Blind Squeeze

 by

 John Fox

“Do you love me?” Michelle asked.

Gregory choked on his wine. He tried to swallow the rest of it before gasping for breath.

“Are you okay,” she asked, reaching over and touching his forearm.

He drew his forearm away. “No, I’m fine,” he said. “Just wine down the wrong way. You know.” He motioned with his finger and wiped his napkin over his lips.

“I am really sorry that just popped out. I don’t know what I was thinking. I totally just ruined the evening – I’m so sorry.”

“No, no, no. Don’t mention it.” He grabbed the stem of his wine glass and rotated it.

“So” she said while toying with her earring, “what is it you do?”

“Um, I work with your friend Sally, at the insurance office.”

Michelle giggled and a hand flew up over her mouth. “Oh yeah, huh. I knew that. Oopsy!”

They both sipped their wine. The steam from the dish at the nearby table clouded the air and they both turned to look.

“O my God, you know what I did this morning?” she asked.

“What?”

“Read the obituaries. Isn’t that so weird? But this girlfriend of mine showed me that page this morning cause one girl who died, I forget her name, was an actress, and I want to be an actress, so she thought I’d be interested, and I was! I read all the obituaries, even about the rich guy and the writer guy.”

“That is really fascinating.”

“I know.”

“By the way, the actress’ name was Katherine Hepburn.”

“Katherine Hepburn,” she said slowly, moving the syllables over her tongue. “Right.” She squinted her eyes at

Gregory. “Do you think I’m weird, just cause I read the obituaries?”

“No, no, no. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with reading.”

“You think I’m weird.”

“I really don’t. No, seriously.”

“Gregory thinks that Michelle is weird, and that’s okay. Michelle can totally deal with it.”

“Look, even I occasionally scan some odd material in the paper.”

“Oh yeah? What?” She leaned forward and her eyes grew.

“Like . . . well, sometimes, although I know I probably shouldn’t, I take a glance at the horoscopes.”

“Did you look today? What’d yours say for today?”

“Today said that a stranger would shower good fortune down upon me.” He brought his wine glass to his lips as though to wash down this revelation.

“Did that make you think you were going to get your cock sucked tonight?”

Gregory really did spit out his wine this time. Red flecks across the table.

“Oh wait,” her hand flew up to her mouth again “I didn’t mean by me silly – did you think that’s what I meant? Here use this napkin too, get you cleaned up. Oh shit, everything’s going wrong so far, its all my fault.”

“No, no, no, it’s okay.”

“Forget I said that. I mean, let’s start all over, okay sweetie?”

“Okay, okay. Let’s start over – before the love question.”

“That’s where Michelle messed up, didn’t she. Okay. Start over.” She took a deep breath and smoothed her napkin over her lap.

“I do need to ask one question. Why do you keep on referring to yourself in the third person?”

The hand flew up over her mouth. “Am I doing that?”

Gregory nodded his head and smiled in a tired way.

“Oopsy. I always do that with smart people. I think it’s because I don’t want to be myself, you know? Like I’m embarrassed to be myself?”

“I’m not all that smart.”

“The smart people always say that.”

“Well fine, whatever.” Gregory looked away from the table. “How long did you know Sally?”

Michelle toyed with her earring again. “Oh, for a couple months. We worked in this call answering station. They liked me cause my voice was sexy.”

“And what’d she tell you about me to get you to come on this date?”

“She told me that you’re very sweet at the office, and that you’re very organized and you always arrive on time, and that you’re cute, and that once, when you drank two glasses of wine at the company party, you told her about what you always dream.”

Gregory wanted to choke again. Actually, no, he wanted to choke Sally. “She told you that, did she?”

“It’s so adorable – don’t be mad at her.”

“Well, yes, I’m a little mad.”

“But, but – hundreds of cutesy bunny rabbits in your bed is so . . . cutesy! And you get to sleep with the cuddly-wuddly wabbits? And get to feed them with eye droppers and tuck them all in at night and read them stories?”

“Something like that,” Gregory muttered, and looked toward the exit.

“You don’t have to be embarrassed,” she said. Gregory wasn’t paying attention. He appeared to be fascinated with the color scheme of the exit sign.

“Gregory?” He didn’t answer.

“Gregory?”

He swung back around. “Did she tell you the rest of the dream?”

Michelle shook her head no. “Tell me! Tell me the rest!”

Gregory took a deep breath and looked down at the table. “Well, that was my first dream about rabbits. But in my second dream, I got tired of caring for all the rabbits and went out and bought a meat cleaver. And I took them by the scruff of their neck and put them on the cutting board in the kitchen and lopped off their heads one by one. Their blood covered the kitchen floor, and their rabbit screams echoed off the tiles. Then I made rabbit stew, so much that the whole neighborhood could come over and eat it, and lined up all the bloodied rabbit heads on the mantelpiece where their lifeless rabbit eyes could stare at all my visitors like little jack-o-lanterns.”

Michelle stared at him with her mouth open, and Gregory waited for it. Once a woman had swung her purse at him after he made up a story about dumping a girlfriend by text message, and he expected something of a similar caliber.

“You poor baby,” Michelle moaned, and flung her body across the table and tried to hug him. He flailed his arms, but she had already pinned them to his side. Her head was nuzzling against his shoulder. “You need somebody to take care of you, to make sure you don’t have nasty dreams like that anymore.” She moved a knee up on the table to get better positioning. “Poor baby, poor baby,” she repeated, as one hand ruffled his hair.

He stared out at the restaurant, his eyes wild and trapped, simultaneously hoping that no one would see him and that someone would see and rescue him. As Michelle trapped him tighter against her chest, a waiter came with two plates.

End