Terry is starting to fall in love with a woman he met online, but can’t bear to tell her the truth about himself.
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| Image generated with OpenAI |
We met playing video games. I was Taurus77. She was HeartOfStone89.
Both of us had been bantering back and forth while fighting digital cyclops with digital swords. Now, we’ve been messaging for a couple weeks.
Taurus77: You can call me by my real name, if you want. It’s Asterion. Terry to friends.
HeartOfStone89: Wow, that’s a really pretty name. Unique.
Taurus77: Thanks. It’s a family name. Passed down for generations.
HeartOfStone89: My name’s Petra. But I hate it.
Taurus77: Well, I like it!
HeartOfStone89: My friends call me Jade, which is my middle name. I like that better.
Taurus77: Alright, Jade.
HeartOfStone89: Alright, Terry.
Taurus77: I should sleep. Work tomorrow.
HeartOfStone89: Same. Nightnight.
I log out, and stare at my screensaver. A photo of the ranch where I work, me and the rest of the crew. I tower above them.
I have been, for the most part, honest with HeartOfStone – with Jade – about who I am and what I look like. I’m six foot seven, tall enough that the inconveniences sometimes outweigh the benefits. Strong. I started out as a ranch hand, but now they mostly call me a worker. “Cowboy,” when they’re being funny.
The one thing I didn’t tell her is that I’m a minotaur.
I have white-gray fur with marbled black splotches, pink at the tip of my nose. When I was younger, I got it pierced with a bull ring to be ironic. I keep it that way to remind myself of the consequences of drunkenness.
My horns go out and then up, pointing skyward like flexed arms. They’re sharp enough at the tip that I have to put little rubber nubs over them when I sleep, to avoid scratching up my headboard and wrecking my mattress.
I’ve been with women before. I’ve never had a girlfriend. That’s something I’ve never said out loud.
I’ve met female minotaurs, but they’re rare in this part of the world, and I didn’t like the selection available to me. It’s absurdly hypocritical, but it unnerved me how much their faces looked like the cows I worked with.
Maybe I wouldn’t have that problem if I’d known my mother, grown up with her face, but that’s something I’ve never cared to unpack. Anyway, I think I could have gotten over that strange hangup if I’d liked their personalities. I hadn’t.
I’d been on dates with three. The first lectured me about why all my life decisions were actively destroying the planet, the second hid her naturally throaty voice – a point of pride for most minotaurs – by talking like Betty Boop, and the third scratched her underarms and chewed her cud at the table.
I didn’t sleep with any of them. I’ve only slept with human women, girls I met at bars. Human girls seem to find me fascinating, even attractive, but not boyfriend material.
“I’m not all human,” said one girl. “My great grandmother is a siren.”
“Is?”
“They’re, like, immortal.”
“Right.” She looked like she could be part-siren. Birdlike and beautiful, with far-set, long-lashed eyes.
When she came, she sang so beautifully, I lowed. I prefer to call it a “low” rather than a “moo.” It was embarrassing, something I try never to do with women, but the sounds were beautiful together. It sounded like we both were singing.
“That was amazing,” she said after, tiny against me, warm and breathless.
“Yeah.” I was getting ideas, thoughts of a life together. “I… do you want to go out sometime?”
She looked up at me, like she was trying to figure out if I was serious.
“I’m serious,” I said, aware that humans sometimes have a hard time reading my expressions.
“Um, you’re a bull.”
“I’m a minotaur,” I said, hurt.
She seemed to notice, and softened a bit. “Sorry. I didn’t mean it like that,” she said. “I’m not really looking to date anyone right now. And, just – it would be a lot to explain to my parents.”
Strangely enough, the memory bothers me as I wake up today. Maybe because I’ve learned Jade’s name, and that means she might want to meet me eventually. And then I’ll have to tell her I’m a minotaur, and she’ll be disgusted and betrayed.
“You should just tell her now,” says my friend Billy as we work today. The sky is powdery blue and the mountains are shaggy with summer foliage. We have to shout over the mooing cows, their glossy backs forming a kind of oasis.
“I don’t want her to stop talking to me,” I say. “Like someone she might want to date,” I clarify, before Billy can say anything. “I get she doesn’t owe me that. But it’s just nice. It’s nice to pretend I’m a regular guy.”
“You are a regular guy, Terry,” says Billy, and then we both laugh, fully aware it’s not true. “Now, quit moping, we got a lot to do today. And Terry?”
“Yeah, Billy.”
“You know I’d marry you in a heartbeat.”
“Thanks, Billy.”
It’s been a while since I’ve been with a girl, is the truth. I don’t drink anymore – tipping over the police car was a wakeup call – and I don’t want to pick up tipsy women when I’m sober. This, whatever I have with Jade, feels more special to me than it should.
I shower, and low with contentment as the hot water rolls down my hide and steams up around me. I shake my head like a bull and snort. I can be myself when I’m alone.
I eat vegetable stir fry and watch brainless reality TV – Siren Island, where couples have to live on an island surrounded by sirens for two weeks. If they can resist the temptation of their beautiful voices and voluptuous bodies, they win a large sum of money. Nothing to lose but their marriages, dignity, and lives.
The siren songs echo, tear-inducingly beautiful even on TV, and I remember that woman I slept with years ago. I’d never been in love, but that was the closest I got to it. Am I falling in love now? I crave it so badly.
Jade usually logs on at around nine, and when she does, I’m at my computer waiting for her. Like a creep.
Taurus77: Hi
HeartOfStone89: Hey! How was work?
Taurus77: It was good. Tiring.
Before she can reply, and before I can lose my nerve, I add:
Taurus77: I kind of want to call on the phone.
That’s not what I’d intended to say. It’s spontaneous, a little weird.
She’s still typing, three little dots, so I add again,
Taurus77: Would that be alright with you?
Taurus77: No worries if not.
Finally, she answers.
HeartOfStone89: Oh my God, stop! Of course I’d like to.
HeartOfStone89: Do you want to do it now?
My heart is pounding, and I’m making a deep, anxious lowing sound in my throat. Can I do this? Can I do it NOW?
Taurus77: Of course!
HeartOfStone89: Yay! I’ll send you my phone number.
Right. Of course. Phone numbers.
Our messaging app has the option to video call, but for obvious reasons I’m glad she hasn’t suggested that. Even if I keep the camera off, it invites the possibility of her asking what I look like.
Her phone number blips onto the screen, and I punch it into my phone with a hand that’s literally cramping from anxiety. I have to shake out my wrist, like I’ve just punched someone.
It rings.
It feels like I’m going to puke.
It rings again.
There’s still time to hang up, if I just do it now –
“Terry?”
Her voice is adorable, like she spends her spare time singing to cartoon birds. It’s high like twinkling bells and champagne bubbles.
“Um. Hi!” I say, and then we both laugh. At our own awkwardness, probably.
“Your voice is so deep,” she says, and I know it’s true. I sound like a trombone.
“Yours isn’t,” is all I can say, and then we laugh again.
Next thing I know, it’s three hours later, and I’m lying on my bed like a teenage girl. Not kicking my feet in the air, but I get the impulse. “…Yeah, I was adopted, actually. By a friend of the family.”
By my boss, to be exact. The ranch owner. I only found out as an adult that he’d adopted me legally – I’d always thought it was informal.
The whole ranch will be mine someday, but I don’t tell her that. I don’t tell most people that. I know it would make the other workers treat me differently.
“That’s so sad about your mom, though,” she says.
Minotaurs are prone to complications in childbirth. The doctor was an inexperienced human, and didn’t know how to handle it. I’m not trying for morbid humor when I say we’d probably have been better off with a vet.
“I never knew her,” I say. “So I shouldn’t be able to miss her.”
And yet, I always have.
“What about your dad?” asks Jade.
“He was grieving. He got into some stuff that wasn’t good for him.” I don’t even know if he’s still alive. “I only met him a couple times.”
“Wow.” I can hear Jade thinking about it. “That’s so sad.”
I feel like I’m talking about myself too much. “What about you? Are you close with your parents?”
“Kind of.” She hesitates. “Not really. They’re divorced.” She giggles sadly, which I hadn’t really known was possible. “It’s not fun being half-and-half of two people who want to forget each other.”
“That sucks,” I say, genuinely. I want her to tell me more, but I don’t want to push.
“It’s okay, it all worked out. They’re both remarried now, and they have other kids. They seem happier, but I don’t really see them that much.”
“Isn’t that kind of lonely?”
“Yeah,” she says. “It is, actually.”
For a minute we’re silent, serious.
“I really like talking to you,” I say.
“I really like talking to you, too,” she says. There’s a pause. “Damn. What time is it?”
I look at the digital clock on my nightstand, black-and-white cow pattern. A Christmas gift from Billy. “Fuck. I have to get up early.”
“Same. Nightnight.”
“Nightnight,” I parrot, and the last thing I hear as she hangs up is her giggling.
I’m left with a warm feeling in my chest that turns cold quickly, like a meal that gets unappetizing before you have the chance to eat it.
The knowledge that whatever we have, it can’t move past this.
Weeks later, I visit my adoptive dad in the main house.
I don’t call him that – not ‘Dad,’ or anything adjacent, though he calls me ‘son.’ I call him Rob.
He has wooly hair the color of clouds and thick eyebrows that give him the impression of always being angry.
I explain the situation, while he regards me, unimpressed.
“Aren’t you a little old for video games?” he mutters. “What’s next, you plan on picking up ladies playing hopscotch?”
I should have known he’d make a thing about this. “Those games are for adults, Rob.”
“Poker’s a game for adults,” he says, with a kind of pride. “If it’s on a computer, it’s a game for children pretending to be adults.”
“Okay, well.” I decide it doesn’t really matter. “She’s really nice. We’ve been talking on the phone, for real. Every day, almost.”
“Uh-huh.”
“She wants to meet,” because by this point, she does. She keeps hinting about it. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Well. She’s… GREAT, right?”
It’s a weird question, not the kind of terminology he often uses. “Yeah. Amazing.”
“Smart?”
“Totally.”
“Successful?”
“Yeah, she’s a sculptor.”
“Then why does she want to meet someone she’s never even met?” He says bluntly, “Something’s wrong with her.”
“What?” My nostrils flare.
“Now, now.” He asks, genuinely curious, “Has she asked you for money?”
I flatten my ears, rising slightly out of my chair. “Hell NO!”
“I don’t think you realize quite how scary you are when you shout, son,” he says, calmly.
I collect myself. Sit back down. I’m not trying to scare him into compliance. I know, in his own blunt way, he’s looking out for my well-being.
“I’ve seen those catfish shows,” I tell him.
“So have the people on those… catfish shows, most likely.” I can tell the word is new to him, but he’s not the sort of person who admits to not knowing something unless compelled to do so.
“She’s not like that. She hasn’t asked for money.” I think about it, thumbing the point of my horn. “And she wants to meet. Why would she want to meet in person if she’s tricking me about who she is?”
“It’s a good point.” He pauses, and it occurs to me that he’s actually thinking about this. “The weird thing is, she’s not scared. Women know to be afraid to meet strange men. She’s not, as far as I can tell. That’s strange to me.”
As much as I hate to admit it, I see his point: she’s extremely functional. Her personality beams, even over the phone. She’s smart, and funny.
Yet, SHE was the one who asked to meet. And we haven’t even been talking that long. She wants this, I realize. Maybe as much as I do. But at the expense of her safety?
“And she’s never asked what you look like? At all?”
I shake my head.
“Huh. Normally the first thing women want is proof you are who you say you are.” He glances at me. “And you? Have you asked what she looks like?”
“No. I’m not saying it doesn’t matter to me at all, but it’s not the most important -“
“Save it for Miss America.” He scratches his substantial eyebrow. “I’m not worried about you getting hurt physically. Believe me, I know you can handle yourself. But I don’t want you getting your heart broken.”
I sit back in the massive armchair he’s set up for my visits. A somewhat passive-aggressive reminder of all the chairs I’ve broken over the years.
“I’m lying to her too, Rob,” I remind him. Hell, I don’t even know if she’s lying to me at all – she probably isn’t. “That’s why I came here.”
“Just by omission,” he reminds me.
“Lying by omission is still lying.”
There’s a moment of silence as he thinks about it.
“So,” says Rob, simply. “Tell her the truth.”
Tell her the truth. I can’t stop repeating it to myself, all throughout the evening.
Through my shower. Through dinner. Through Siren Island and Self-Made Satyrs.
She calls at nine.
Before we can get through the usual pleasantries, about our jobs and our coworkers and what we had for lunch, I say, “So, I was thinking. You want to meet, right?”
She hesitates, and I realize how blunt I’ve been. I’m not going to repeat the saying about bulls and china closets, but you know it.
“I mean, I do too,” I add quickly.
“That’s great,” she says, though there’s a catch to her voice, like she’s having second thoughts. “At a restaurant, maybe? Or -”
I’m going to lose my nerve if I don’t do it now.
“Jade, I’m a minotaur.”
There’s a moment of hesitation. I feel like I’d keel over if I weren’t already sitting. My heart thuds so hard I can hear it, so hard it hurts. Say something.
“That means I’m mostly a man, but I have the features of a -” I start to explain, but she cuts me off.
“I know.”
“You – what?”
“You work on a ranch in Montana. Your name’s unique,” she explains, guilty, words curling in on themselves. “I did a little… sleuthing. I found you on the company website.” A pause. “I’m sorry, I know it’s really creepy. I just wanted to know you were -“
“Who I said I was,” I finish, still feeling like I’ve been hit by a cattle prod. She’s known. And she still wanted to meet? “And you – do you – you’re okay with it?”
“Of course I’m okay with it!” She laughs, incredulous. “I thought you were cute, actually. Though it made me glad I’m a vegetarian, or I’d feel a little weird about eating steak after flirting with one.” Another pause. “Oh, God, is that offensive?”
“No, of course not.” At work, I’d laughed at jokes insensitive enough to make an HR employee curl up and die. But even if I hadn’t, I’d be too relieved to care. “I – why didn’t you tell me you knew?”
“Because, there’s something I haven’t told you, either.” Her words are parsed like mine were a few seconds ago. Tight and halting. “Are you sitting down?”
“Yes.”
“Well. Here’s the thing about me.”
If I’d just thought to look up “Jade” and “Sculptor” together, I would have known who she was instantly. She’s kind of famous, at least among art people – people who make it and people who pay attention to who’s making it.
It’s the first time I’ve been out of Montana since I was a teenager. I pay for two plane seats, and still feel like I’m packed into a sardine can. The people around me stare, fish-eyed, and I try to focus on The Sun Also Rises.
Part of the hook of her statue exhibit is that they’re set up throughout a labyrinth of rose bushes. Each of her statues are life-sized – they depict people of all shapes, sizes, and builds. The folds of their clothing immaculate, their hair chiseled to the smallest strand. Their faces are so perfect that I think they might blink.
Her artist’s statement – mounted on a stone at the entrance to the labyrinth – explains that it’s her way of getting in touch with history, and using stone to create rather than destroy.
The exhibit is open to the public, but the little sign says ‘closed.’ I step over it, as instructed.
Maybe that’s why all the figures in her statues are smiling, rather than screaming and recoiling like the ones in Greek textbooks.
I find her at the center, sitting on the grass with a book. She looks so beautiful that for a minute, against all reason, I think she might be one of her statues.
Her long, lacy white skirt covers most of her legs, but her calves and ankles are delicate. Her collarbone looks like it was chipped out of marble, her neck slim, almost deerlike. Her hair is hidden under a silk scarf, cream with little golden flowers.
She looks up. She’s wearing black sunglasses that make her look like Audrey Hepburn.
“Oh my God. Hi.” She stands, smoothing her skirt. “Thank you so much for coming. I know it’s a ways off, I just -”
I know she feels safer here. That this labyrinth is where she’s most relaxed, and ironically, where I feel most free. The air is fragrant and fresh with roses and grass, moss and earth.
“It’s so beautiful,” is all I can say.
“I know. I’m really… blessed, I want to say.” She laughs. “I hope that’s not corny. I just prefer that to calling it luck.”
“It’s not corny at all.” I see myself reflected in her black glasses, and I hope my expression isn’t really that stupid. We’re still at that point where neither of us knows quite what to say. “These – if you take those off, will I, um?”
She laughs again. It’s such a beautiful sound. “You won’t turn to stone. This isn’t exactly a pretty fact, but most of us have a… well, it’s sort of a transparent third eyelid, like what lizards have. Gross, I know. But it lets us look at people without them turning to stone, and we only retract it when we’re really threatened.”
“It’s not gross. It’s interesting,” I assure her. I feel so incurious, that I never knew that. “So, why the glasses?”
“It makes people feel more comfortable. Just like the scarf.” She shakes her head. “My stepmom said that if I came around, I had to wear one, because my hair was scaring her kids. She’s human, like my dad. And I realized that it really did make people treat me nicer, so I still like to wear it in public.”
“Well,” I say, “you don’t have to wear it with me.”
She sort of looks up at me – I can see just a hint of green behind her sunglasses. Her expression feels like a wordless invitation, but I still want to ask.
I hold out my hands, so huge they could cup her head like an orange. “Can I?”
“Yes. Of course you can.”
I know she’s more dangerous than me.
I carefully unwrap her scarf, and the emerald snakes of her hair uncoil underneath. Their eyes blink open, huge and jewel-bright.
“Wow,” I murmur. I never thought I liked snakes, but these are breath-stealingly beautiful.
She says softly, “The glasses. You can take them off, too.” Her lips are so red, so soft. Everything about her is delicate. Even the snakes, their tiny tongues flicking curiously.
I take the glasses carefully between my thumbs and forefingers, and slide them off. Her eyes blink open, emerald as the world around us, huge and vibrant with large, oval-shaped pupils. Her eyelashes are gold.
She’s so beautiful. I can’t believe that – in those huge, gorgeous, deadly eyes – she somehow sees beauty in me too. But she does. I can tell.
“So,” she says, grinning shyly. “Want me to show you which of these statues are my exes?”
We laugh until I almost fall on her, which would be disastrous. But instead she squeals and sort of rolls to avoid me, and then we’re both on our backs, looking up at the violet-blue heart of the sky, still giggling like kids.
A minotaur, at the center of a labyrinth. A gorgon, surrounded by life-sized statues.
Both of us, in love.
