Scrambled Eggs - First, Journey Genres

All Words: 1230 including note.

Will someone please do me a favour and tell guys that it does not become them to be politically correct? They just wind up getting more messed up than what they would've been if they'd said it straight out.

Let me tell you how it began. I met him at a tree-planting event, and we were in the same group. When you've hauled a dozen saplings together, planted them in the soil, watered them and imagined them blossoming with flowers, it does create a certain bond. We went out for coffee after the event, and were soon dating. We found we had a lot in common, along with our liking for nature. We liked the same music and the same poetry. We even had the same favourite restaurant.

Anyway, we'd been dating a month, when one evening, we were binge-watching old Hollywood movies and it got too late for me to go home, so I stayed over. We hadn't really talked about our past relationships or anything, and I didn't go into the reasons why he had a packet of condoms in the sock drawer, I was just glad they were there when we needed them. It was really nice, cuddling up under the sheets, and he seemed to know all my soft spots, and groaned when I touched him.

It was at breakfast that he made the politically correct statement.

He seemed to think he needed to 'say something' after last night, about where our relationship was going and so on. I was dishing out a second helping of scrambled eggs when he spoke. "Shall we take this forward?" he blurted. "I mean, are we ready for the next step, you know?"

He didn't wait for me to answer. I hadn't thought about it, and didn't know what I wanted to answer, anyway. He went on. "I mean, now we've been naked, and you know ... are we ready ... that is unless you have someone else in mind, you know, another boy, or a girl maybe ..."

A girl?

I mean, I know we mustn't assume anything these days, and I know it's all fine, whichever way anyone leans, and so on, and anyone can like anyone ... but he and I had had some pretty good sex last night, and he was asking if I had a girl in mind?

I swallowed my scrambled egg. It took a few seconds. "I'm straight," I clarified. "After last night, I thought you'd have realised that."

"Yeah, you were great, but I know that girls like other girls who are like you, you know ..."

"I don't know," I said. "Like me? Girls like other girls who are like me? What does that mean? What am i like? And how do you know?"

"I've read about it, you know. Anyway, what I'm asking is, if you don't have a boy or girl in mind, are we ready for ... I mean ... the next step?"

"What's the next step?" I asked.

"I don't know," he confessed. "I thought you would."

"According to you, I don't know whether I like boys or girls, so how would I know what the next step is?"

"Listen, don't get mad, please. I mean, if I said only 'boy' and you liked girls, too, you might've gotten mad then. So I had to ..."

"Okay," I said. "Okay, you were trying to be politically correct. Do I have to ask you the same question back? Do you have a boy in mind?"

"No."

"Another girl?"

"No, she broke up with me, after the first time we used the condoms, actually."

"I wonder why ..." I muttered.

"Yeah, I wonder why, too, sometimes. I mean, we were good together."

"You and she were good together, whereas I'm the type other girls like?"

"That is, when I say good together, I mean, we weren't actually ... I mean, I can't say she was bad, that is sort of insulting, isn't it?"

"Was she bad?"

"No, she was great."

"Was I bad?"

"No, you were great."

"So when you tell the next girl about me, you're going to say I was great and the type whom other girls like, and you're saying that because you can't insult me?"

"I'm not going to tell the next girl about you," he said, suddenly looking very stubborn.

"Not worth it, am I?" I asked, through a mouthful of eggs-on-toast.

"No."

"No?"

"I don't mean NO, I mean, no. Not -- not that you're not worth talking about ..."

"So I am worth talking about? To the next girl. Thank you."

"Listen. I'm not going to talk to the next girl about you, because there isn't going to be a next girl."

"The next boy, then, only he won't be interested because I'm the sort girls like ... ?"

"There's going to be nobody else," he said, looking stubborn again.

I put my fork down. I swallowed again. I drank a couple of sips of coffee. He was watching me intensely.

"I ..." I stammered. "I don't understand."

"Not just last night, this whole month. It's been great. I've never felt this way. I want us to go to the next step."

"Don't start that next step thing again," I groaned.

He came swiftly round to my side of the table. "Listen," he said, urgently. "Didn't you feel the sparks last night? And haven't you been feeling them this whole month? I have."

"I ... " I stammered. The honest answer was 'yes', I had felt the sparks, but they'd been rather damped by this breakfast conversation.

"Heck, I'm sorry," he said. "I've messed up, haven't I, by trying to be politically correct?"

"You sort of have," I muttered.

"What can I do to make up?" he asked.

"Be politically incorrect." I found myself trying to hide a smile.

"I can be that," he stated, confidently.

"Go on, then, let's have it. Let's have the epitome of political incorrectness."

"Uncorrectness," he corrected.

"What?"

"Grammatically, it should be uncorrectness," he clarified.

"There's no such word." To forestall his arguments, I typed it on my phone and got a red underline. "See? It's incorrectness, not uncorrectness. Incorrect is correct, uncorrect is wrong."

"Politically speaking, both are wrong."

"You were going to be politically incorrect," I reminded.

"Ah, yes. Politically incorrect. And very, very old fashioned."

My eyes were widening.

He was going down on one knee, right there before me.

He was taking something out of the pocket of his dressing-gown.

"This," he said, unfastening the little velvet-lined box, "belonged to my great-grandma, and my grandma, and now belongs to my Mom. However, it'll be yours if you say 'yes'. She gave it to me for you when I told her I was going to propose."

I looked at the exquisite ring. The diamonds were tiny, and glistened beautifully in the morning light.

"I suppose it would be politically-incorrect to refuse it, now that it has been given to our generation ...?"

"Uncorrect," he murmured, kissing me back.



Author's note / clarification ▼

I'm not judging any orientation, I think all human beings are beautiful.
This story idea was sparked off by something that happened to one of my students -- a guy she had been friends with for a while asked her out, and then clarified her orientation, and she exasperatedly said, "If he thinks I like other girls, why is he asking me out?" (They're back to being friends now.)

"Journey Through Genres - September 2019 Winners!" 
First Place - "Scrambled Eggs"