John Sheirer lives in Northampton, MA, and teaches at Asnuntuck Community College in Enfield, CT. His most recent book is the memoir Loop Year: 365 Days on the Trail, winner of the Connecticut Green Circle Award. Forthcoming are a collection of flash fiction (Start Small) and a creative writing guidebook (What's the Story?). He can be found here: www.johnsheirer.com

Tests (January 20, 2011. Issue 24.)

Everything that happened with this woman felt like a test.

If she cooked dinner, she'd study his as he ate the first bite--not as if she were thinking, I hope he likes my baked chicken, but more like, If he doesn't like my baked chicken, then he doesn't really love me. If he cooked dinner, she tasted everything very tentatively. If I don't like his broiled salmon, then he doesn't really love me.

Things went like that, like a series of tests: calling the day after a date, selecting a video to rent, going out alone or with friends, channel surfing on the couch, staying overnight or going home to get up early for work, touching which body part and by whom and in what order when making love. Often they managed to have a good time together, but sometimes it seemed like one test after another.

He must have passed most of the tests because, eventually, the relationship got serious. They picked an apartment together, which turned out to be a whole serious of tests. Whose stereo would be set up in the living room and whose in the bedroom? Whose pictures got hung on which walls? Where would the shampoo be placed in the shower? Who wanted which side of the bed? Would the bathroom door be locked, pulled shut, cracked a little, or all the way open during which grooming ritual or bodily function?

He loved her and wanted her to know that he did, so he really worked at passing her tests. He spent most of his time developing a mindset that could prepare him ahead of time for any test. The key to passing was simply giving in to her or making sure that she always got the whatever was first, biggest, best, easiest, most stimulating, longest lasting, or highest paying. He figured that the correct answer to every test question was pleasing her.

The ultimate test came on the day over breakfast (she got the last of the jam for her English muffin) when she casually said, "Maybe we should get married soon." Six weeks later, they did. Another test passed with honors.

The marriage, on the other hand, was the first test he failed. It took him ten years of frequent re-tests and make-up exams, but he failed it as badly as a freshman who parties until dawn every day of finals week.