(Oh) No, You Don't

"No, dude, seriously, I was like this close to Kage's ass,
all I had to do was open my mouth..."

Smiling in thier faces
While filling up the hole
So many dirty little places
In your filthy little worn out
Broken down see-through soul


Baby's got a problem
Tries so hard to hide
Got to keep it on the surface
Because everything else is dead on the other side



~ Nine Inch Nails


“Hey, isn’t that my sweater?”

I froze in front of my computer screen for a moment, then looked over my shoulder at M and assumed the expression of an innocent cherub. “Mmmmmmm?" I said with an angelic smile. "What was that, my love?”

“My sweater,” M repeated crossly, pulling a black hoody down from a shelf in my closet. “Isn’t this my sweater?”

“Oh. No, I don’t think so,” I said politely, then cast around quickly for a diversion. “Oh my god, baby,  did you see that? What the dogs just did? Baaaaaaaby? Did you see? What the dogs just did? It was incredible! Come over here, you gotta see this!”

I ran over to the dogs and gestured at them excitedly, though all three of them were just lying there in a motionless heap on the floor, doing nothing at all. Except snoring and drooling.

“Hey, this one’s mine too!” M exclaimed, ignoring my desperate Jazz Hand-ed attempts to attract his attention, and pulling down another thick black hoody from the depths of my wardrobe. “And this one.” A purple hoody with the cuffs cut off tumbled to the floor, followed by an emerald green one with long, holey arms; my personal favorite.  A blue one with a bright metal zipper was close behind.

He turned to stare at me, exasperated. “Kage, just how many sweaters have you stolen from my house in the past few weeks?” He tossed the multicolored bundle onto my bed.

“That’s it, just five,” I said haughtily, my hand on my hip. “Jeez, talk about selfish.You can’t let me borrow five goddamn sweaters, M? I mean, really. I am simply appalled by your lack of charity.”

“Nine, ten, eleven...” M counted, returning to the closet and pulling down a wildly patterned Rip Curl sweatshirt, followed by a black-and-purple Billabong zip-up. A big black pullover with his band's logo splashed across the front teetered precariously on the edge of the now almost empty shelf.

“That one’s mine,” I piped up helpfully.

He turned to look at me, shaking his head in amazement. "No, it's not."

I looked down at my hands, suddenly enamored with the shape and condition of my nails.

“Oh my god, what is this?” he demanded, and reached into the far depths of my closet.  He turned back to me and waved a glittering, hot pink zip-up hoody. Brightly embroidered flowers and rainbows decorated the chest in sporadic fashion, and the short capped sleeves were edged with lace. He unfolded it and held it against his chest, which, even with the capped sleeves pulled all the way out to each side, fell at least eight inches short of reaching across the breadth of his torso.

M narrowed his eyes suspiciously and peered more closely at the sparkly abomination splayed out on his chest. “Kage, this tag...does it say Please, Mum?” he asked incredulously.

I anxiously began chewing on my bottom lip, then glanced up at the white stucco ceiling for inspiration,  or maybe an escape route. Instead, I looked into the eyes of my Henry Rollins poster, who glared back down upon me broodily.

Help me, Henry, I thought desperately, and cleared my throat.

“Okay, I realize what this looks like,” I began, winding my fingers together as I tried to find the right words to explain, but they were nowhere to be found. Where the hell did they go?

“It looks like you stole a sweater from my three-year-old daughter, that’s what it looks like,” he grinned.

Oh, there's the right words, I thought uneasily. They’re coming out of his mouth. 

I couldn't think of anything clever to say, so I stood up and walked sheepishly to the closet, where I grabbed a plastic bag from one of the small drawers on it's inside wall. I went back to the bed and started cramming in the recently-recovered stolen goods.

“Aw, baby, I was just kidding,” M chastised gently, watching me grab another plastic bag. “You don’t have to do that.”

“No, M, I do,” I said earnestly. “I should never have taken your sweaters home without your permission. What I did was wrong.”

“Wow,” he looked impressed. “There’s really sweet of you to give them back, babe. I’ll just run this first load out to the car, then.”

I grinned broadly to myself as he walked outside to his car. M was right, it was sweet of me to give back  all of his sweaters.

After all, I can’t steal them all again if they’re still at MY house.


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