A bouquet of roses and lots of thanks to Solo and SHaron for all their help scanning and proofing these classic stories of Constance Collins! This story originally appeared in the zine The Fix no. 10 which can still be obtained from In Person Press

Comments about this story can be sent to: VenicePlaceAngel@aol.com

Games / Not Games
by
Constance Collins

Clandestine Report 147 

I was poisoned once, and nearly died; and I guess the time I was shot I came pretty close to buying it; and there've been other close calls, but never before did my life flash before my eyes the way they say it's supposed to when the end's near. But the last few hours, ever since I found out that fucking stupid soup was contaminated, there's been a slow-motion replay of every minute we ever spent together slicing through my heart.

He looks so still and pale lying there. It still scares me how close I came to losing him (it's not the first time, so why am I more scared now? Because it feels like our luck must've run out by now?) And it's seemed like we're so close to having something really spectacular; especially since that steamy night we played "True Confessions"...

I dunno, though, maybe it was a mistake to tell him at all. In between the sometimes, hit-and-miss kind of sex we've been sharing, he's been so snide and shitty, the same smartass he was when we met in the Academy. I know he's scared about this sex thing. An' I've known for years that that cold exterior hides warmth and kindness and caring, and I've been trying to treat his superior attitude the way I did back then, but it's not the same. I didn't know him then like I do now. I wasn't in love with him. And the games we played didn't hurt because even when we were competing, we knew we were playing on the same side.

It's hard to reconcile the schmuck I spend my days with with the sweet, tender lover I share my nights with... some nights... occasional nights... if lover's even the right word... occasional lover? Sometimes-friend, always-partner?

Doctor says he's gonna be ok. An' where there's life, there's hope. An' I guess we'll have to have another talk, though I don't know what the hell I'm gonna say, and it scares the shit outa me just imagining what he might say. There's so damn much more to this than a -- love affair? If it's even that... There's our friendship, our partnership, which may not hold together under the weight of these strange, unyielding feelings...

He's waking up. The talk can wait, and so can this. Maybe I'll take that two weeks pay he owes me and take myself away for a nice long weekend; maybe I'll go to 'Frisco.

Maybe I'll put the money in the bank and spend the weekend sleeping,


Now I have to spend the damn money searching for and buying H another Buddy Holly album. And even then who knows how long he'll hold a grudge. Like I burned it up on purpose. He can be a real prick when he wants to be.

An' no sooner does he get outa the hospital after the Hide-And-Seek fiasco, but he wants to play Word Association. Okay, I agree to play. So he gives me the word 'closet'. Like he just picked it at random, like there's no message behind it, like that particular word has no particular meaning in our relationship. Uh-huh, sure. That, my friends, is Ken Hutchinson's version of Communicating. He keeps saying he's the brains of our partnership, but sometimes he's a subtle as a brick and as smart as a bag of rocks. Wha'd he think I was gonna say? "When I think of closets, I think of where I want to spend eternity with you?" Maybe it's a good thing I put his album in the oven. And that he tells me was a Freudian slip. Well, if so I must be psychic; what's he think I really wanna burn up, anyway? Sometimes I just think he's trying to drive me crazy, just for the fun of it.

... but that note he sent me in the hospital was signed "Love, Hutch"... and he said himself, there are no accidents.

end