Paper Talk

Scott and I were restocking the shelves. We were on toilet paper when he said:

“What is monogamy, really? Is it when I don’t want to fuck other people? Or is it when I just not fuck them?"

"You mean, like, other people than your girlfriend or wife or whatever?"

"Yeah,” he said, “That’s what I mean."

"I guess,” I said, “It’s when you don’t fuck them. But it depends, you know? Like my dad, he loves my mom and everything, and he provides for the family, but everybody knows he fucks around. That’s what Italians do."

"Does your mom know?"

"Oh yeah, she’s got to know. I mean, there’s no way she doesn’t know.”

Scott stopped restocking, he faced me. I stopped too. “What if it means I don’t love my girlfriend anymore?"

"What?"

"That I wanna fuck somebody else.”

I thought for a minute. Was he looking for me to say okay to something? “You think it means that?"

"I don’t know. She always tells me she doesn’t care about other guys. Maybe if I didn’t love her, I wouldn’t care about anybody else.”

The manager yelled from the back of the aisle: “You gone on strike or something? Get that paper on those shelves!”

Scott blushed and got back to work. As we moved down the shelves, I glanced back at him from time to time and his ears were all red.

Posted by: Paweł Kowaluk