I have a date tonight. I shaved my balls.

I missed a hair though. A long hair that sticks straight out. Right. There.

I don’t know how I missed it before but I see it now that I’m peeing and I’m fully dressed and my razor is upstairs and I have to be at her house in fifteen minutes. I have to leave five minutes ago.

Jacket. Front lock. Car keys. Parking lot.

Her driveway is unpaved. There is a single rock protruding, artistically, from the center of the lawn. I am reminded of my single pube. A lone whisker sprouting from an old man’s wrinkled chin. I am standing on her front steps for far too long pondering this horrible testicular metaphor. Two minutes. Maybe more. She opens the door hesitantly and looks out at me with my back turned to her, staring at that rock, my mind’s eye staring at my own taint. I shaved the whole thing in the shower, smooth and rippled as a sea shell washed upon a Pacific shoreline. My balls were poetry. How could I have missed that one hair?

“Daniel.”

“Yes.”

“Are you here to pick me up or give me lawn care tips?”
“I could probably use some of my own.”
“What?”
“Nothing. Are you hungry?”

Ignition. Highway. Small talk. Valet.

It wasn’t very busy so service was quick. We were seated in the center of the room, not far from the band. She was gentle. The music was nice. The meal was awful. Well, dinner was fine, actually: a steak, medium rare, and potatoes for me, the lobster with butter sauce for her, a bottle of moderately priced wine (I don’t know what kind, I just pointed and the waiter nodded, smiled, walked stiffly away.) It was the dessert that made me gag. I don’t know what it was she ordered, something in French that drew out her slow smile, but it was something baked, white, and had a single chocolate pirouette sticking out from it, at an angle. I was being punished for something. The chef was out back looking at photos taken from a hidden camera in my bathroom, my single-haired gonads on display, laughing hysterically, sweaty hands on his apron, mocking me, satisfied with my decadent fate.

She ate it slowly, slicing spoonful after delicate spoonful into her mouth, red, blissful, savoring, tongue and teeth steadily at work. She offers me a bite. I squirm. A dozen drops later, she pauses, puts her spoon down, and plucks the chocolate stick from it’s creamy base. I am struck with this simple movement. I excuse myself to the bathroom, grinning, assuring her of my return, more triumphant than she will realize.

Chair back. Polite knock. Restroom door. Lock.

My pants are down around my knees. I am pawing at myself, frantically, confused, befuddled, stupefied, denied my glorious victory. The hair is gone. It is not in my underwear. It did not fall out. I would have felt it pluck out on it’s own, maybe trapped in a fold of my slacks accompanied by a twist in the proper direction. But this is not the case. Then suddenly, serenity. No hair, no problem. Nothing to worry about. Maybe I imagined it in the first place.

Go back, she’s waiting.

“That was fast.”

“Guess I didn’t need to go as bad as I’d thought.”
“I hope that’s not a bad thing. My father died from prostate cancer.”

I’ve only known this girl for 3 days. “That’s awful… but I’m sure it was nothing. Me, I mean. The bathroom thing. It was just a false alarm. Nothing to worry about.”

I smile. She smiles back. We are comfortable and clean again. I tell myself she was just showing concern. Concern is a good thing.

Tip. Check. Drive. Her neck.

We stopped on the way back for some limes and cheap tequila. We are close in the doorway. We are sprawling on the couch. We are stumbling up the stairs, straps hanging off shoulders and ties dangling loosely from the neck, belt coming undone. She smells like a candy store.

It’s dark. She is spread over my bed sheets like hot, melted butter. I am doing a sloppy strip tease by the bureau, pulling off my blazer and running it through my legs and making a horrible-on-purpose face. She’s laughing so hard she snorts, hand covering mouth. Shirt gets unbuttoned and tossed, ever so casually, over the back of a chair. Pants and boxers drop to my heels and I walk out of them, never breaking my stride, never breaking eye contact with her. Finally, with a flourish, my feet come up to my hands to pull each sock off, gracefully, thrown to each side in a duet of smooth tugs. That’s when I see it out of the corner of my eye.

The hair is back, like a narwhal emerging from the ocean, pointing directly at her, accusingly, as if it is solely her fault that he is all alone, his friends shorn to the root in a genital genocide. I have paused mid-leg lift, staring down at myself. She sees this, and has begun staring at me too. I am frozen and sweating, an ice sculpture in the sun. I play it off.

“My sock’s stuck on my foot.”

“Oh. Well let me help.”

She slides towards me from the foot of the bed, a snake, she floats, a balloon animal, she glows faintly, an atomic explosion two hundred miles away.

“No, I got it!” I peel the sock from my foot and throw it at her, knocking her back on the bed, giggling. I can’t see it now but I know it’s there. It’s too dark. I can’t go to the bathroom at the point, not after that little performance.

Slick sheets. Rubber. Breathing. Rub her.

We are hot grease in a pan. We are twenty fingers, laced into infinity symbols. Arch my back, pull her down onto me, and we are one. But I can feel it. Something. Something wrong. I can feel her feeling it. A pinprick in the worst place. This is uncomfortable. I can see it a thousand times in her face. Do I stop, explain, remove it, and continue in the hopes that the mood isn’t ruined? Maybe I’m just imagining things; maybe this is the face she always makes. Maybe her eyes are always wide open and her eyebrows are always a frontslash and a backslash, upturned in, what, pleasure or discomfort? I have not completed these thoughts when she makes the decision for me.

“This isn’t right. I’m drunk. This isn’t right.”

Despite the heat, a chill cracks my spine in two.

“I have to go. Call me a cab.”

A lot has just happened in the last few seconds. I am still inside her but, in her head, she is already out the door. I dress slowly, she is fully clothed in an instant. I am handing her the phone but she’s already called a cab herself and is walking out the door.

I am half naked, standing in the doorway, shoeless, whispering goodnight, hoping the wind will carry it to her ears. She turns and waves quickly, graciously, as a pleasantry, “thanks for dinner and stealing just a bit more of my innocence.” I reach a hand into my pants and pluck that son of a bitch, twist it in my fingers, and flick it out the door.

Tequila. Lime. Toothpaste. Bed time.

I receive a text at 5am. “sorry i ditched u. personal reasons. feel awful. tonight @ 8?” I have received my redemption. Like a phoenix, from the flames of a shattered evening I will emerge anew, a second chance, a clean slate, a new creature of smooth skin and fiery cologne.

Later in the morning, watching my toast slowly blacken, I notice, pointing to the ceiling, a single hair sticking out of my eggs.