Page 19 of For Pleasure Or Worse

"Why are we having such a deep conversation?" I cut the swallowing silence in half. "This is our first date. We're supposed to be talking about stuff like our careers and our favorite TV shows."

"I already know what you do." He chuckled.

My stomach hollowed. "You do?"

Mateo tilted his head, confused. It took me a second to remember that he’d met me at the bank, and to him, I was still a normal, average, unassuming woman who sits behind a desk all day.

"Oh, fuck. Right, you do."

"Did you hit your head when we fell?"

No, I was just paranoid that you knew I was a sex worker and this entire date was a farce and a ploy to sleep with me after watching me perform online.I was careful, but my biggest fear was being recognized and pursued in real life, and I didn’t know if I’d ever shake it.

"Tell me something less deep," I blurted.

"I don't think I'm capable of having regular conversations with you. I'm either sharing too much, or worrying about sharing too much and then doing it anyway. Like now. I'm doing it right now."

"Tell me about your childhood pets," I suggested.

"I had a one-eyed schnauzer named Peppy. He was the ugliest dog I'd ever seen. My brother found him under a shed looking like he'd been run over by a car and when he got home my mother thought he'd grabbed a rat off the street."

"A rat that big?"

"Oh, pretty girl, you've never been in a New York City subway have you?"

I twisted my lips into a shy smile. Hearing him call me something so endearing so nonchalantly was nothing like what I was used to. It rolled off his tongue, like he was the only man on earth who could say that and get away with it.

"What else do you have for me?" Mateo poked.

"Where were you when you found out Michael Jackson died?"

"Afghanistan."

I choked up a laugh. "Oh. That sucks."

"I had to sob quietly in the barracks." He sighed. "Listen to ‘Billie Jean’ on repeat on my iPod and pretend like everything was okay. Like MJ hadn't hee'd his last hee."

I crackled with laughter. My bottom lip was worn raw by my teeth and the constant clenching to tamper down a smile. "I was at little league softball practice," I countered. "Also sobbing because my dreams of going to Neverland were crushed forever."

Mateo bellowed out a hearty, rumbling laugh. His light brown eyes twinkled beneath the neon stripe of light, his teeth beaming even brighter and straighter than before. "I think you might have dodged a bullet there."

"I was in crisis for weeks, watching all of his music videos on repeat on MTV. I started wearing a fedora."

"Natalia." He said my name like a sweet warning. It spread something cool and lingering through my body, and gave me the kind of chills that made my hair stand on edge and my bones vibrate in anticipation for what was next. I was hanging there by a thread to hear it again.

"You know, no one ever calls me Natalia, really. My dad. But mostly in a scolding way. It's nice to hear it said with a smile."

It healed something small. A stitch into a wound.

"Does anyone call you Tally?"

"Tally?" I hummed. "No."

He hesitated. "Well, what if I did?"

I'd bite. I thought the name over and over again in my head and it felt foreign and a bit silly, but also like a new identity. A person I was only with Mateo. "I'm not sure." I shrugged. "Test it out."

He cleared his throat as we rounded the curved end of the oval rink. Skating had become involuntary. "I think you are absolutely breathtaking, Tally."

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