The Botox doesn't make his forehead feel numb like he imagined it would; it just no longer feels as if his forehead is there. Which isn't all that bad an idea, he thinks, if only the rest of him could vanish as well.He finds himself thinking about this while he's on a bad date with Notebook Guy, a pretty handsome professional he met at the Hope & Help fundraiser held a month or so ago at the Omni. That he's pondering the benefits of Botox while on a date with a guy he had thought would be interesting is a bad sign. A very bad sign.
But he can't help wondering if his forehead looks young.
"K--have you had a vacation or something? Your forehead looks so, so. . . so rested," he imagines an old acquaintance saying.
At the very least, he's not making any new lines. He can't move what he can't feel and so he can't move his brows up in his "I'm so bored I'm counting your eyelashes so you think I'm looking at you and paying attention" way that he has. He considers telling Notebook Guy, "My face may not show it right now because it's sort of paralyzed thanks to my freaking out about that huge wrinkle that popped out of nowhere last week. . . but you're boring the living shit out of me." But K is trying to be nice and so he continues to count Notebook Guy's eyelashes.
Notebook Guy thinks K has the best eye contact he's ever seen on a guy.
* * *
K knew it was going to be a bad date when Notebook Guy had first called to arrange it.
Coffee, he had said. Coffee.
K hates guys who want to meet for coffee.
It's so boring and lame and . . . Indifferent. Or something. But there's no imagination. No WOW! Just fucking coffee. K can get coffee in his freaking kitchen. He doesn't need to get all dressed up and to drive twenty miles to meet for a cup of coffee. He can flip a switch.
But maybe he does need to drive twenty miles, because he does, even though the location of the date is even worse than the "coffee" part--they are to meet at Borders.
Borders.
Fucking, god-damned Borders.
Stupid, boring coffee at messy, boring Borders.
K is convinced there is nothing this date can offer that will reverse his lowered expectations.
But at least his face won't show how bored he is.
* * *
"Are you bored?" Notebook Guy asks when K's eyes drift out the window to Orlando Avenue. And stay there. For five minutes. While K thinks, "Please God. Kill me now. Make one of those cars driving by crash through this window and take me out. Just take me out. I've had a good life. Let me go on this note: a bad date."
"No!" K explains, "I'm not bored. Coffee just knocks me out."
"Coffee knocks you out?" Notebook Guy asks, baffled and not quite believing him.
"I'm hypoglycemic," K explains, "And I put too much sugar in it."
K yawns, accidentally and apologizes.
"Am I boring you?" Notebook Guy asks.
K considers lying. Considers the truth. Considers everything. And then he says:
"Do you wanna go back to your place and fuck? I'm really not myself right now and you might want to take advantage of that."
* * *
K doesn't know what appalls him more: that he's just had a sort-of casual encounter (no body fluids were exchanged) or that he's just had a sort-of casual encounter with a guy who has a lap dog.
A lap dog named Miss Princess.
He thinks his rare and unusual lapse into Slutdom is the worse of the two evils. . .but he's pretty sure the lap dog thing is pretty damned close.
When he drives home, he wonders what the Hell he's just done. He feels filthy. Immoral. Horrible.
It wasn't even very good. It was the usual sex with they type of usual guy who sets up the very usual date of coffee at Borders and waits for you with his notebook computer open to show how busy he is.
It was actually pretty bad sex.
K doubts Notebook Guy enjoyed it much, either.
"I mean, he enjoyed it enough to get off but. . .Blech."
So why has K lost himself?
He and X saw one another again. By surprise, of course. Unplanned, accidental, unavoidable. Both face-to-face before either could avoid the other.
And K's heart has broken all over aqain.
Thus, another blessing of the Botox.
No one can see how sad he is.
