Backed Redux … Chapter 15

The next day was going to be packed. So much to do, so much running around, both to government agencies to fully cement my new identity and to apartments. I had doubts that we would get through everything, or not have to spend at least one more night in a hotel.
           
But Seth and I had to talk and clear up a few things. First, he confirmed that he had not used a condom while in my mouth. I didn’t mind this. I knew I should, I told him, but I preferred the taste of skin and had never been as adamant about barriers for oral.
           
Also, no, he did not reciprocate oral. I was dumbfounded, even tried to explain that he could go down on a woman and still be seen as dominant. But he wouldn’t budge and insisted he didn’t enjoy it enough to try again.
 
"I hate these conversations,” I said as we headed out the door to our first appointment. “They’re always so awkward.”
           
“Important information to have though,” he said. “In case it happens again.”
           
I stopped in the middle of a long hallway that led to the lobby. “Is it? Going to happen again?” I asked.
           
Seth took two more steps before he realized he had left me behind. When he did swivel around, he wore a look of frustration. “I don’t know Dan – Lu – I left my crystal ball in the car,” he said. “That’s your new name, by the way – Danlu – I have decreed it.”
           
“You’re not funny,” I said.
           
“I was hysterical last night,” he said He bridged the gap in one long stride and gripped my shoulders. “Look, I know what I said. But it’s not like you and I – either of us – have a lot of options right now. I wouldn’t have bothered if there wasn’t some interest, but – ”
           
“I know,” I said. “You don’t want to make promises, and I swear I’m not trying to get one out of you. I mean, who would want this as an origin story, right? I’m just trying to adjust my expectations. I don’t want to be surprised in this.”
           
“Set them to flexible,” he said and continued down the hall.
           
Easier said than done, I thought.
           
We met our first real estate agent, Art, outside a large brownstone. He was utterly unlike any image I had ever had of a real estate agent. He was average height and stocky with a round baby-face that tried its best to look tough. He wore a rag hat and a light goatee that wasn’t quite stubble – it looked more like fuzz than hair. He appeared to be of vague Latin descent, but it seemed rude to ask his nationality.
 
Art was incredibly friendly. As he led us up to the first apartment, he discussed some of the nearby neighborhoods. He already knew how far we had come and apparently wanted to make sure we didn’t end up in the wrong place.  Brooklyn Heights, he told us, could be as expensive as almost anything in Manhattan while Sunset Park, where we were, and areas like Bay Ridge and Bensonhurst were more reasonably priced as well as reasonably safe. He had an honesty that sounded sincere and not like he was just trying to get the biggest commission. I liked him immediately and Seth seemed to, too.
 
He said he had grown up in nearby Bedford Stuyvesant and remembered when it was much rougher than it was currently. “You still don’t want to get lost in the wrong part of that hood though,” he told us as he unlocked the unit.
 
It was a two-bedroom – one of our few requirements – but neither of us liked the layout. It seemed cramped and it was difficult to picture normal-sized furniture fitting properly. Art was undeterred. As he walked us to another building just a couple of blocks away, he asked us why we had decided on Brooklyn.
 
“It’s close enough to Manhattan for her and convenient enough to Atlantic City for me,” Seth said. Indeed, the neighborhood we were wandering was not far from a highway that led directly to the Jersey coast just a couple of hours away. “Queens seemed too far out of the way and obviously we’re trying to avoid Manhattan rents.”
 
“You are definitely in the right place!” Art said enthusiastically. It was the first time he had sounded like a salesperson. By then I didn’t mind. We walked into the second building and it was much nicer than the first. There were more recent upgrades than the previous one, and it was rent stabilized. “Is that like rent controlled?” I asked.
 
“Not really,” Art said. “It doesn’t guarantee that rents won’t increase at all, it just means they can’t suddenly decide to gouge you and double the rents overnight. Also, the landlord has to give you at least three months of warning if he decides to use the place for himself or a family member.” Well I had learned my new fact for the day.
 
But although the size of the second apartment was more suitable to our needs, someone had had very eclectic tastes in paint color. The living and dining rooms, which shared one large, open space as you entered, were done in black and white vertical stripes. And not wallpaper either. Someone had gone to the trouble to measure and tape off exactly the right lengths. The few walls in the kitchen, which opened to the dining area on one end and the living area on the other, were done in black.
 
To the right of the doorway was a short hallway, which had the same awful stripes. The bathroom was done in a cherry red that practically glowed in the dark, and one of the bedrooms was bright orange while the other was an equally bright green. They were next to each other on the left side of the hall and if you stood across from them and crossed your eyes, they looked like a pumpkin.
 
“Any chance we could repaint?” I asked.
 
“We kind of hope you will, actually!” Art said, laughing. “The last couple just moved out and management was going to anyway, so if you want to wait for them you can –” He rolled his eyes and seemed to indicate this could take a while. “But you could probably get a deal on the deposit if you did it yourselves.”
 
I looked to Seth. “Surely we can agree to more neutral colors?” I asked.
 
Seth still seemed to be a bit in awe of the whole place. “Let’s see if we can’t find a place that needs less work,” he said finally.
 
Art showed us another unit several floors above the first one and went over some of the details of the building. There were a couple of different laundry rooms – one of which was on the same floor as the eyesore we’d just looked at – and an Ikea was nearby too. The second unit was laid out much the same as the first but with a much more palatable color palette. 
 
After Art gave us a basic tour, I continued walking around on my own and immediately started imagining how I would decorate it. I already had my heart set on the place and thought Seth sounded interested too. As I rejoined them, however, I heard him say “To be fair, we are supposed to meet one other person and I’d like to hear him out.”
 
Art was totally cool even if I did think he sounded slightly disappointed. “No worries, man,” he said. “But you have my number and you know where I am.”
 
We went downstairs and walked in the opposite direction from Art in order to keep our second appointment with an agent named Joshua. We found him a few blocks away in front of a small red brick building. He was young with dark, slicked back hair. Unlike Art who had inspired confidence and trust almost immediately, he instantly made my internal used-car-salesman alarm go off. I didn’t like him one bit. And while it seemed unfair to judge him so harshly so quickly, I had to force myself to be friendly to him at all. 
 
Over the next hour and a half, Joshua showed us a few places, but none of them impressed us as much as the apartments we had seen with Art. As we parted, Seth shook hands with him and told him we would get back to about our decision. I for one had no intention of talking to him ever again.
 
Before calling Art back, however, we went back to the hotel and did a little more research into the area. Seth didn’t want any surprises nor was he willing to trust Art too quickly. He wanted objective opinions and I didn’t blame him. It really seemed too much to ask that we would find an empty apartment we liked on the second try. But we couldn’t find anything that made us want to run away screaming, either. The only decision seemed to be which of the two apartments to go with. Neither of us minded some painting if it would save a significant amount of money, and I loved how much closer the first one had been to a laundry room.
 
But even Seth seemed a bit daunted by just how much would have to be done. “This could be the motivation we need to get it looking the way we want it to,” I said. “Otherwise, I’d be too tempted to just leave the other place the way it is and live with it.”
 
“Who does that to a place they know they won’t be in for long?” he asked.
 
“Search me,” I said. “But why not make it presentable and make it our own?”
 
“That depends on what you want to do with it,” he said.
 
“Actually, I’d like to keep the kitchen the same since there’s not much to the walls there,” I said. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t mind some bold color choices if they actually go together and aren’t day-glo.”
 
“Define bold,” he said.
“Off the top of my head, dark yellow for the living and dining room,” I said. “A darker green for my bedroom. Back to white for the bathroom?” I made it up as I went along. My condo back home had always been pure white and I’d never bothered to make it more interesting, largely because I hadn’t been able to afford to. Every now and then, I had daydreamed about what colors I would use if I had the money.
 
“We could do that in the other apartment there too,” he said. “And it would be a lot less work.”
 
“But in the long run, I’ll be annoyed that I have to go to a different floor for laundry,” I said. “That’s going to get old fast.”
 
He thought all this over and rubbed his eyes. “You have a point, but I still want to punch whoever painted that in the first place,” he said.
 
“If we ever find them, I won’t stand in your way,” I told him. We had a deal.
 
Seth called Art back by the middle of the afternoon, and asked when we could move in. He also explained “our” banking situation, saying that we were moving in from out of state and hadn’t set up a local bank account yet.
 
He told Art he’d been part of a credit union before and had simply cashed out his account when we left, then tried to confirm that the landlord would be comfortable with taking cash, at least at first. He also asked to clarify exactly what the discount would be if we took the place that needed painting.
 
Art didn’t think our paying cash would be a problem but wouldn’t promise anything. He said he would check with the landlord on both issues and call us back. He did so not 10 minutes later to make an appointment for the next morning but said they would only reimburse costs for the paint job. It was enough. 
 
I was giddy and only wanted to go look at paint chips. But apartment hunting had taken up more time than expected. Now, the rest of our errands would have to be done over the next day or two. First up would be getting me a state ID and new bank account. We agreed that a driver’s license wasn’t necessary yet. From there, we would turn on utilities, get me a new phone, and then furniture. I casually reminded him where the nearby Ikea was while trying to keep myself from bouncing.
 
“Tomorrow,” Seth said. “After we sign the lease and know for sure that we have a place to take new furniture to.”
 
We went back to the hotel computer and started looking for nearby banks and the location to get a state ID. I was immediately disheartened and frustrated. “So, I need an ID to get a bank account and a bank account to get an ID. How the hell does that work? I mean, isn’t that just the height of government bureaucracy at work?”
 
“First of all, calm down and read what it actually says,” Seth said pointing at the screen. “You need proof of name. That doesn’t have to be a bank account. Further, I would take a closer look at what all is in that packet from Emily upstairs.”
 
Now I was deflated. I had been all ready to rail against the system and be angry at The Man. “What do you mean?” I asked.
 
“Trust me,” he said.
 
Sure enough, Emily had included not just an “original” birth certificate and social security card, but a current Nevada driver’s license and passport as well. There were even diplomas from a local high school and the University of Nevada.
 
“How did she get a picture of me?” I asked.
 
“I took your old license when I went to meet her the first time, remember?” Seth said.
 
I looked between him and the stack of documents now laid out in front of me on the bed. “It’s like I’m a real person!” I said. “How did she do all this so quickly?”
 
Seth laughed. “Most of it she likely did herself. But I know she has a contact at the license bureau which is just down the street from her office too.”
 
“And she does this for you all the time?” I asked. I was dumbfounded and speechless.
 
“No. I said I have referred people to her in the past,” Seth said. “Now, you should start thinking about your history, what you majored in, family, that sort of thing. Make it as close to your own as you can.”
 
“Guess I have to get used to saying I’m from Nevada,” I said.
 
“And for the love of God, don’t call it Nev-ah-da,” Seth warned. “It’s Nev-a-da – short a.”
 
“Really?” I asked. I was learning all sorts of new things today.
 
But nothing was going to get done until we signed the lease. So we walked around the neighborhood and tried to familiarize ourselves with it as much as we could in a short time. We found the nearby subway lines and picked up a map of the entire system. We even found a small grocery store not far from our prospective building and a laundromat in case we needed it.

I tried to take it all in while also trying to create a brand new past for myself. Mostly I concentrated on changing the location and not worrying about overly complicated details. Instead of graduating with a degree in journalism from Ohio University, I had graduated with the same degree from the University of Nevada. I still had an Italian name though it was somewhat easier to pronounce than my original one had been, so I didn’t have to worry about a new heritage either.
 
“And then, once everything else is done, we’ll create a nice resume for you so you can look for a job,” Seth said as we wandered. “I even have numbers I can give you for references.”
 
Of course he did. “What do I say when they ask why I moved here without any job prospects?” I asked.
 
“Make up some sort of family emergency,” he replied. “Your parents live here and aren’t doing well, that sort of thing.”
 
“And that’ll work?” I asked dubiously.
 
“If you sell it right,” he said. “Besides, you’ll have at least one reference that will back you up on how quickly you had to leave town. It was all very tragic and we were so sorry to see our Lucy have to go. We are just praying that everything works out for the best.” He was smiling near the end and nearly convinced me of my terrible situation.
 
“And suddenly you’re okay with lying?” I asked.
 
Seth wagged his head. “It’s for a good cause.”
 
We ate dinner at a nearby café and tried to act like we belonged there. It was definitely a place I wanted to return to when the weather was warmer and we could eat outside. I had a feeling it would be quite a while before I stopped feeling like a tourist, though. I hadn’t been to New York since a class trip my senior year in high school, and we’d barely had time to make it to a few landmarks in Manhattan, let alone any of the boroughs.
 
After dinner, I only wanted to relax and feel like a normal person for a few minutes. Naturally, Seth had different ideas. He insisted on talking finances and rules. My attitude was not unlike a child being told to finish their brussels sprouts before they could have dessert, and I was inches from throwing an adult version of a tantrum when he mentioned my cut of the money. I had practically forgotten about that. When we had talked about opening a bank account, I had thought of doing so only with the money I had left from my last paycheck.
 
“I’ve decided to give you 10%,” he said. “Minus what I paid Emily. With that, and what you brought with you, you should still have around $10,000.”
 
It really didn’t seem like much when compared to the total amount, but it was also more money than I’d ever had at one time in my entire life. I decided not to quibble.
 
“Out of that, you will pay for your ID and your own phone. You will also be responsible for its monthly bill so keep that in mind. You also need to buy new professional work clothes – or at least a few basics. But I will stay in charge of how much you spend, and on what, for the immediate future. For all intents and purposes, this will be your apartment. I’ll give you a lot of leeway as far as decorating and what colors we use – but I will have final say in everything.”
 
Yep, that was pretty much what we had agreed to in the car. For some reason it felt different now that it was actually happening. I became nervous about messing up, of not living up to his standards, of disappointing both of us and ruining this new life before it even had a chance to get started.

…

Who would want this as an origin story? This sums up so much for me. Further, it feels like the elephant in the room finally getting acknowledged. I think this is a bonkers way to begin a romance. And yet, here we are.

Also, I know, I hate that he won't go down on her. I am actually considering having him evolve in that. But he has a lot of good points, okay?