Lena Dunham’s Verified Strangers , Chapter Nine: The Return of Timmy
Ally didn’t hate the sex. Although afterwards, lying with her head in the crook of Dan’s arm on the moist, leafy ground next to the trail, she felt a strong need to escape.
They finished the hike, but it took longer than it would have if he hadn’t stopped every 10 or 20 feet to kiss and tickle her. She wished she could share his playful mood. But after she came (and she did come), all she could think about was her text waiting in Hugo’s inbox, and whether he’d yet read the patent hostility and judgment of her words.
When they hopped back on Dan’s bike, he asked her if she was hungry and before she could protest, he swooped her up and drove her to his favorite hole-in-the-wall Mexican place. “This is where I used to come when I first landed in L.A. from Utah,” he told her. “I didn’t know a soul. I was broke. Family wasn’t talking to me.”
“Poor Mormon baby,” Ally cooed, sopping up the leftover cheese from her enchiladas with a tortilla from Dan’s fajitas. (Just because she didn’t want to be there didn’t mean she wouldn’t eat. Quite the opposite.)
“Yeah, basically,” Dan smiled, knocking back the last sip of his beer. “The minute I told my mother I was moving to L.A., she asked if I was gay. She couldn’t imagine another reason I’d go. Do you know I have five brothers and only one will talk to me?”
“Oh, shit, I was joking.” Ally could not have felt like more of a flippant dick. “I really wasn’t trying…I mean, I didn’t know…I…”
“Hey,” he said, grabbing her wrist in an effort to calm her that wasn’t very calming. “We all have trauma, right?”
“Not me,” she smiled. “My life has been literally without incident.”
He leaned across the table and, being the tallest man she’d ever kissed, he could whisper to her with ease. “That is until a reformed Mormon boy fucked you on a hiking trail in broad daylight.”
Ally got a chill down her spine, and not the good kind. Normally such a boss-daddy assertion of power would have her registering at Crate & Barrel, but there was something about Dan’s delivery—both cloying and oblivious—that made her lower half shrivel up into a mermaid tail.
“I’m exhausted,” she smiled. “And I have to get home to Caz.”
“All good.” He smiled tersely. Some reverie had been broken, a reverie of one. While he had danced at the post-coital endorphin festival, Ally had been somewhere else entirely.
***
When Ally got home, sweaty and vaguely ashamed for reasons she couldn’t understand, the first thing she did was run a bath. When she had lowered herself into the scalding shallow water, just deep enough to soak what counts, she took a quick, tortured breath and checked her phone.
Nothing from Hugo. She let her thumb hover over the keyboard a moment before letting loose: I’m sorry, H. It’s just that I really liked you. I’m sad. It is okay to admit that? I told you I was sick of disappointments. I was taking a break from all this. I broke my rule for you, and now everything feels mixed up… Be well, I mean it…
If she was really being honest with herself, she hadn’t broken her rule for Hugo. Well, she had, but if he hadn’t come along, someone else would have. Dan was proof of that. In the 15 minutes that she had counted Hugo out, she had fixated on him. She could not be stopped. She wanted to be stopped.
The door swung open, revealing a rowdy Caz in a black suit with a black leather bustier and choker, red lips and red pompadour back to its former glory. “That orgy suucked, yo! I got this swanky for THIS!? At least I got some insta pics out of the deal!”
“Oh, my God,” Ally giggled. “You looked cute as hell but you’re blowing all the cold air in here.”
“It wasn’t an orgy, for the record!” Ally heard Timmy’s voice from the living room. “It was a ‘conscious erotic gathering!’”
“Okay, well, call it what you will, but I saw some chick pulling some other chick on a leash, then making her drink Champagne out of a dog bowl. She asked me if I wanted to be trained and that’s when I bowed out.”
“Close the door!” Ally snapped. Caz did as she was told. “And if you order dinner, please get something I’ll like,” Ally added, before turning on the faucet, leaning back and letting the water raise her up inch by inch.
***
Ally put on her vintage silk nightgown and matching bed jacket, pinned her hair into buns and slathered her body in lavender oil before joining Caz and Timmy in the living room. It felt good to get clean, better than usual—Dan’s smell, like pine and old books, was sticking to her in a way she didn’t love. She wasn’t sure how or when she was going to tell him, but for now she laughed, watching Caz and Timmy play a video game that involved absurd little dance moves every time you won and also when you lost.
“Timmy, you’re a pretty great dancer,” Ally commented. And they were. In their navy suit and relaxed white shirt, curls still unkempt and hiding their eyes, Timmy looked like the coolest boy at a 1970s boarding school.
“Oh, shit, thank you,” Timmy said, bowing shyly.
“They were a professional!” Caz cheered. “They don’t want to talk about it but they were! Did you know this was the first quote-unquote girl to join this fuckin’ famous L.A. street dance group. When they were, like, 12!”
“Whoa, really?”
“Yes, woman! There is footage of Timmy performing with Justin Timberlake and they had little pig tails and these big pink sneakers.”
“That’s pretty fucking cute,” Ally smiled.
“Yeah, long time ago,” Timmy said, settling into the sofa.
“Food on its way,” Caz shouted and she headed down the hall. “Now that you’re out, I’m gonna shower. Even the air in that place was lubey!”
Ally laughed and looked at Timmy, who looked ahead at the screen saver bouncing around the TV, a lioness dancing across a plain. “So, she seems better.”
“Yeah,” Timmy nodded. “A little post-breakup mania. But who hasn’t done it?”
“Oh, uh, yup,” Ally laughed. “Sorry, that hits a little too close to home. Guess I’m gonna have to move out.”
“Did you just get out of something?” Timmy asked, finally turning to her.
“Yes. I mean no. Can both be very true and very not true all at once?” Ally asked.
“Hey, your neck is all red,” Timmy said, peering at Ally’s shoulder and throat.
“Oh, uh, yeah—I get hives. Do I have hives right now?”
“It’s pretty red. Wow, it’s literally swelling up in front of me.” Timmy looked closer, so Ally could feel their breath on her neck. It was cool and clean, like mint and seltzer.
“Here, I’ll get some ice,” Timmy said. “That doesn’t look comfortable.”
While Timmy gathered the ice and confidently crushed it in a bag, Ally took a deep breath. She usually only got hives when things were too much, when they were threatening to tow her under. She wanted to tell Timmy that—that she felt safe. But instead, when they returned, she just accepted their touch—both gentle and firm, no invasion but total presence—and said, “Thank you, Timmy.”
New chapters of Lena Dunham’s “Verified Strangers” appear daily, Monday through Friday, on Vogue.com. If you missed the previous chapters, you can read them here.
Originally Appeared on Vogue
