I Am the One Who Has You Now

By M. Arbon

"I love him," Cai argued. "Just, lately things have been..."
"What?"
Cai put his bottle on the floor and pushed himself up on one knee. "It's nothing."
Maryanne wrapped her hand around his arm. "I'm pretty sure you don't think it's nothing."
He sagged back to the floor. "It's just that lately, he's been..."
"Distant? Cold? Acting suspicious?"
Cai sighed. "He's been really irritating."

Struggling with the "long-term" part of "long-term relationship," Cai attends a party where he evades his partner, bitches to his best friend, makes the same resolution for the dozenth time, and has an intimate encounter with someone who may or may not be a mysterious stranger.

Contents include: LTR ennui, Christmas lights, and the best holiday party you've ever been to.

This 5,000-word story was previously published in Shousetsu Bang*Bang.

• Language: English
• Publisher: M. Arbon
• Release date: Dec 2, 2018
• ISBN: 9781989089064

M. Arbon

M. Arbon writes stories, mostly queer, often sexy, about people who try hard not to be jerks. M. lives and works in Toronto, Canada. M.'s stories have appeared in the anthologies His Seed and Best Gay Stories 2017, as well as being published as stand-alone volumes.

Book preview

I Am the One Who Has You Now

M. Arbon

Thirteen Flowers Press

I Am the One Who Has You Now

The last thing Cai felt like doing after a six-day work week was going to a party, but he’d told Marc he would, and with everything that was going on with him he was trying hard to keep his promises. The bells hanging from the red velvet bow on the door chimed and rattled against the glass as he stepped into a seasonal sub-climate comprised of equal parts pine, beeswax candles, chestnuts roasting on an open fire, and wet winter coats. Heads in the living room turned; Maryanne, perched on the arm of a couch, waved a half-eaten gingerbread cookie at him. He waved back and toed off his boots, and carried them down the hall into the spacious back kitchen. It was the size of the living room, and twice as crowded.

Cai! Syl’s embrace wrapped him in white lace and satin and fringe. How have you been? How’s Marc?

Good, he’s good, we’re good.

Did he bring those coconut cherry things he made last year? Because people have been asking.

I don’t know. I came straight from work. Cai inclined his chin at the diadem of white Christmas tree lights—lit and blinking—that crowned her salt-and-pepper curls. White Witch?

Tch. Snow Queen. Impertinent boy. She grinned. No reason Halloween should have all the fun.

Speaking of which. He lifted the LCBO bag in his hand.

"On the back