I think I broke him

"Have you ever wanted to buy me a special outfit?" I ask David.

"Pardon?" David asks, turning his head towards mine.

We're in bed, reading. He has a puzzle book and a pencil. He's writing in the margins. I'm reading a contemporary romance.

"Like, have you ever wanted to choose something specific for me to wear?"

 "Choose?" His eyebrows are frowning.

"Doesn't have to be clothes. Like a pair of sexy shoes. Or boots! You like boots." I smile and waggle my eyebrows at him. "I'm a size 9."

"No."

"Are you okay? You've gone a little pale."

"What? No, I'm good, I'm good."

"I mean, like if you found a pair of boots that Kalinda Sharma* would wear - would you be, 'I think you'd look good in these...'?" 

"Ummmm..." 

"Or, if you had a favourite outfit of mine that you'd like me to wear, you know, that you really LIKE?"

"NO!" He now looks like he might throw up a little.

"David?"

"Uhhhhh..." If I were interrogating him in a SPEC OPS unit, he would look more comfortable than he does now.

"Hey," I say, now fully turned towards him. "What's going on?"

"The... uh... the thought of me buying you something to wear, that you may or may not like, or picking out a dress for you? It really stresses me out."

"But if it's something that YOU'D like me in? It wouldn't really matter if it wasn't my favourite, if YOU liked how it looked on me. Haven't you ever seen something that you might want me to wear?"

He seems like he might be in a fugue state.

"David?" His eyes have definitely glazed over. "David??" I put my hand on his chest.

"I can barely pick out my OWN clothing!!" he explodes. "I stress over choosing SOCKS in the morning!! That's why I'm so glad when you buy me mix & match clothes so that I don't have to THINK about what I'm wearing!! CLOTHING?!?!?! Buying it, deciding about it, just for ME is STRESSFUL! Trying to choose something for YOU? I... It... I..." 

He is this close to hyperventilation.

"I just thought because I always like it when you get all dressed up. Like if you even shine your shoes for me..."

"Yeah, but you BOUGHT those shoes for me!! I didn't CHOOSE those shoes!!"

"What if you were choosing from the dresses that I already have, or the boots I already have?"

"I trust your judgement!!"

"You don't have a favourite dress that gets you all hot and bothered when I wear it?"

"I DON'T REMEMBER A SINGLE ITEM OF CLOTHING THAT YOU OWN!!!"

"Seriously?"

"SERIOUSLY!!!"

I'm taken aback. I could tell you almost every t-shirt that David has, what his underwear looks like, his dress shirts...

He starts laughing. "Right now, I'm trying to think of your dresses, and literally in my brain is the word GREEN with a question mark beside it!"

I snort. "Seriously?'

"Yes."

"So me saying that you could buy me a sexy pair of boots, that I would actually be wearing for YOU?"

"Scares the shit out of me. I'm on the verge of a panic attack right now." He's nearly hysterical with laughter. It's contagious. Very soon we're finding it difficult to breathe and are almost wetting ourselves.

"Oh love..." I smooth the hair from his forehead. "This was supposed to be like a sexy couples' thing to think of. Not pressure. I was just reading this book when the guy, he picked out an outfit and..."

"And that? That idea? Terrifies me. You... you have great taste in clothes. You always look good. You come downstairs all dressed up and I always think you look good."

"But you, having anything to do with the choosing of that outfit?"

"Not a perk. I will build you anything you want - a deck, a closet, a backyard studio. I will set up every piece of tech in this house, but please, please, please... I am begging you, don't ask me to choose clothing for you." 

"Okay... Okay... You don't have to choose clothing for me." 

"Or shoes!!"

"Or shoes. It's okay, love. It's okay, you don't have to." I hold his face in my hands and kiss him.

"Okay?"

"It's all okay."

His breathing has settled a bit. 

I kiss him again. "I'm just going to brush my teeth."

When I come back, David is looking through my closet.

"There are dresses that have green in them." He looks like he's won the lottery.

"Yes, there are."

"I DO remember some of your dresses."

I smile.

"If you ask me to pick between three dresses, I could maybe choose one."

"Only if you want to, love. Only if you want to."

***

By the by... David is the King of Thoughtfulness. Before we married, he had all of Shakespeare's comedies, in their folio editions, bound into hard covers for me, with every other page blank so that I could make acting notes. When I lost my mind as a working new Mom, I arrived home to a house full of lit candles, a glass of wine, a warm bath and a pair of earplugs to wear that night so that I could get a good night's sleep. One Christmas, he presented me with a calendar, in which he had booked us babysitters for 3 months, so that we could have date nights. My husband thinks of making my dreams come true, pretty much constantly. Just don't ask him to choose out clothing for me. ;-)

*David loves Archie Panjabi's character Kalinda Sharma from The Good Wife - mostly he loves her boots.