Not Safe for Work

by Nisha J. Tuli

To the person I was and the one I became. It’s never too late if you want it enough.

These men are the Khakis—white hetero men of mediocre competence and undeserved confidence who wouldn’t know their way to a clitoris if someone strung them over a swamp rife with testicle-eating crocodiles.

I already know he’s the kind of man who votes left every four years because he likes the idea of a world built on equality, but he’s also never had to consider what that really means beyond his limited worldview.

I was just getting to the part where the main character was about to give a revenge blowjob to the hot fae prince who kidnapped her, but there’s no way I’m telling Rafe that.

He leans forward and stretches out a hand but pulls it back, balling it into a fist. “I said that wrong. What I meant was it’s hard to believe you’re an introvert because you shine in every room you enter.”

“There’s nothing unmissable about you. That’s all I meant. That there isn’t anywhere you could go where everyone wouldn’t notice you.” This is what he thinks? “And I’m apologizing for every idiot who has ever treated you that way.” There are too many things occurring at once. “You really think that? About me?” “Yes,” he says, penetrating me with his gaze. “I do.”

“Rafe, why did you draw me?” I whisper. The silence drags on so long that I don’t think he’ll answer, but then he says, “Because I draw things that are beautiful to me.”