Purely Relative by Claire Gillian Page B

melancholy.
    At five o’clock, three days after he left, Jon finally came
home. When he rang my bell, I threw myself into his arms. Once I dragged him
inside my apartment, I attacked him, fembot weapons set to sexual enslavement.
He was a very good sport about the whole thing, though I could tell he was
tired.
    As we drowsed on my bed, he reached over and took my hand. “I
want to take you out to eat. At Rocky’s. I feel like a really good steak and a
world-famous dessert.”
    I smiled at the memory that particular restaurant in the
White Rock Lake area of Dallas conjured. Rocky’s was where we had our first
date that really wasn’t supposed to be a date, but kind of felt like one
anyway. We were supposed to be there to spy, but when the objects of our
sleuthing left rather quickly, we made the best of it. I had a fledgling crush
on Jon then. I never dreamed we’d end up falling in love, had actually fought
against the notion, but of course I lost that battle.
    “I’d like that. If I’d known back then you were pulling in
two paychecks, I probably wouldn’t have wrestled with you over picking up the
tab,” I said.
    “Yeah you would have. Back then, anyway. It’s moot now. I’m
paying.” He pulled me in closer and planted a kiss on my temple. His palm went
possessively to my breast. “You is my woman now. Ungh!” A leg swung over me and
swept me in even closer. “Mine, mine, all mine,” he said, snickering against my
neck, adding soft little nips to the flesh.
    Oh, man. He was hitting all my vulnerable spots, especially
with his caveman Jon bit, even done in jest. “Okay Grog, let’s put our fancy
skins on and head on over. I’m starving.”
    ***
    The crowds had died down by the time
Jon and I arrived at Rocky’s, not surprising given it was a Thursday. We
slipped in between the old-fogey early birds and the illicit trysters and
claimed a primo table in the back. Dinner did not disappoint.
    Afterwards, we sipped our wine and held hands, rubbing knees
provocatively beneath the table. When he still made no move to whisk us back to
my place for some after-dinner fun, I grew a little suspicious and Jon grew
more visibly nervous.
    “What’s wrong?” I asked when his agitation had sparked my
own.
    Panic took over at that point. Jon cleared his throat,
glanced around the restaurant and fumbled in his pocket before finally looking
me in the eye.
    “Why do I get the feeling you’re about to drop a bomb on me?”
    He cracked a smile but it quickly went back into hiding as
his visible distress rose. “Gayle?”
    “Jon.” I hoped we weren’t going to the play the name my
lover game again. I’d already had a run of bad outcomes whenever he did that in
the past.
    “There’s no easy way to say this, so I guess I need to
simply do it. It’s not like I’ve never done this before. No, that’s not true.
I’ve never done it with—never mind. What I’m trying to say, but botching
up horribly is....” He stopped, mouth moving but no words emerging.
    “What? What? Just say it already. Please tell me you aren’t
breaking up with me.” I was half-kidding and half-terrified he really might be.
    “No! No. Quite the opposite.” He placed an object on the
table but it remained hidden beneath his palm.
    My heart pounded and my head took off into the ether. Oh my
God! He actually did it! So soon. Too soon. Why so soon? Oh dear Jon, what
have you done?
    That’s what you thought in the shower and instead he
handed you a towel.
    Yeah, but this time there’s actually a ring box.
    For all you know it could be a pair of earrings,
chica. 
    “Gayle,” he began, his voice a little shakier than I’d ever
heard it. He was usually so confident. “I know it’s soon and I know you will
probably be caught a little off guard, but I always told you I’d marry you,
Gayle, someday.” He turned his hand over and revealed a black jeweler’s box. “From
the first moment I met you, I knew you were the one for me. The