Make It Dirty
Christopher Gonzalez
Eli is at the bar because his partner Dylan is in another man’s bed. He orders a dirty martini from the bartender, tells her to add triple the normal amount of olive juice. I want it so filthy I have to go to confession after, he says, and she laughs, one of those head-back, full-throated numbers that clangs around the empty bar. But when she serves the drink, shimmering with ice chips, Eli has to search for the brine. He asks if she would be so kind. She shrugs, grabs the squirt bottle and shoots a green-tinted stream into his glass until the cocktail rises to the edge and trickles over. Now, it’s perfect.
Dylan texts. Maybe an hour longer, is that okay?
Just tell me when the coast is clear, Eli writes back. Have fun! Though now he fears sounding like a father.
Is the relationship dead? Surely not. Just the other morning the two cuddled for an hour, nestling into one another’s armpits. If things were truly ending, wouldn’t Dylan have hurried off to the community garden where he spends most of his time these days, and wouldn’t Eli have rushed to log on to work? The clock ticked, his phone chirped with a notification for an impending meeting, and Dylan, always on the move, desperate for the early day’s sun, had pulled him in closer and said, Stay with me.
What’s got you down, sweetie? the bartender says, sliding over a glass of water.
I don’t mean to be so pathetic, he says, gulping it down.
I didn’t say you were, she says, refilling it.
Marathoners-in-training trickle into the bar, their rail-thin bodies beaded with sweat. The bartender smiles when they approach. She takes an order, pours a drink, closes a customer out then does it all again for another.
Maybe not too much fun? Eli texts Dylan again, immediately following with, Shit, don’t mind that! Sorry!
Eli has no interest in dating outside his relationship. He doesn’t care to learn new names or bother to remember more than a hookup’s address. Even then, on more than one occasion, after deleting and reinstalling the apps, he has had to ask someone whose penis he throated before to please resend his location. He can handle a partner having sex with other people, at least logically, maybe in theory—it is the talking that Dylan wants, the rapport, the getting to know what the other enjoys to eat, the movies he loves, his occupation, his deepest fears, that doesn’t quite sit well with Eli. The very idea Dylan can go through life swapping more than sweat and spit and cum with multiple people at the same time, well, that darkens the light around Eli’s heart, makes him queasy.
Is he a hypocrite? En route to the bar, Eli swapped dick pics with some blank profile, describing in detail how he might glide his tongue up and down this stranger from toe to nipple. Though he appreciated the thrill, his heart wasn’t in it. He understood this stranger would not, like Dylan, leave fresh tulips on the bed for him to discover upon waking or a half-full French press still piping hot on weekend mornings. There would be no laundered towels. No late-night talks extending beyond carnal declarations. Dylan tends to Eli’s needs; Eli hopes he does the same to Dylan’s.
He knows of other couples who have opened their relationships, the multitudinous paths a pair can take. Marshall and Shawn, whose only rule is that they never discuss their escapades, will wait until the other is at work to have a man over, laying down a towel to circumvent stripping the sheets afterwards. Lola and Paola, together for a decade, befriend their flings, invite them over for Thanksgiving dinners and mail them Happy New Year! cards two months later. Robin and Samson once dated the same third, but hate the term poly, outright refuse to identify with it. Leticia and Juan got married, bought a home together in Philadelphia, considered adoption but now foster cats. They both maintain three to seven paramours scattered across the East Coast with one squat center in Aspen for some reason (an excuse to ski, maybe?). These couples exist in group chats and email threads with an extended universe of metamours. Their Google calendars burn rainbow bright with dates, weekend trips, birthdays, anniversaries all blocked out, and check-ins, which range from ten-minute phone calls during the morning commute to two-hour-long video sessions, emotionally charged and intense, usually involving laggy mutual masturbation. There are the couples who become throuples, and couples who never sleep together, not anymore, but still split the rent. Couples, so woven into the fabric of one another’s lives that when a new lover is invited into their homes, their beds, the ousted partner sleeps on the couch or an air mattress in the kitchen. There are so many ways to love.
We’re finishing up now.
The message worms its way into Eli’s guts.
Okay, Eli responds. Great!
He wants to meet you, though. Mind if we join you for a drink?
The runners have now sectioned off into groups of three and five, hovering at the fringes of the bar. Eli prefers bears but some of the men, in their gangly, sinewy frames, are quite cute. Dylan would find them cute, anyway. Dylan might approach one, invite him to join them for conversation, potentially something more.
Eli rummages through his tote bag for his wallet when the bartender calls to him, asks if he would like another drink.
He considers.
Can I do another martini? he asks.
She hands him the squirt bottle, tells him this time he can call the shots. He grips the bottle, squeezes hard. He drains it by half. When he tastes the drink, it’s oceanic. Grimy. Perhaps closer to perfect than not.
