Christmas on a Stick

So, here I am, in the kitchen, and listening to you hum, obviously very pleased with yourself, in the other room while you pick up empty glasses and food trays. And I’m opening the present. I haven’t brought you anything, but now I’ll have to think of something—something I can say just hasn’t arrived yet. It’s not that I didn’t want to get you something, but I haven’t been sure where we stood. I’ve wanted you and you’ve thought of one excuse after the other to put me off. What do you get someone for Christmas who you pine to fuck but who continually says he isn’t ready for that?

“Oh, very funny, Don,” I call into the other room when I’ve got the present open. “I didn’t even know they made condoms in candy cane colors.”

No answer from the other room. And I’m such a dummy. I think it’s just a gag gift. I miss the whole point.

I open the door and move into the other room, repeating that I have appreciated the joke—when, of course, I haven’t, really—when I stop there dead in my tracks.