I step on the treadmill and search for the “On” button. The moving pad comes to life with a quiet whir and I start slowly walking in place.
“See what I’m doing?” I say to Dorcas, who clearly does not understand language beyond the most basic of commands. “I’m walking. Exercising. You want to try?” I pantomime walking, while walking, which is unnecessary.
Dorcas opens her mouth in what looks like a smile but turns out to be a big yawn.
The doorbell rings. Dorcas leaps in the other direction and gallops off to the door, barking like a madwoman. I keep the treadmill on and follow.
When Pam and Kayla walk in, Dorcas jumps up on each of them, Pam first. Pam gives her a big welcome, kneeling down to her level and letting Dorcas lick her face. Kayla does her usual “I know where that tongue has been” thing, creeping backward and patting Dorcas on the head with her arms extended.
“I was teaching her to walk on the treadmill,” I say.
The girls share a look. “Oh sweetie,” Kayla says. “That’s so bleak.”
“Come on. Help me,” I say, but Pam is busy ignoring me, walking to the kitchen and grabbing a soda from the refrigerator. She gets two and throws a Pepsi to Kayla. They sit down on the couch and Pam flips on my television.
I sigh, audibly. “No,” I whine. “No more TV. That’s all my mom does. I can’t take it. Please? Can we please do a non-TV activity? Anything. I would literally do anything.”
Pam surfs Hulu and Kayla turns to me and says, “We did the mall for lunch. I think we’re in for the day, sweetie.”
I flop down on the chair. “We can stay in. Just, let’s, do something? Make a YouTube video? Or help me get Dorcas on the treadmill? I left it on, even. Come on.”
Pam does not stop flipping channels. “That is so not boyfriend-getting behavior. No one’s ever put ‘I enjoy teaching my dog to walk on the treadmill’ on Tinder.”
“Oh!” I shout. “I have news. I have gossip! So good!”
This gets their attention and Pam puts down the remote. They wait for me to expound.
I shake my head. “Nope. Not unless you turn off the TV and do something with me. I’m so bored.”
Kayla raises one eyebrow. “I’m worried this gossip is going to be not worth it.”
“No. Totally worth it. Swear on my life.”
“But no treadmill thing. That’s so not going to happen,” Kayla says.
“Fine,” I say. “Something else.”
“Dog makeover!” Pam shouts, jumping up from the couch.
Kayla jumps up too. “Yes!”
I shake my head. “Guys … come on. You’re — objectifying my dog. Not cool.”
“She’ll love it,” Kayla says, and she’s already walking toward my room, so I guess we’re doing it.
Twenty minutes later, they’re dressing up my dog in my clothing when I say, “So Max is gay.”
Kayla struggles to get a neon-pink tank top on Dorcas, who looks unamused. She looks like a chagrined dog wearing a poorly sized tank top. “Who the hell is Max?”
“Do you even listen when I talk? He’s the guy helping me with the food truck?”
“What food truck?” she asks.
I sit up from my waterbed, where I’ve been lying, and I pantomime slapping her across the face and she dramatically flips her head to the side.
“So he’s gay?” she asks.
“I was a little surprised. I mean. Total dude bro. Not that a dude bro can’t be gay, I guess, but the percentage of gay dude bros has to be on the low side.”
Kayla goes to my dresser and grabs a pair of black ankle socks. “Do you think he’s like a ‘I’ll let you give me a blowie but I won’t kiss you’ guy?”
I giggle. “I’ll ask him.”
She gives the socks to Pam, who begins to put them over Dorcas’s front paws. Dorcas tries to free her paws and growls a bit. Pam succeeds and goes searching for more socks for her back feet. “Well if he’s Mexican, maybe,” she says. “My gay cousin on my dad’s side is one of those closet guys. Machismo is like huge in our culture.”
“Ugh,” I say, wondering if that’s how Max really is. “So tired.”
Pam sits on the shag carpet down by Dorcas’s rear legs and starts to put socks on them. “Max is really cute, right? I remember from AP,” she says.
I shrug. Fact is he’s mega cute.
Kayla says, “He is. You should date him. Two boys on a food truck. It’s like a great trashy male-male erotica novel. ‘Pump me full of diesel fuel, Max.’ ”
“You read those? Ew.”
“Do not,” Kayla says, rolling her eyes in a way that confirms that yes, she most certainly does. “Boys and boys together? Hot.”
“So you objectify my dog and you fetishize my people,” I deadpan.
Pam and Kayla stand and admire their work. Dorcas stands there, tongue out, panting, in two pairs of black ankle socks and a pink tank top. It’s not a great look.
“She needs underwear,” Kayla says.
I jump up. “And now you’re fetishizing my dog. You are not putting my underwear on Dorcas,” I say.
Kayla smirks like, Yeah. You have any say whatsoever in this decision. She goes to my dresser and starts opening drawers.
“Can you not?” I say, but no one is listening to me. “Seriously.”
“Overruled,” Pam says. Kayla has handed her a pair of light blue bikini briefs she’s found in my underwear drawer. She holds them out in front of her like she’s admiring them.
“Please stop,” I say, and I know it’s stupid, but my chest is actually getting tight. It’s like, I said no. What part of no do they not hear?
Pam says to Kayla, “You hold her steady.” Kayla holds Dorcas’s midsection, and while Dorcas struggles to free herself, Pam starts to lift Dorcas’s legs and slide the underwear on her.
I have this urge to scream. It’s so weird. It’s just my wives being silly. But the treadmill is still running, and anyway, I said no. They do not have my permission. It’s like they just came in and took over, and suddenly I want them gone. That’s never happened before.
But I can’t say that. So I sit down on my bed and say, “So how do I play this thing with Max? Us both being gay and all?”
Pam succeeds in getting my underwear on Dorcas, who looks both ridiculous and pissed. My stomach turns. I was kidding earlier, when I said they were objectifying her. But now I sort of feel that way. I want to protect her from being dressed against her will. I can’t. I lie back and stare at the ceiling.
“Just forget he’s gay,” Kayla says. “Not just because he’s a dude blow. Ha! Dude blow! Classic! You just — you don’t shit where you eat. And you eat on that food truck.”
“I don’t eat there,” I say.
“Um, hello, Captain Oblivious. I meant it as a metaphor. You need the food truck to work in order to eat. So don’t, like, shit there.”
“Ew,” I whisper. “Stop.”
Pam says, “Or maybe eat just a little. Like, no strings attached. Because he’s hot so it’s okay. God do I wish I were a gay guy. You have all the fun.”
I don’t even respond to Pam’s messed-up-ness with a look. Instead I can’t help but think about the point-counterpoint they’ve given me. First off, they’re jumping the gun. But yeah, Max is kinda hot. And we’ll be spending all this time together, and now the barrier is gone because we both know the other is gay, and I wonder: What would he think of me? If I had to guess, he wouldn’t. Think of me. I’d be like this annoying skinny dude with acne that he has to spend time with. But it isn’t like he’s been dismissing me, exactly. A couple times, I’ve actually wondered why a guy like him would listen to a guy like me as boss, because I’m so — I don’t know. Not boss-like, and I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, and everything he does is so — masterful. Like he belongs in the world, whereas I belong on some heretofore uninhabitable planet that dude bros have been taught to avoid like the plague.
“Careful,” Pam says, elbowing me in the ribs. “Your brain just exploded. You’ve just married Max, haven’t you? Where are you two living?”
“Have not,” I say, but I suppress a smile because, yeah. I could imagine that fantasy, at least.