Form 11-B, Kissing Optional

“Sabotage?” Niles demanded.

“Please,” Rufus said through the glass. “If I planned this, the confetti would be biodegradable.”

Crispin raised one hand from the extension cord. “Before anybody assigns criminal intent, I should disclose a repair.”

Merritt’s mouth went flat. “What repair?”

“The binder jammed Tuesday. I fitted a surplus motor from an automatic-door assembly. It appears to distribute paper with civic enthusiasm.”

“Crispin,” Rufus said, “you have invented a leaf blower for forms.”

“It was meant to turn pages.”

Merritt unlocked the panel. Rufus emerged with a card stuck to his sleeve: WHO CAN GET YOU HOME?

The three judges had begun picking cards from chairs, plant pots, and Niles’s shoulder. One man read the question, then the smaller print beneath it: NAME A PERSON. NAME WHAT THEY NEED TO KNOW. NAME WHAT STAYS YOURS.

“That,” Judge Parikh said, “is rather good.”

Rufus glanced at Merritt. The old instinct offered a wisecrack, fluorescent and useless. He let it pass.

“It came from a speed-dating disaster. People did not want a lecture. They wanted a way to say who could help without making their whole life public.”

Merritt squared the next card. “The system permits partial answers. It tells people to call, not guess. It treats precision as care rather than interrogation.”

Judge Parikh wrote something down. Niles sat abruptly in a folding chair.

The result arrived before lunch. Their booth had won the roof terrace—not because its binder survived, which it had not, but because participants could use it after a bad date, a locked door, a migraine, or merely a night when nobody knew whom to call.

Rufus refused the prize alone. Merritt did too, with more citations.

So the terrace became theirs together for the year: workshops for adults who hated paperwork, absurd scenario cards, and a tea service of startling quality that they regularly abandoned until cold. Eudora retired her neutral checklist to a drawer in her front hall, where it would menace no one except the stationery.

That evening, the Annex had emptied. Merritt found Rufus on the terrace beside the new sign.

“No strategy meeting?” Rufus asked.

“No strategy.” Merritt set down two mugs. “I choose you.”

It was almost alarmingly direct. Rufus put his hand on the doorframe, then made himself release it. “Good. I choose you too.”

“May I kiss you?”

“Yes.”

Merritt kissed him until the city became an administrative inconvenience. “May I touch you?”

“Yes. Very much.”

They used the emergency blanket across the bench, laughing when it crackled like a snack wrapper. Shirts came off. Merritt stroked Rufus’s cock, slow and sure, while Rufus opened Merritt’s trousers and returned the attention. Their palms moved together over slick skin until Rufus came against Merritt’s hand, then held him as Merritt followed, face tucked at Rufus’s neck.

Afterward, they dressed poorly and drank cold tea.

Training Transcript, Camera 3: Form 11-B is optional. Subject Vale takes Subject Bell’s hand on the terrace. This recorder recognizes a good ending when it sees one.