Vicarious Lusts of a Bird

I told you Double-A didn’t always drive people off, but sometimes played matchmaker, in an attempt to satisfy vicariously his own avian lust, I suppose. I never knew if I was being set up with a tennis pro whose phone confessions I had already been suffering through for months out of my own charity, or maybe there was some man at the bar.
He started arranging outings with the group. I could never really fathom why, but obviously he needed a little practice socializing, and working through his anxiety, which was probably extreme even for a bird. I didn’t have anything better to do so I obliged and went.
Double-A would dare me to talk to a group of men, to kiss a man at the bar, and I did. I would report back to him their names, and what they did for a living, and other things. He’d dare me to kiss one. I would, and maybe play patty-cake with him, and have a laugh, then come back.
Apparently patty-cake is taboo in the bird world. He would get upset.
“Braaaakkk! … You played PATTY-CAKE?!?!”
“Well, yeah … that’s pretty standard where I come from – that’s how we greet one another.”
“PATTY-CAKE?!?” I suppose in the dark, hellish jungle where he originated, it was considered vile taboo to exchange elaborate and agreed-upon felicitous mutual palm-touching. From what I observed of him, that made sense.
What was I to say?
Double-A would want me to go back again, making suggestions beyond what I was willing to do; that disgusting bird. I never let it get to the point where I might find out what this really was about, whether he wanted to ride on my shoulder to some assignation – it was beyond anything I was willing to discover right then and I wasn’t going to do it at the behest of some dirty-minded, molting old bird.
I recalled a time I came in to find he had had designed a crude harness and informed me that he wanted to sell rides on my back. I humored him and let him put it on me, and I gave him a short ride around the office. I caught a glimpse of us in the mirror, and was shaken by the look of it, what I had submitted to. I finished neatly, pulled his harness off and cast it on the floor. That night, I wrote him a note telling him the idea made me feel degraded. It seemed maybe he had taken my point, but still insisted on calling me oversensitive.
“Why, Double-A, why the pressure? Why can’t we just have a good time? Here, ask me something else …”
Again, his chuffing, little chipped beak clicked a few times. We’d finish our beers. He hated when I talked, trying to shut me up and call me a liar if I went on too long, so I didn’t say anything.