Page 66 of Stags

She let out a disbelieving noise in the back of her throat. “I cannot believe I even let you touch me.”

“Well, me either,” he said. “But that’s the way it always is, that’s what women don’t get about men. We always feel like, ‘Fuck, there is no way on earth that a woman will ever let me touch her,lookat me.’ And then, it happens, and it’s like a fucking miracle, and then—”

“Men are not always like that.” She pointed at him with her fork. “Sir.”

He laughed, looking her over, his expression downright affectionate. “Yeah, okay, but that’s pretend, and we both know it. That’s a fun little game, and women like that game so much because it’s never like that in your life, is it?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, nobody’s taking care of you, are they? It’s always you, all on your own, out there against the world. And, sure, you like to fantasize about some authoritative masculine figure who’s going to waltz in and take charge and take care of everything. Just take something off your damned shoulders, right? And then, there’s actual men. Like me.”

She was speechless. How could this man be so damned insightful and yet such an offensive idiot at the same time?

“And the thing is, men, we like the fantasy, too. It’s appealing to both of us.”

“It doesn’t have to be a fantasy,” she said witheringly.

He snickered. “Yeah? You want that to be reality, me ordering you around?”

“No.” She stabbed penne with her fork furiously. “That’s not what I meant. I meant that men could step the fuck up, you know?”

“Okay, agreed,” he said. “But no matter how much we step up, it never feels like enough, because I think, deep down, all men understand the fact that we don’t fucking matter, not the way women matter.”

She stuffed all the penne in her mouth and chewed, just glaring at him.

“Look, nature makes the male version of every species disposable,” he said. “Think of how many species in which the male is, you know, literally eaten by the female after mating.”

She swallowed the penne. “What are you even talking about?”

“This is our contribution, right? Protein to feed the offspring. That’s all we mean—”

“That is insane, and you know it.”

“And amongst our species… what the fuck do bucks matter, right? They just show up and fuck you and then disappear and leave you to doeverythingon your own.”

She furrowed her brow. “But if you think that, why aren’t you changing anything?”

“Who says I’m not?”

“You’re obviously not. You’re here. You’re participating in this rite, which just perpetrates the whole system—”

“It’s deeper than my choices,” he said. “Nature does not give a shit about men. We’re the ones with the testosterone, which is useful precisely because it makes us do stupid, reckless shit, which we—at least some of the time—do in the service of the herd, in the service of protecting everyone. It made better sense for nature to make bucks not invest in our particular offspring, because then we didn’t know, so we’d protect every single doe, every single fawn, in case it was ours. You see what I mean. We’d die forallof you, and that’s what nature wants us to do, that’s what we evolved to do, to just throw ourselves into the mouths of predators or hungry octopus women or—”

“Sun. And. Moon,” she interrupted. “You’re on this weird martyr kick, some noble sacrifice bullshit—”

“That’s the thing. I’m not,” he said, chuckling. He picked up his sandwich and took a bite. He chewed, looking thoughtful. He swallowed. “I’m really not. I think the noble sacrifice business is the consolation prize. Women get the babies and the family and the community, and we get what? Noble sacrifice? No thanks. I’d much rather be like fucking wolves and just be there, raising my own fucking kids.”

She stiffened.

“But, see, nature makes you, Tawny, attracted to the kind of man you’d never let near your damned kids, because men just only matter inoneway, and that’s the tragedy of you and me, and being deerkin, and every-fucking-thing.”

“So, you’re admitting that you’re the kind of guy I shouldn’t let near my children?” She shook her head at him.

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I think I tried to pretend like I was that kind of guy. But men like to pretend in that way. We like to pretend we matter.”

“Right,” she said sarcastically, “I forgot that men don’t matter.”

“We don’t,” he said. “We know it. You know it. Deep down—”

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