A Good Person

A Good Person

The first ‘date’ we went on, he told me that he thought I seemed like a good person. I didn’t know why he thought that, seeing as if we hadn’t actually ever had a full conversation before then, sitting across from each other at Rex’s Den, our university’s tacky student restaurant. He was a poet, and I imagined that poets were more romantic than the usual — more honest, or more soulful, more capable of seeing into someone’s true nature.

I think I imagined that because it helped me imagine that I really was a good person, like he said I was. Not that I ever really thought I was a bad person or anything; I always waved and smiled at my neighbors, I’d always spare some change for the homeless if I could, and not just ignore them walking through Toronto. But I did like it. I think I liked the idea that I was being recognized for it. I think that’s why I agreed to be his girlfriend.

I had my reservations. He was a student, just like me, though he was a bit older — he’d already had a degree and the beginnings of a career, but had put that on hold and moved to Toronto to pursue his passion. His age made me feel uncomfortable at first, though I reasoned to myself that it wasn’t an inappropriate gap (he was 26 or 27 at the time, I was 22), and that he was way too nice and docile-looking to be a creep. He was Asian, and he had a soft face which made him look like a freshman, and just a little bit of a chubby belly, which I thought made him look so innocent and adorable.

If I’m being honest, Rex’s Den was a bit too tacky and cheap to be a good date spot, but he won me over again when he waited with me at the bus stop, reading and explaining poems to me by Wordsworth and John Donne. One of the Donne poems was this one about a man trying to persuade a woman to sleep with him, comparing her to a fly.

I told him I thought Donne was a misogynist.

To that, he only laughed, saying: “See? I told you you were a good person.”

===

Maybe I liked being called a good person, or maybe I was just a girl who had a lot less experience with boys than other girls her age. About a week into the semester, I followed him into his place, where we’d watch movies and television. About a month in, I joined him in his bed.

I didn’t know what to expect. I hadn’t ever been with a guy before, and had heard nightmare stories about guys who were too rough, too cruel, too demanding. But I think he noticed I was nervous, because when I laid down next to him, both of us fully clothed, he told me that I didn’t have to do anything I wasn’t comfortable with.

“You’re not like other girls,” he said, “you’re not a skank. You’re a nice girl. A good person.”

I felt myself grow red when he said this, and for some reason, felt a further need for his validation. I told him that we could ease into it, that I wasn’t ready for sex that day, but at the very least we could both take our clothes off and be naked together. He seemed to like that, and he smiled at me, and that smile felt as if the whole sun was shining on me.

We lied there naked, and there was an awkward silence before he made a joke, and I laughed, and then we started to talk about life. And as we started to talk about life, I started to touch him. I really liked his body. He was a softer man, and chubbier. At some point, I found his testicles, which made me laugh because they felt like fuzzy, soft plums, and I started to fondle them.

At first, he winced.

“Be careful with those! Make sure you don’t hurt them,” he said, “I want to have kids someday.”

We laughed, and I fondled him carefully, eager to protect the jewels of the man I thought I had fallen in love with. I jokingly asked if anyone had ever hurt him there before, and he told me about the time when, in high school, the school’s most popular girl, a soccer player, had been bullying another girl, who was his girlfriend at the time.

How he had stepped in between them to stop her, and how the bully had kicked him in the balls so hard he immediately fell to the floor, and spent the entire forty-five minute lunch break rolling on the ground, holding his crotch, sobbing and puking as the soccer player taunted him, and his girlfriend then was crying over him, worrying about his reproductive future.

He got serious then. I could tell that the kick had traumatized him, even a decade later. He told me how he had been worried he’d never be able to function properly as a man anymore, or have children, or be able to go under the sheets with a girl again.

“A girl like you,” he said.

For some reason, a thought crossed my mind.

“Well, can you still have kids? You know, after your bully almost soccer-punted your nuts into your stomach.” I asked, giggling to take the edge off the question.

He nodded, and this time he softened up, able to joke about it. “You know how you get immunity after you the chicken pox? I think after that kick I straight up have balls of steel now.”

We laughed, and then I got serious.

“Do you think you’d want to have kids with a girl like me?”

He nodded again.

“You’re a good person. You’d make a great mom.”

===

I loved him. He was a tender man, and he’d shown me so much of him so soon — his darkest secrets, his worst trauma: the day a girl had almost made him not a man anymore. I wondered if that incident was what made him such a gentle and understanding individual. He’d been hurt so badly in the past, and so he never wanted to hurt anyone else. I couldn’t help but love him. All the other boys I knew were so comfortable being cruel, with joking about their exes and making misogynistic remarks.

He was the best man I knew, and even though it was weird, I thought back to that night and realized: that maybe I really did want to have his children.

But I had my insecurities too. He was popular with the girls in the English department — because he was artsy, and he was slightly older. I knew girls like Naomi and Catherina who’d fawn over his writing, or his comments in class, talking about his “daddy” vibes. Or there was Alexis, who’d always adjust her top lower when she was talking across from him, trying to give him hugs.

But he was a good person, right? I told myself this.

===

“Who the fuck is [redacted]?” I asked him, a year later, still together, living together now, quarantining for the pandemic.

“I don’t know who that is?” He yelled back. He was naked. We had gotten so comfortable with each other now that we’d hang around the house naked. That’s how close we were. That’s how much I loved him.

I knew he was lying. I didn’t recognize the name, and I no longer remember it, and their face wasn’t on their profile, but they had been exchanging messages since before the pandemic, during the school year. They had talked about assignments, and depression, and then nothing, until out of the blue he had messaged her, asking her if she had ever had a crush on him.

I was furious. I already had my boots on, ready to walk out the door, even though it was the pandemic and there was nowhere to go.

She had said yes.

And then, in return, he had asked her out on a date — or to hang out, once the pandemic was over.

It didn’t matter that she turned him down. Because of his age, her message had said, which had never bothered me. Had never bothered me because I thought he was a good person. That he was kind and gentle. That because he had been hurt so badly, he’d never hurt anyone else.

I asked him again, walking closer, death in my eyes.

“You don’t know who that is?”

“No… no, I do — it’s just, it’s not what you think it is. She was depressed, I was just pretending to act like I was into her to cheer her up. And she said no, so everything’s good now,” he walked closer, also, as if attempting to hug me.

“It’s only you,” he said, “don’t you remember? I want to have kids with you.”

Do you think you’d want to have kids with a girl like me?

You’re a good person. You’d make a great mom.

That exchange, which meant so much to me, kept repeating in my mind. It was a lie, it had all been a lie. He had wanted something else with someone else. He was just like all of the other guys. It didn’t matter that he had been hurt before, he was still capable of hurting others. He had never wanted to be my husband, or to have children with me. He never loved me.

And in that moment, I decided what I was going to do.

I was going to hurt him even worse than the soccer player from high school had.

I closed my eyes, and I raised my boot as fast and as hard as I could, and I kicked the man I loved so much in his most sensitive and treasured area, the precious jewels that made him a man and gave him the ability to reproduce, and have intimate moments with women. I heard a squelch, a sound like a pomegrenate being split open, or aluminum foil being crushed into a ball.

I knew immediately that his future sex life was done for. He was unlucky that day. My boots were steel-toed, and he had been naked, his precious testicles entirely unprotected.

When I opened my eyes again, he was on the floor. He had already broken out into a sweat, and his eyes seemed to go permanently cross-eyed, and his mouth gaped open as if he couldn’t believe the pain he was in. His hands were glued to his crotch, digging around as if he was trying to find what was left of his nuts. His toes curled, his whole body tense in excruciating agony. He groaned audibly, shaking his head in disbelief, as saliva and puke dribbled out from his open mouth.

At first, he kept trying and failing to moan my name. Trying to get me to stay. At one point, he moved a hand from his balls to reach for me, before the pain must have been too much, and his hand returned to his testicles.

I felt guilty. Even in the worst agony of his life, I thought he looked cute. In a pathetic way.

“My kids,” I finally heard him moan as I walked out the door, amidst the sound of his tears, him cradling his balls, fear and panic and desperation entering into his voice, “oh my god my fucking kids.”

===

He texted me a month later.

He had to get surgery. One of his testicles would never be the same again, repaired but shrunken to ten percent of its old functionality. The other testicle had been entirely ruined. Even so, he texted me, begging for me to come back. He told me that he’d never be able to have kids, but even so, he forgave me, he still wanted to share his life with me.

I felt a pang in my heart.

I was a good person, wasn’t I? Didn’t I owe him another chance, regardless of his current state?

I started to text back.

Hi [redacted],---

Then I stopped. No. I wasn’t a good person. I had taken from the man I loved everything that made him a man. He’d never be able to crawl into bed with a woman and gently make love to her. He’d never be able to feel good at night. He’d never be able to carry on his genes, to start a family, to have a biological child of his own.

Sometimes I wonder how he’s doing. If he hurts down there every time he takes a step, or sees a girl he finds pretty. I wonder if he’s ever been able to find a date. Or how his date reacts when she finds out about his injury, his damaged parts. Sometimes I feel terrible, before I don’t.

It was he who said I was a good person. And in the end, he wasn’t a good person either, for all the pain he had endured when he was young. He had hurt me, and he had lied.

I wasn’t a good person, and he didn't have balls of steel after all.

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Mister Palladium on August 22, 2024 at 5:08am

Wonderful stuff, as always. I haven't been around in a long time but I still remember the duo Erica's and their wonderful stories over the last ten years. Crazy.

Also, welcome back!

Permalink Reply by Erica Walo on August 23, 2024 at 12:10pm