Mitchell's Presence by D. W. Marchwell Page B

word ugly people used, wasn’t it? He would pass other men in the street, most of them bald and fat with rumpled suits, and wonder why they didn’t have a better self-image, wonder how they could let themselves go like that. But he didn’t consider himself to be vain; how could he be vain when he wasn’t as obsessed with his body as most men at the gym? They would spend hours and hours every week, posing and flexing, going to great lengths to achieve the body and then flaunt the wardrobe to show it off.
    As he stepped into the shower, lathering the soap into his sparse chest hair, he thought about Mitchell. What was he doing now? Was he working out after his shift in the bookstore? Is he thinking about me? He decided he would wait until lunch tomorrow to call him and ask him out for a beer, or coffee, or whatever. He thought he’d been shot down, but Mitchell was interested. Interested! He felt a twinge in his groin but did nothing about it, deciding he didn’t want to develop too many fantasies before seeing if he stood a chance with the real thing.
    Arthur checked his cell phone for messages and wrote down the first one, from his mother, and deleted the second, from a guy he’d seen once or twice two months ago, but didn’t feel like seeing again. Arthur’s excuse for not returning the calls was the same as always: The guy was too needy. Arthur didn’t much like baggage to accompany the men he was interested in, preferring instead to keep things light, just in case a hasty exit was needed. If Arthur was going to be honest with himself, which he avoided most days, he wasn’t so much interested in a relationship as finding fuck-buddies; there was much less guilt when it came to ending things when it got to the uncomfortable stage of familiarity.
    No, the official biography for Arthur would always read that he’d been searching for his soulmate but had just been unlucky in love.
    “Hi, Mom.”
    “Arthur, darling,” Arthur noted the slight anger in her voice; he’d made her wait too long, again, “so nice of you to call, finally.”
    “And how are you, Mom?” Arthur twirled the pen between his fingers, imagining himself with a dagger or a kitchen knife, building momentum before hurling it at her.
    “Dreadful, darling, simply dreadful.”
    “What’s wrong now, Mom?”
    “Thirty-six hours in labor…” And with that, Arthur knew that his youngest sister, Eileen, had already decided that she and her husband and four children would not be spending Christmas at the house. “And your sister tells me that she doesn’t have time to spend the entire day here this year.”
    “Well, Mom,” God, Arthur thought, how many times have I been through this? “you know that she and Herb have to spend some time with his parents, too, and that that means a twelve-hour drive up to Canada.”
    “Pffft, a Canadian,” she said with a sniff. “What was she thinking?”
    “Don’t be a snob, Mother.”
    “I am not a snob, Arthur!” she scolded and, for emphasis, delivered one of Arthur’s favorite lines: “I have always been very accepting of the less fortunate.”
    “Mom,” Arthur sighed, “I think most Canadians would find that remark snobbish, to say the least. Now, why did you call, again?”
    “It’s very exciting news, Arthur,” she said. “Your father and I have invited Penelope Reichert over for Christmas dinner.”
    “And?”
    “We did it for you, dear.” Now she sounded insulted.
    “What is she, my present?” Arthur knew where this was going.
    “Please, dear,” she spat, “I am not a pimp.”
    A pimp is a man, Mother. “Then why did you invite her?”
    “She’s still single, sweetie.” Arthur could hear her salivating, like a junkyard dog awakened by a one-legged vagrant who managed to get over the fence.
    Arthur’s sigh was heavy with frustration. “Mother, I’m gay.”
    “Oh, please, Arthur,” she harrumphed, “you’re thirty-six years old; it’s time to grow up.”
    Arthur tried