Stuart was allergic to intimacy the way people are allergic to peanut butter. On nights out, he’d carry an Epipen in his back pocket, in case he made the mistake of holding hands with strange women, or telling them things that scared him.
So I never asked about his parents; I didn’t know his hometown; and on holidays I gave him gifts from the Oriental Trading Company magazine—plastic noise makers and bubble wands. We wondered why 144 was a gross. We started naming the squares of other numbers because it didn’t seem fair. Nine times nine was a henkel. Four times four was a drippel, accent on the “el.”
“What about ten times ten?” he said.
“Stuart Junior,” I said.
He started to wheeze. When he realized the bubbles wands were bridal white, I called 911.
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We made love in the dark through Saran Wrap, and when we were done he prepared a bath of ice cubes while I curled in the imprint he left on the bed. Once I watched him through the crack in the door, his naked body laid like a shaman on a bed of nails. He sneezed and scratched and begged me to stop.
After his visits the only thing he left behind was a knot of hair in the drain. It had the tar scent of anti-dandruff shampoo. It was the only thing I’d ever touched of his made from DNA.
