Kit10Phish Explains It All: Staining the Gazebo [2. Withholding; 3. Manipulative Flattery; 4. Future Faking]

Go back and read part 1. if you missed it.

I also liked the fact that Dr. MiNarc really seemed to open up while doing manual labor. Mostly, she was closed-off and private about both big and trivial things. I had known her for seven years, but was only aware of what she wanted me to know. I was hardly privy to substantial personal information or history. When we worked, I felt like I was in her inner circle, because she was more truthful and chatty than ever.

I decided that even though my skimpy outfit was hardly appropriate for working, it would minimize any tan lines. As I awkwardly got started, MiNarc settled in to the flower bed next to the gazebo. I guess she planned to work close by so we could talk. As she weeded and tended the dirt, she told me two gay guys had previously owned the house. As proof she told me to look up at the gazebo's ceiling. Craning my neck, I noticed five or six painted sections, each featuring a gay scene. MiNarc told me to look closer at one of the spaces--it featured a homo-erotic penis. She explained different artists had each done a panel, and she wanted to make the gazebo more feminine by painting something different in the "penis-panel." She said her house-keeper was an artist and had asked to paint a panel, but MiNarc denied her the privilege, because she wanted only gay artists. She offered to let me paint a scene in the last panel.

Surprisingly, I was not that miserable standing on tip-toe to reach the top beams of the gazebo, stain traveling down my up-stretched arms in rivets. I was enjoying my new place in Dr. MiNarc's life as well as the warm sunshine coloring my skin. MiNarc absentmindedly talked to me while she planted new flowers in the garden. She said I had better do a good job staining the gazebo, because that is where I would get married.

I was astounded MiNarc would want a lesbian wedding in her yard! She was normally very "on the down-low" about her sexuality in our small, republican hometown. I wanted to ask her about her wedding to ViKtim, and if they had even had a ceremony, but shied away from the topic, remembering how unacceptable this discussion would have been in the past.

Dr. MiNarc also continued (she had been at this for years) to try to convince me to work for her--with or without my doctorate degree. She said she would make me partner and eventually sell me her practice. I gave her a doubtful expression as I stepped off the white, plastic chair and began to stain the smaller, crisscrossed pieces of wood along the sides of the gazebo. When she saw my hesitation, Dr. MiNarc said she would wine and dine me and if I had one, my girlfriend too. She said even if I did not make it in to doctorate school I could work as office manager in her hospital.

I told her I would be miserable working in a that environment if I could not be a proper doctor--it would remind me of my failure every day. She said this was nonsense and she would pay me well enough to make up for my bad feelings. She also said I should consider living across the street from the Cabin-Mansion. At this, my paint brush paused--I could not believe my ears. Was this the same closed-off Dr. MiNarc I had known for so long? Knowing full-well that Dr. MiNarc would not actually like me to work with her AND live so close, I said, "You'd get sick of me." She said, "No I wouldn't, if you lived across the street the trees would give us privacy." I scoffed at her silliness--what was going on with Dr. MiNarc? Had she really become more laid back while I had been in college? It was difficult to wrap my mind around.