Fictionlet
“I’m not going to the show,” said Brigid. “While I’m sure it would be an evening of fun and frivolity right up there with slamming my fingers in a door, I’ve got to get this proposal in to FedEx by tomorrow night at eight, or die trying. And that precludes me from joining you on another trip to bad community theater.”
Greg sighed. “Yes, yes, I understand,” he said. “I just hate going to these things alone.”
“You could always invite Yvonne…”
“Thank you, no.”
“Aww, but it’s so cute! You’ve got your own squeeing fangirl. Why aren’t you jumping in bed with her like a proper sex-crazed male? It’s hurting your guy cred.”
Greg frowned. “That is both baseless and misandrist,” he said. “I’m sure it comes as a great shock to you, but there are some men who find the idea of sex without love extremely unpleasant.”
“Alas, poor Yvonne!” said Brigid. “Pining away!”
“Not a bit of it,” Greg said. “She fixates on me because I’m the only writer she knows. If Neil Gaiman lived in the building I’d be in no danger. I should introduce her to Wenton Delaney — it would be like the instructions on a firecracker, ‘Light fuse and run away.’ If only he didn’t live in Colorado.”
“Oh, come on, she’s not so bad. You might like her if you gave her a chance.”
“Not so bad? This is a girl who writes Darcy/Brandon slash fiction. Invite her to a show that involves a long drive with just the two of us in the car on a rainy night? I might as well light candles, turn down the lights, and play a Barry White CD.”
Brigid raised her eyebrows. “You realize, I hope, that even being able to utter the phrase ‘Darcy/Brandon slash fiction’ just sent your guy cred totally down the hole.”
“What’s this sudden fascination you have with ‘guy cred’ anyway?”
“Well, I’m worried about you,” said Brigid. “People talk. You know. Even my mom wonders about you. Having a fling with a fan might be good for you.”
“I’ve got better things to put on my busy schedule than proving to your mother what a smoldering cauldron of virile heterosexuality I am,” Greg said. “Honestly, is this the kind of silliness you two engage in when I’m not around?”
Brigid rolled her eyes. “Whatever,” she said.
-The Gneech
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