him. He tilts her face to kiss her cheek, her neck, as she feels around his pants.

She pushes him onto the couch; he asks if she has roommates.

“Yeah, but they’d understand,” she says, which is good enough.

She unbuttons his pants and pushes them down, wraps a hand around his hard dick underneath his boxers. His arms go behind his head, deep breath in. She goes down on him for twenty seconds when he complains about a chill from the open door.

She undresses in the bedroom. Even though she didn’t properly finish him (in his opinion), she lay waiting, on the bed, in her underwear. Matty excuses himself to go to the restroom, a little far from her room, so he has to feel around in the dark for a while. He yearns for a nightlight. On the cold of the bathroom he does pushups, boner poking the tile. Her voice through the door says, “Alexa, play my sex playlist. Alexa, sex playlist. Alexa, play my sex—oh, Alexa, play my intimate playlist.” When he gets back, she’s on her phone.

“Anything happening?” he asks.

“They’re nuking Guam,” she says, throwing it on the bedside table.

“Was that a joke?” She tugs Matty’s shirt off and he crawls to her, helping her with her underwear. Her eyes go to the ceiling. He coughs and stares, licks her thigh.

She moans; he keeps licking the same spot. She pushes his head over her vagina; he clears his throat.

“Well, well, well, what do we have here?”

She looks at him, scoffs, closes her eyes again.

“What do you, um — I guess, what do you want me to do?”

“Anything,” she says. “Fuck, anything.”

“Okay.” He reconsiders. Or, considers for the first time. This part should be easy. She’s already in bed, half-naked. He has charmed her, time to bring it home. Do what men do. And he is a man. Is this sexy? It’s supposed to be, so it is, he figures. He takes another deep breath.

“So,” he begins, “On the menu for this fine evening, we have a variety of sexual pleasures—”

“The fuck is taking so long?” she asks.

“I’m just, well—”

“Oh, you think it’s gross? After I just sucked you off? You can’t handle a vagina? You came out of here, by the way.” She does some crude, unladylike gesturing. “This is where life comes from.”

“It’s not that!” he puts his head in his hands and she puts her underwear on. “It’s not that I don’t want to eat your pussy. I’m a feminist, as you know. I just… have a girlfriend.”

“Are you fucking serious?” she asks. “What the hell are you doing here?” 

“Here’s the thing, here’s the thing! We’re open. I’m allowed to be here. She’s allowed to be with other guys.”

“Okay,” she says. “I don’t get how that concerns me.”

Matty sighs, slumps with his butt on his ankles. “I’m having a hard time with it. I feel like, maybe she’s at home, waiting for me? Like, we could have had a great night together and I’m just out with this random woman.” He sniffles, and Jessi crosses her arms. “No offense. I wish I could make it work with her.”

“I tried that once too, but it turns out I’m jealous.”

“I’m sorry,” Matty says, “this doesn’t usually happen.” This usually happens.

She pats his head. “It seems like you have a lot of stuff to work out,” she says. “Why don’t you talk with her?”

He shakes his head, doesn’t say anything. But he knows why — that if he gives her the choice between him and every other man in existence, she’ll choose them. He is no longer capable or viable. He’s stopped satisfying her; their runtime is over. Even though this should give him the freedom to have fun, put himself first, he can’t be in another girl’s bed without treating it like a therapy session. He’s always crying into some girl’s pussy.

“I’m glad you’re in touch with your feelings,” she says, “but if this isn’t happening, you gotta go. I’m sorry, I’m just looking for something quick.”

“That’s what I thought I was looking for, too,” Matty says. Now he’s crying. She gets him a tissue and he thanks her as he blows his nose.

“Do you have any other guy friends that might be out tonight? Can you send them my photo?”

He checks his phone. A text from Nate: Sry I missed this was jerkin off

 

The streets are bare as he walks home; bright empty stores lit for ghost shoppers. Matty puts his hands in his pockets and sighs. This was the first time he’s met up with someone in months; he had thought he was cured. He’s done the therapy, done the journaling, but he still can’t spend more than a few hours with a woman before guilt slices his body from the inside out. Why can’t he follow the rules as easily as Sophie? All he wishes is for the face he’s kissing to be hers, and that she wants to kiss him back. She never does.

She has no problem hooking up with strangers, bringing them home, even telling Matty about them — not coldness but of sincere ignorance, he thinks. He’s never told her that he misses when it was just the two of them, when they were enough for each other. Now she gets all the sexual fulfillment she needs from DJs, Jehovah's Witnesses, landlords — everyone except Matty is in her orbit. He’s wallowing at home on Tuesday nights while she’s on her back elsewhere. They usually come back to the same bed, which is somehow worse. He agreed to all of this, he realizes. He can’t dispute a contract he signed.

He stops by a pet shop, his hand on the cold window. Puppies cuddle on the floor, sleeping, small bodies twitching. A tongue licks a wet nose that’s not his own. Matty’s urge to break in and take one is so great he forces his hand to return to his pocket. He’s been barely taking care of himself his whole life, but is somehow assured he could do better for an animal. They’d help each other. The puppy gets food and Matty gets someone who’s happy to see him come home. One shifts into the curled mass, burrowing into another.

He can see it now, surprising her with a dog that the two of them can nurture. They would name it something like Peanut Butter and start mailing family holiday cards so everyone can see their new addition. And it would be silly but who cares. Everything looks silly until you do it and realize it’s actually nice and gentle, and this is called changing your mind. They’d be a family. And they’d tell people they adopted him since it’s socially responsible. Even the dog’s future death is interesting to think about. He and Sophie would look into each other’s eyes in the cold veterinarian’s room, hands together, her crying into his chest, saying that Peanut Butter had a great life. He’d pamper the shit out of that dog. They would be inseparable. Peanut Butter could make the nights without Sophie bearable.

But she’d say no. He can picture her face, disinterested instead of curious, when he brings him home, wondering if he’s started freelance dog walking for extra cash. She’ll realize that she now has to take care of this thing to some degree. She didn’t sign up for this. He only wants to do something nice for them, to bring them closer. A gift that can warm both of their souls. But there are no surprises anymore. Better to let it lie than to erupt anything, so he must leave Peanut Butter behind.

He knows this, yet he stays, tearing up and missing the life he’s been planning for his fake dog. He wonders if anyone’s in the shop to protect them before he sees a young girl on her phone in the corner of the room. She raises a hand in greeting and he does the same, then he heads home. Men are dogs, but Matty’s a puppy.

 

“I want a dog so bad,” he says now on the couch, crying. “But you’d hate him. You’d make me return Peanut Butter.”

“I don’t know who Peanut Butter is,” Sophie says, “but we cannot afford a dog. It’s gonna shit everywhere and we have to buy food and it’s gonna get cancer and we’re gonna have to sell the car to pay for it.”

“We don’t even have a car.”

“I’m thinking ahead. If we get a dog, we need a car to take it to the vet.”

Matty sighs, sits up. “You wouldn’t do that. I’d have to go to the vet alone while you’re with… whoever.”

Sophie pauses. “I was getting drinks with Alexis.”

Matty shrugs. “Whatever.”

“Can I make you some tea?” Sophie asks, sitting next to him. She flicks an ant off the arm of the couch. She’s not sure what prompted his tantrum; he’s probably been home all day. Sensitive men have a way of making problems for themselves.

“I think I’ll just go to bed,” he says, getting up and stretching. “I had a weird afternoon.” “Were the adverbs weird again?”

“Yeah,” he says. “Goodnight and I love you.”

She says it back.