Fool Circle, pts. 3 & 4

Fool Circle

pt. 3

I asked Connor what he thought I should do and I knew he wouldn’t know, but it felt good to let my sins breathe. It felt good to confess and to air it out.
“I honestly have no idea what to tell you, man. Are things between the two of you going to change now or what?”
“I have no idea, man. It fucking came from nowhere. You know how these things happen. I mean , , , I doubt it. We haven’t really spoken since. A few text messages here and there. She said it wasn’t really supposed to about reconciliation, but who knows, ya know?”
“Yeah, definitely. I’d just . . . uh . . . I don’t even know. You just gotta talk to her about it.”
“Talk to whom?”
“Well . . . both I guess. Or either. Both.” And I felt the muscles in my face start to manipulate my mouth and I tried my fucking hardest to fight it, but it was stronger than me. It’s always been stronger.
“I gotta go, man.” I said as I hung up on the phone and threw it to the bathroom floor. I stood up and looked at the mirror and I jumped when I saw what was staring back at me.
“Long time no see,” my reflection said through a grin that was covered in white splotches from Connor brushing his teeth too rigorously, “Thanks for that last night, by the way. It felt good to get out and stretch my legs again. How are you feelin’? God, can you believe how fucking wet she was?! And try to tell me that she hasn’t been practicing that dick sucking! She was better last night than she ever was!”
“Fuck you! You’re not me anymore!”
“Ha ha ha! That’s what I always loved about you: you actually believe your own bullshit. Nah, but this isn’t some Fight Club shit, man. Now is it? I’m not your other half trying to escape, I amyou. You’ve just lost sight of that. This person you’ve been for the past however many months, this good and faithful boyfriend, this forgiving and benevolent person, it’s a fucking façade. And a terrible one at that! And. We. Both. Fucking. Know. It. Don’t we? You’re a bastard; fucking rotten to the core. And nothing will ever change that. Not a perfect girl. Not two perfect girls. Not medicine. Not therapy. You’re the guy girls’ moms warn them about. You’re the guy Fiona Apple writes songs about. You’re the guy that turns broken-hearted girls into dykes and makes straight men fall in love with the same sex. You’re the fucking anti-Christ and you’ve been given one fucking purpose; one talent and you’ve suppressed and denied it for far too long this time. You were bred for this, man! YOU WERE MADE FOR THIS! You were spawned from infidelity and filth, raised on TV shows, fattened with flattery and set out into the world with nothing but your infamy and your nine inch pecker! Loved or hated, but always respected. And then you found the perfect girl, your perfect match, but you couldn’t handle it. You couldn’t handle the responsibility of being nice and honest and fucking decent. And you lost hhheeerrrr. And guess what?! Last night, you did it again, but you loved it, so stop fucking acting like you didn’t! Stop fucking cursing your nature! You think the wolverine pauses to wonder why it kills so mercilessly and without regard to survival? No. Not for one fucking second it doesn’t! And you feigned heartbreak! Oh shit! That’s my favorite part! You fucking acted like what she did was fucking unjust! And when this new girl turns around and does the same thing, will you pretend to be hurt then, too? Will you use your sob story to bag some more sluts? Of course you will. You’re the wolverine. You’re the Great White. You kill for pleasure and you fuck for your ego and you –“
“Shut up!” I screamed into the mirror, but it was already too late. The red, frustrated face afraid of losing Victoria and the teary-eyes of failed monogamy and loyalty were now imprisoned behind the dirty glass of the mirror and my past stood smiling at me, his hands gripping the sink; his head down, staring straight ahead into my eyes. His teeth bared and his upper lip curled like a predator revealing it to its prey as if to further torment it before effortlessly devouring it whole.
“Dude, don’t worry,” I said to myself in the mirror, “I got this,” and then I think I passed out.


I was driving Victoria to the airport when I got the first text message, although I didn’t realize it because I’d left my phone back at the house, but I believe that at the exact same moment in time that my phone received the text message somewhere in the impossibly distant universe a meteor crashed into a planet and killed whatever life might’ve been developing. Somewhere beyond me, twenty miles or twenty gazillion miles, there was an event that caused a series of actions that inevitably destroyed a blooming, wonderful creation that held such great potential.
“Why is it that every time I get in your car, I hear the same guy screaming in the same rhythm?” Victoria asked, her smile peeking through her hair. She held up a cigarette and I watched as her expression made it separate into a long piece and much shorter piece then the long piece curled into the top of a question mark.
“I don’t care,” I said as I rolled her window down a little and the sweet smell of fresh oxygen was instantly killed by the malodor of tar and tobacco and I was 7 and riding in the back of my mom’s car while she and her best friend, Helen, smoked and listened to Dr. Hook. I would always ask my mom to fast forward to “Sylvia’s Mother,” because it was my favorite song and when my mom would sing it it would break my heart because even at such a young age, I could tell that she felt those words unlike any of the other songs. And when she would close her eyes to assist in hitting some of those notes, I thought she was the prettiest woman in the world and I loved her so much and I didn’t want that song to make her sad, but she was prettiest when she was sad. They all are to me.
“Every song sounds the same!”
“You know, you can always listen to your own music on your iPod while you ride your bike to the airport.”
“Honey, I’m just fuckin’ with ya. I don’t mind it,” she took my hand with her free one and rubbed it with her thumb as if my being bothered by her comments was just dirt on my skin that she could rub off. To her, I was “honey” now, sometimes “baby,” and when we were around her friends, I was “dude.” Once again, I wasn’t just . . . me.
“Look, Vic, say what you want about any other band, but you know how I feel about Integrity.” I was just as guilty in my complacency, I suppose. I said, “I love you, Vic” as meaningless and lightly as I said, “Yeah, I’ll have a Coke.” And don’t get me wrong, I loved Coke, but you know what I mean.
“I know. I’m sorry,” and then she leaned over and kissed me on the cheek and I felt the heat of the nicotine in her breath and I hated it, “Are you gonna miss me?”
“What do you mean? Miss you when?”
“Ah! Fuhuck you!” she playfully slapped my arm and then took another long, healthy drag from her slow method of suicide.
“Oh! You mean when you die in the plane crash later tonight?”
“That’s fucked up,” and she used my name that time.
“Ha ha ha! I know it is. I’m sorry, but seriously, yes, of course I’m going to miss you.” I couldn’t even tell if I was lying or not. I was imagining god floating in outer space and jizzing and making the Milky Way Galaxy.
“You’d better, because I’ll be able to tell, you know? And if I can tell that you don’t miss me, I’m gonna go out and get me an Italian boy.”
“I thought you were going to Rome? Weren’t the Romans all homos?”
“You’re so cute. I love you, honey.”


“You wanna get ice cream now? I know the one girl who works at this awesome shop on Woodland and I get free ice cream any time she’s working and she works all the time.”
“What, you fuck her or something?” she was just joshing me, but she didn’t realize how right she was.
“No, I didn’t fuck her,” why start a fight?
“Okay, then let’s go get some free ice cre-“
“She just blew me once,“ why not start a fight?
“Ugh! Are you serious?”
“Who fucking cares if I am?”
“Really, I don’t. Not anymore. I’m done worrying about your dickhead antics and scumbag exploits. I’m an independent woman now and I don’t have to worry about some man breaking my heart or taking care of me.”
“Then why did you just let me buy you lunch?”
“Hey, man, I’m a real feminist. I don’t want equality, I want superiority!”
“I just want you to die,” I said with a smile, but that wasn’t what I wanted at all.
“I just want ice cream,” and we both laughed and lulled and stopped and sucked in the fresh late summer air, all in unison. And we were teenagers again, back in our hometown, making love on my bed, both climaxing at the same time. She was my first everything; my first true love, my first sexual partner, my first pregnancy scare, and my first heart-break. The history we had together was no doubt the best part of my life and would absolutely be the most difficult part to pen in my autobiography, should I ever write one. Our tracks were seemingly untraceable for awhile, but now, as we both walked through the streets of the city, I could so clearly see everything that I once saw in her. I almost said, “I’ve missed you” to her, but before I could make my throat sing the “I” sound, my phone buzzed with a call from across the Atlantic. I silenced both my phone and sentiments and just kept walking.


“So, this girl I’ve been seeing, Victoria; is it cool if I bring her to the Halloween party at the house?”
“Dude, it’s your house, too.”
“I know it’s my house, too, Connor, but I’m asking if you’d be cool with it.”
“If she’s still around come Halloween then, yes, of course she can come.”
“Alright, then I’ll invite her the next time I see her. By the way, what are you going as?”
“Fuck Halloween,” Reed said doing his best impersonation of a cynic. A cynic doesn’t have a smile that reveals a golden heart and a warm soul. He was a kitten in a lion’s costume and we all knew it, but what’d it hurt to let him perpetuate the charade? It made him happy to think that he was miserable and misanthropic. Why deny him that?
“I’m thinking about going as Hunter S. again.”
“Dude, that’s fucked up! You can’t repeat. I hate Halloween and even I know you can’t repeat,” Reed’s hat was now in the race. Or game. Which is it? His card was on the table. Reed had stated his opinion.
“Can’t repeat, dude,” I said.
“But no one saw me when I was him before and a great costume was never justly appreciated!”
“Then again, I’ve been going as a girl for pretty much my entire life,” they ignored me. I was 11 years old and I used to wake my sister up at 6 am to have her do my hair and make up before she went to class. I remember how my dad used to go to my parents’ room and just stay there until Halloween was over. I also remember how ecstatic and relieved he seemed to be when I brought home my first girl.
“What are you going as, Reed?” Connor asked taking another sip of the beer that I had bought for him as a payment towards my outstanding debt to him for covering my share of the water bill that month. It was a Tuesday night so we were down at the Iguana Lounge getting vegetarian tacos for fifty cents and having a couple of beers. Reed and I don’t drink so Connor was drinking our share for us. He’s good like that.
“C’mon! Are you fucking kidding me? I wouldn’t be caught dead dressed up for Halloween.”
“Why? What the fuck happened, man?” Connor asked, “You get molested by a dude wearing a sheet or something? Why have you always been so anti-Halloween?”
“You really want to know?”
“I do,” I did.
"Yeah, definitely," Connor did.
“Alright, I’ll tell ya then,” he looked around as if to check if any body was listening and then he lowered his head to the same level of his shoulders. Connor and I exchanged what-the-fuck looks, “I was about 12, okay? And I was super pumped for Halloween as any kid that age would be. I was going as a Ghostbuster.”
“Wait . . . which one?” Connor interrupted, but it was a poignant question.
“Slimer.”
“What?” I raised my upper lip and scrunched the skin on the bridge of my nose.
“Slimer, dude. I went as Slimer. Anyway-”
“You said you went as a Ghostbuster.”
“Yeah, no shit! I fucking went as Slimer! Now can I finish my story?”
“Dude, Slimer’s not a fucking Ghostbuster, he’s a ghost! He’s not a Ghostbuster.”
“He’s right, Reed,” Connor had my back. For once.
“Dude, he wore a fucking uniform in the some of the cartoon episodes!”
“So?! That’s the fucking cartoon, moron! That has no fucking relevance!”
“The fuck it doesn’t! It was authorized by the creators of the movie franchise and some of the episodes were even written by that one dude!”
“What one dude?” Connor is the only one not losing his cool. As usual.
“Bullfuckingshit!” I pointed my finger towards the table like my dad used to do when he was trying to make a point that no one else seemed to see.
“Dude, I’ll bet you a million fucking dollars!” To my knowledge, Reed didn’t have a million fucking dollars to be throwing around on bets like that.
“Hey. Hey! Whoa! Allow me to settle this dispute, fellas,” Connor the Mediator raised his hand, “Now, it is true that Slimer did, in fact, wear a uniform in some of the episodes of the cartoon and when Reed was 11 or 12 that would be particularly pertinent as at that age the cartoon was far more relevant than the films.”
“Okay, for Halloween last year I went as a Disney Character. Yeah, I was Regis Philbin!” I said.
“What?” a collective confusion left them conjoined.
“He works for ABC which is owned by Disney!”
“That makes . . . zero fucking sense and I’m not even sure if it’s true,” fucking Connor the Know-It-All Prick’s balls were growing as his inhibitions were shrinking apparently.
“Whatever. Just continue with your bullshit story, Reed.”
“It’s not a bullshit story, man! It’s a tragedy!”
“Alright, Shakespeare, let’s hear it,” admittedly, I was being a little belligerent.
“So, I went as Slimer and it was the first Halloween since my parents had gotten a divorce and my mom was still struggling pretty badly to make ends meet, so she obviously didn’t have a lot of money to spend on a Halloween costume. We improvised, though; we used green food coloring and an old white sheet and made me a Slimer costume. The only problem was that the sheet was really, really fucking big, but I liked it and wouldn’t let my mom hem it because it completely concealed my identity. Anyway, like all kids, I had my costume on like four hours before I even went out trick-or-treating and I was running around the yard in it. My dog, Sammy, was chasing me and trying to bite the excess sheet. Now, keep in mind, that I only had small eye holes cut into a sheet, so . . . zero peripheral vision, ya know? I ran across the street and Sammy followed me, but,” he paused and swallowed and looked like he was fighting the urge to cry, “I didn’t see the truck coming and I guess . . . Sammy didn’t either.”
“Jesus, dude. I’m sorry,” and I was sorry.
“Did Sammy get killed?”
“No, Connor,” and I thought Reed was taking the route of sarcasm, but then he continued, “Actually the driver swerved and hit a tree and he was thrown the windshield and broke his neck.”
“HOLY FUCK!” Connor grabbed his mouth, but mine remained agape.
“Are you serious, Reed?” I asked.
“Ha ha. No, not at all. I just don’t like Halloween. I think it’s a bullshit holiday.”


I had been caught red-handed and I suddenly understood how an animal feels when it’s backed into a corner and neither fight nor flight is, in any way, feasible. She was breathing heavily and seemed to be on the brink of a panic attack and for once in my life I was legitimately scared and I had no idea what to do.
“Tell me and don’t fucking lie! Tell me!”
“I . . . I . . . I don’t know what to tell you.”
“DID YOU FUCK HER?! YOU PIECE OF SHIT! DID YOU FUCK HER IN OUR BED?!,” It was ugly. I’d spent my life hovering above people, making them dance and do whatever I pleased with their strings that were tied around my fingers and suddenly, one of them looked up at me and said, “No! No, you mother fucker! It took me fucking months to trust you and you promised me that you were different! You promised me that I wouldn’t get hurt! I go away for a fucking week and you do this! I should’ve known! I should’ve fucking known better than to trust you!”
“Listen to me, just stop. Please. Just hang on a second. Calm down and let’s talk about this. Okay?”
“You fucking answer me right now or I swear to god that I will cut your dick off! I swear on my life that I’ll do it!” I knew it was just an exaggeration, but I didn’t dare call her bluff. We were standing at opposite ends of the room facing each other, but thankfully I was guarding the kitchen where all of the sharp, cutting tools were kept. She had my cell phone in her left hand and a lethal index finger on her right hand and that fucking thing had me in its sights and I was 9 years old again and every time that my father pointed his huge finger in my face it was like he was pushing an invisible volume button just a half of an inch in front of my nose. With each violent point, his voice raised and I jumped a little until finally I pissed myself and he was too drunk to realize that I was just a little boy who was afraid of the man he thought loved him with all of his heart. That I was just afraid of the biggest finger I’d ever seen slamming into my face and going right through my skull and killing me, “ANSWER ME, GODDAMNIT!”
“Please stop yelling. Let’s just talk about this.”
“FUCK YOU!” she screamed at me as I was doing my best to maintain eye contact. I could see that her knuckles were white from squeezing my cell phone so hard. She had it right at her hip like an Old West sheriff, ready to draw and take down the scumbag, horse-thieving, womanizing, cheating, dirty, rotten, no-good vermin. The vermin stood scared shitless, not sure what to do. She screamed the question at me again, "DID YOU FUCK HER?!"
Like rotten food that your body rejects, the truth erupted from my gut, nearly ripped apart my throat and spilled out of my mouth like vomit, “Yes. I did. I’m so sorry.” I dodged quickly to my left as my phone was hurled at my face. Then I watched as the sheriff fell to the ground, knees first, badly wounded.
“How could you? We were perfect. I loved you so much and I trusted you. How could you?”
“I’m sorry, Victoria. I’m so sorry.”

pt. 4

“How was the airport?” Reed asked as I came into the living room to find that he and Connor hadn’t moved since I’d left over an hour ago. Their toes were curling beneath their feet and through the carpet and the floor and running along the walls in the basement and searching down through the cracks of the foundation to find the inspiration to move. They searched in vain.
“What do you mean? It was an airport.”
“Yeah, but how was the send off?” Reed asked, but he was paying more attention to the game Connor was playing than he was to me. It’s as if he feels obligated to talk with me, like he can’t stand having a new entity in his environment without first pestering it.
“The send off was very bland; not at all cinematic.” That got a chuckle out of Connor and seemed to break the spell the game had on him.
“Did you see any Hare Krishnas?” Connor asked. Neither of them had still not looked at me. They were both transfixed on the screen in front of them. I thought of all kinds of dystopian social commentaries that could be made.
“I didn’t actually enter the terminal or anything, man. I just dropped her off.”
“Wait . . . you didn’t, like, sit with her until she got on the plane?” Connor said as he paused the game and finally looked at me.
“That’s fucked up,” Reed said agreeing with what Connor hadn’t even said yet.
“What?”
“You’re getting sick of her, aren’t you?” Connor gave me a concerned, almost maternal look, but behind it there was a more subtle message. A message saying that he knew it would happen and that I should just stop kidding myself. Or maybe I was only seeing what I wanted to see, “You should just drop the façade and stop pretending, man, before it ends tragically.”
“Tragically?! C’mon!”
“He’s right, dude. Not wanting to hurt her is just as selfish as just hurting her,” Reed advised pedantically.
“Where’s my phone?”
“It’s up on my computer desk and it’s been ringing all morning with calls and new texts,” Connor said as he un-paused the game and returned to a better place for him.
“So how much do I owe you guys for this session?” I said as I left the room and made my way upstairs to get my phone to read the text message that ruined everything.


I held Victoria until she stopped crying, but I still felt the pangs of guilt. I I was strangely comforted by that feeling because I knew that meant that the other day, in front of the mirror, was just a harmless hallucination. The kind I always have when life is pulling me under. I was 5 years old lying in my bed, staring out across the dark hallway in the empty room in which my Aunt Annabelle died. I was watching as my dead aunt sat in a chair, slowly rocking back and forth, her bouncing, burning red eyes illuminating the rest of her face and I was completely frozen; unable to move, unable to scream, unable to look away. She was holding a baby in her left arm and a knife in her right hand and with every other rock, like clockwork, she stabbed the baby in its stomach. But the baby didn’t weep, though, it just moaned like it felt good.
“Was it good?” Victoria asked me, finally able to look me in the eyes again, but only confrontationally.
“Don’t.”
“No, answer me. I won’t scream at you anymore, just please answer me. Was it good?”
“Yes, it was good.”
“Better than me?”
“Different.”
“Better?”
“I don’t know. I really can’t answer that.”
“Did you get off? Did she make you come? I never can. Did you come with her?” the hostility and anger in her voice was starting to escalate. What had I done?


“I’m kind of tired of walking. Let’s go do something that involves not walking,” she said looking at me from behind her free, huge, monolithic ice cream cone. The girl could eat and she never seemed to gain a pound. I’d always loved that about her.
“What’d you have in mind?”
“Fuck, I don’t know. It’s your city. Entertain me, man!” I’d always loved her dirty mouth, too.
“I just got a few movies in from Netflix, we could go watch those, I guess.”
“Yeah, alright, that’s fine. As long as I’m on my ass I’m good,” she said as she grabbed my wrist and pulled my ice cream cone towards her face for a taste. In the last second, I pushed it towards her with a little more strength than she was expecting and I gave her a cookies ‘n’ cream goatee. She hit me and called me a fucker and then lunged at me with her ice cream and I dodged her. She nearly went out into traffic, but I grabbed her, saving the day. Heroic.
“You better watch it or you’re gonna be soft-serve!”
“Oh my god, that was fucking bad!” she said rolling her eyes. She’d never admit it, but she loved my dad jokes.
“Hey, it’s all in Good Humor.”
“I don’t get that one.”
“It’s a frozen novelty treat brand name,” I explained, but she just looked at me blankly and then made a farting noise with her ice cream covered mouth.
The walk back to my house was rife with similar flirting and joking around and at several times she looked at me like she used to before I fucked everything up and I loved it.
“Where is everyone?” she asked as we walked in and started kicking off our shoes. She was actually wearing the shoes that I bought her for a few Christmases ago. Nothing fancy or girly, just Vans Classics.
“Connor is at Karen’s for the night and I have no idea where Reed is. Knowing him he’ll probably turn up in a day or two.”
“Ooooh! Got the place to ourselves, huh?” she did a little dance that was surprisingly attractive and endearing considering how awkward she usually is when she dances. I’d always loved that about her, though. I was 19 years old and we were in the mall wasting time and stealing CDs before the show and a Justin Timberlake song came on the radio and she started dancing in FYE and I wanted to die, but not before I married her and made her mine forever.
“Yeah, I guess so.” I said as I picked up the Netflix movies and began to read them aloud, “The Holy Mountain, Weeds Season 1, Mean Creek and Barton Fink.”
“I don’t know. Whatever you want,” and I couldn’t believe the words that had just come out of her mouth. I could, because I’d seen it coming all day long, but I couldn’t believe it was actually happening that way. You see, she's a huge movie buff and a bit of a control freak, so I knew something was up right away.
“You don’t care what we watch?”
“Not really.”
“Why is that?”
“What do you mean?” She said laughing a little. Her laughter was fake and you could barely notice it, but it was a little nervous. The butterflies in my stomach hatched again and my breathing became shallow. My body felt covered in IcyHot and swallowed hard as the crotch of my pants tightened. It was almost as if she’d forgotten who I was and what I was.
“Why don’t you care what we watch?”
“Because I just don’t particularly care about any of those movies.”
“I don’t think that’s it,” I said as I felt the dust blow off the gears of my libido. They coughed and puttered and then started to slowly grind again, “I don’t think that’s it at all.”
She shifted her weight from her right leg to her left and looked at me, squinting her right eye just slightly. She licked her lips. She blinked. I licked my lips. I didn’t blink.
“I don’t understand what you mean,” She lied and I could feel the gears and cogs coordinate and shift to make the right side of my mouth lift and my brow line sink. My heart was pounding a million miles power just to keep up with the new demand for blood below my waist.
“I think you do. I think you know exactly why I think you don’t care what movie we watch.”
“And why is that?” She asked, finally playing along.
“Could it be because you wouldn’t be able to pay attention to the movie anyway?” I proposed to her as I inched just a little closer to where she was standing.
“And why wouldn’t I be able to pay attention to the movie?” She backed up to the wall behind her, but only in preparation, not trying to get away from me.
“Because you’d be too busy thinking about other things.” I was less than a foot away from her. We were standing there, staring each other down, both completely aware of what was about to happen, but neither of us ready to go for it just yet. This was a long time coming, so why not take our time?
“And what other shit would I be too busy thinking about?” She bit her lower lip and seemed to squirm a little in that pleasant, anxious discomfort you get when you feel the chilly fingers of desire play your spine like a piano.
“Me.”
“You? You’re the other shit I’d be too busy thinking about?”
“Yes. Me.”
“And what would I be thinking about you?”
“Kissing me,” I said as I lick my lips and run my hand across her cheek and through the hair over her right ear.
“Wrong," she said abruptl; almost scaring me. Had I forgotten who she was?
“Wrong?” I kept my hand on her, but I recoiled a little.
“You were getting warm, but then you fucked it up,” she said as she put her hand on my chest. She took her eyes off of me and watched her finger slowly slide down my chest and abs and stop just before my belt line. She looked up at me; those fucking wild green eyes were feral with bad ideas and lewd intentions.
“Sitting on my big, rock hard cock and riding it until your pussy gushes.”
“Sorry, still cold.”
“Well then you tell me. What would you be too busy thi-,” I cleared my throat, it was dry. I was nervous. I swallowed what little saliva I had, “What would you be too busy thinking about?”
She spoke slowly and deliberately and enunciated every word, “I’d be too busy wondering if you were actually watching the movie or if you were sitting beside me with a throbbing hard on losing your mind over the idea of me slowly unbuttoning your jeans,” she bit her lower lip again as the palm of her hand slid down the front of my jeans and then right back up to my button, “and pulling out your big, hard cock and sucking on it.”
“I always loved your lexicon, baby.”
“Don’t go getting sentimental with me, you fucking pussy,” and in one impressive, deft movement, my jeans wear open in the front and she had me in her hand. I’d almost forgotten how rough she could be when she really wanted it.
I grabbed a handful of her hair on the back of her head and pushed my face into hers, “You think you can just pull out my dick and start sucking it with first asking for my permission?”
“I know that the bitch who’s been sucking your dick these past couple months has probably been doing a pretty awful job and it’s due time you get reminded what a good blowjob feels like.”
At the mention of “the bitch who’s been sucking my dick,” I started to panic a little, but then a wet, warm tongue on my neck, just below my earlobe, jerked me back into the world of selfishness. She was kissing my neck and for the first time in so long, I was just standing there, having everything done to me.
I took off my shirt and pushed her head into my tastefully hairy chest. She buried her face in my chest cavity and started to make her way down to my beltline, leaving a trail of kisses in case she got lost. My cock was still in her hand, but she was keeping it pointed towards the ground, like my dad showed me to do with my loaded rifle when he tried to teach me how to shoot a gun and, ultimately, a deer. I nearly blew off his foot and I remember right after the gun blast, his head turned into a giant balloon and he was screaming something at me and his voice just kept getting higher and higher and his head got larger and larger and then it popped and then I passed out. He wasn’t surprised when I turned vegetarian.
She was trying her best to rip it off, I think, rubbing it and jerking on it like there was some emergency that called for a penis. Like a “Break in Case of Horny” situation. From her knees, she put her hand on my chest then directed me and slammed me down in the recliner. Her mouth was hovering an inch above the head when she started talking her shit.
“Your dick feels like it hasn’t been this hard in a long time. You’ve missed me, haven’t you?” She licked the shaft with more gusto than she licked her free ice cream earlier that day, “Have you missed me, baby?”
“So fucking much.”
“That’s what I like to hear,” and then she swallowed the swollen head with minimal effort. I’d seen her struggle to do it before, as most girls do, but something about how badly she wanted it gave her some kind of super dick sucking ability. Like an adrenaline charged mother lifting a car off of her baby or something (I think my bad metaphors are really my best). Her head was bobbing up and down, but she didn’t break eye contact. Not once. Her green eyes were like ivy stretching out and grabbing each of my limbs and entangling me and imprisoning me until it slowly devoured me back into the earth; back into its womb.
After a few minutes of sucking my dick and playing the staring game, when she could start to taste the end approaching, she took to slowly stroking me off instead. She asked, “Do you think I’m wet enough that I could just pull my pants down and slide right down your cock or do you think I’d have to suck your dick some more and get it slippery again?” And I lost my mind.


She was outside the library with some other guy, and he was handsome, so it hurt even more. They were getting slushies from one of the stands in the park and I remembered when I explained to her how brain freeze happens.
“See, it’s not actually your head that’s cold. It’s really the roof of your mouth, but that area is so sensitive and so packed with nerve endings that it, like, sends a signal to your brain and your brain thinks it’s in pain, but really, it’s just the roof of your mouth.”
She saw me watching them and then I didn’t know what to do. She put her head down and said something to the guy and then the guy kind of, like, looked at me. He just looked at me. His look said nothing, not "get the fuck out of here," not "hey weirdo, what are you staring at?" not like "tomatoes.” It said nothing. Regardless, I felt obligated to go over and say something.
“Hi, Vic.”
“Hey, how’ve ya been?” she said rather quickly, as if she’d been practicing for when she’d inevitably run into me again. She didn’t use my name, either.
“I’ve been well. How about you?” I lied.
“I’ve been good, a lot better. This is my Justin, my boyfriend,” she was stumbling over her words. "My Justin?" But still, she was sure to add the qualifier.
“Hey man,” I reached out and shook his hand. He cheated and grabbed my hand too early causing me to get a not-so-good grip and thus he won the silent handshake battle. I figured I’d just get him next time. Justin then nodded and said hello in a polite, but obligatory manner.
“Well, we’d better get going. It was good seeing you,” Victoria said grabbing Justin’s arm and leading him away causing him to drop some of the change the slushie girl was handing him. I considered picking it up and putting it in my pocket, but I thought better of it. I also just considered writing about how Victoria and Justin pretty much ran away from me, but I think that was implied anyway.
Then I found a nice bench in the shade and I pulled out my phone to leave my third message for her that week. I shouldn’t say “leave” though as every time I’ve chosen the option to just delete it as soon as I’m given the opportunity.
I dialed her, listened to it ring six times, knowing fully well that she wouldn’t answer and then I listened to the outgoing message she’s had since she got her cell phone number like three years ago. It still bothers me that she keeps that same message. The message is an inside joke we used to share. It’s a horrible slang phrase from the 90s and we used to love to say cheesy shit like that to each other. Now the Verizon operator lady was giving me my options before leaving my message. Finally, it was my time to talk.
“Hey, how’s it going? I’m just calling to let you know that I just ran into Victoria and her new boyfriend. They’re doing well, she says. She looked at me like I was Tom Cruise in Vanilla Sky post-car crash. I’d extend you a sarcastic word or two of gratitude for that, but it’s just as much my fault. Or maybe it’s completely my fault. I don’t know anymore. I don’t know how I fucked up so much. Some people spend their entire lives searching for the right person and I was lucky enough to find a perfect match twice and I ruined both of them. It might also please you to know that you’re still the last girl with whom I’ve had sex. When Victoria came home from Italy, she could tell something was wrong and it was only solidified when we didn’t make love the night of her return. She stole my phone the next morning and saw the texts you and I were sending back and forth. Her favorite was when I said, ‘I haven’t had my brains fucked out like that in so long.’ My favorite, however, is still, ‘Sorry, but that wasn’t about reconciliation. I thought that was mutually understood.’ Karma rears its ugly head, huh? I wish I would’ve just ignored your first text. Or maybe just fucking looked at my phone before I answered it that first night you called me. While I’m wishful thinking, I wished I’d never let you go away to college. I wish I’d talked you out of it. I wish I’d never had sex with that dumb slut at that party. I wish I weren’t me. Anyway, I would, honestly though, like to extend you a real, earnest, genuine ‘thank you’ because you’ve helped me realize that I need to get some shit in my head straight before I even look at another girl. So, truly, thank you for that. If nothing else, thank you for that. And for three of the best years of my life. I went to your Myspace a few times and apparently you’re back with Nick. I’m glad. He seems to be good to you. If you never tell him about that night and manage to keep your second chance in tact, I don’t blame you. Who knows if I would’ve ever told Victoria had she not found out for herself. Anyway, I should get going and I’m sure my time is almost up. I hope this message finds you well.” and just in the nick of time, as I had suspected, there was a beep and then the Verizon operator lady returns and gives me my options. She tells me that I should press 1 if I want to delete the message and record a new one. I hang up on her before she can finish. Deciding that this pigeon will fly.


I watched her all night; chewing on the end of her pen and peeking out from behind her thick Sociology book every so often to look to see if I was looking, too. She was very attractive, breath-takingly so and just my type exactly. Not to mention that she was wearing a Jets To Brazil shirt. It took every part of me to keep myself from going over and saying something to her. But what was I thinking? I couldn’t leave the message I’d just left two hours only to go and ask another girl out on a date. Thankfully, it was the library so I could appear to be too busy to go introduce myself. I thought I could just stay planted in my seat reading my Eggers book and mind my own business, but just when I was somewhat thankful for living in a society that subliminally tells our women to take subservient roles, I found out that my cutie in the Jets To Brazil shirt was apparently quite the little iconoclast. She looked at me again and saw me looking at her . . . again and then she stood up. I put my head down and said “fuck” underneath my breath and then I raised it just in time to see a beautiful girl standing right beside me. I smiled and then took a deep breath. She smelled like them. I couldn’t believe it. Goddamnit!
“Hi, I’m really sorry,” and she put a lot of Es in her “really” and I’ve always loved it when girls do that, “I know this is so creepy, but . . .uhm . .hi.” God she was perfect! Her dark brown hair pulled into a cute I'm-studying-but-I-still-can-be-attractive ponytail leaving just enough hair in the front to cover the left side of her face. She had a few tattoos on her arms that I could see, but they were feminine and well done and I was pretty sure that I recognized the art, too.
“Ha ha! Hey, how’s it going?” I extended my hand and she shook it and said it was going fine and then I told her to have a seat and then we talked. I complimented her shirt and she complimented mine, but said she thought their last record was “total shit” and I agreed wholeheartedly. She again apologized for being a creep and then told me that she’d seen my band play two weeks ago and she was really into us. I was surprised by a girl in a Jets To Brazil shirt liking my band, but I took the compliment anyway. She told me her name was Abigail, but hated to be called Abby and that she’d transferred here from NYU and was a senior. She was a vegetarian and she drank on occasion, but never really got drunk and she said she really admired the straight edge lifestyle, but I told her I wasn’t necessarily straight edge, I just didn’t drink, do drugs or smoke. I wasn’t about to tell her that I’ve had way too much promiscuous sex in the past to ever even consider calling myself straight edge. She told me her favorite movie was Annie Hall, but she agreed that The Big Lebowski was an incredible film. We spent close to an hour just talking and neglecting what we came to the library to do in the first place. We just talked and it was nice. Throughout the entire conversation I tried my hardest to steer clear of the major situation at hand, constantly bringing up new topics to discuss, but every time she would yank the wheel out of my hands and try to head inland again. I wanted to stay out at sea, where there is no time, just the sunrise and the sunset and the songs of the ocean. I’d talk about books and she’d tell me that I just had to see her collection. And I asked her how she thought I could be impressed with anyone’s book collection knowing that I’d been in a library before and she laughed. I’d talk about my cats and she’d say she wanted to meet them so badly and how jealous she was because she couldn’t have cats in her apartment. And I asked her why didn’t just get a hairless cat and throw its poop out the window, that way her landlord would never know she had one and she laughed. Talking about movies meant she wanted to see a movie with me. Vegetarianism meant she wanted to take me to a great veg place on Forward. Music meant she wanted to see my band again. There was no avoiding it and after awhile she just came out and asked it.
“So, I should probably get back to my place and finish studying there, where there are no cute distractions,” she flashed me a smile, “but before I do, maybe I could give you my number and we could hang out sometime. I’m gonna be honest, I really like you and I think that’s obvious, but you just seem shy, so I wanted to just come out and say it. In fact, I’ve already written my number here on this paper, so – here – you can just have this,” she handed me a slip of paper with her name and her number written in blue ink. I took a moment to admire how beautiful a girl’s handwriting can be. Then I prepared to crush her spirits.
“Thank you very much, Abigail. That’s so sweet of you to say, and I really like you, too, but I just . . .” I bunched my lips together and pushed them all the way to left side of my face, “I just don’t know if I can really hang out with you.”
“Oh my god! I’m so sorry! You have a girlfriend. Of course. I’m an idiot. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to-“
“No. No, I don’t have a girlfriend. It’s just that . . . I . . .” I looked around for help. Any kind of help.
“Are you . . . gay?”
“Ha ha! No. God, no! Not that being gay is wrong, I’m just . . . no. Not gay.”
“Okay, I get it. I’m sorry. I got the wrong impression. I’m gonna go,” she started to walk away, embarrassed.
“Wait, Abigail, stop,” I said, now standing, “It’s not you at all. You’re beautiful. In fact, I think you might be perfect.”
“I think you’re perfect, too. So what’s the problem then?”
“The problem is me. I fucked up one perfect relationship and then did the exact same thing with another perfect relationship just recently. I’m just . .. I need to be alone for awhile. I need to figure out why I’m such a fuck up.” And it started from somewhere in the back of the library.
“Well, that sucks. Do you still wanna hang out once in awhile, just platonically?” she asked, but not out of desperation, out of sureness that she’d found a really good thing.
“Yeah, definitely, but still . . . not just yet. Okay. Uhm . . . okay. Look, The Dark Knight Returns comes out in August, that’s 4 months from now. Why don’t we go see that together? Why don’t we make that our first date? I mean, if you’re not willing to wait that long, I completely understand.” It was steadily getting louder and louder by the second.
“I’m definitely willing to wait that long. Just don’t disappoint me and don’t, like, get ugly or anything before then,” she laughed and then leaned in and kissed me so softly that it felt like almost didn’t happen, but it still hit me so hard and nearly knocked me on my ass. At this point it was so loud that I could barely hear her when she said, “Oh, shit! This is so embarrassing, but I just realized that I don’t even know your name!”
I told her my name and she just nodded and smiled. She didn’t look at me strangely like people always seem to when they ask me for my name.
Now the sound of the piano was echoing through the halls and I could feel each note played so perfectly and chromatically; moving around me, bringing me back to life. Our protagonist was on the cusp of having his bittersweet epiphany.
I watched her gather her books and head towards the door and out of my life probably for forever. I knew the chance of us seeing each other again, even in four months when TDK comes to theaters was pretty slim, but I also knew that I’d been given a third chance that I didn’t deserve and I was going to try my best to take it, but even more than that I knew I wasn’t quite ready. Not yet. It’s like my dad always said, “If you love something, give it away, and if it loves you, it’ll come back.” I’m not entirely sure if he came up with that and it seems like sort of fucked up advice, but I think it really has relevance here.
“I hope to see you again, Abigail. I’m gonna save this,” I said holding up the slip of paper she’d given me, “I’ll be calling you in 4 months!”
“I hope you do, Dutch.”


The end.