Fire Down Below

by Debra Anastasia

  “Is Duke your boyfriend?” He was speaking. To her.

  She looked up, and he was still there, facing the door but not gone.

  “No. I wouldn’t screw Duke with someone else’s ten foot pole.”

  The peanut gallery laughed.

  And then he turned.

  And then he walked to her.

  She held her breath. Johnson was so close, all green eyes and chiseled jaw and perfect scruff. He spoke too loudly, of course, but she loved his words.

  “I would like to be your boyfriend, then, if that’s okay with you?” Johnson’s lips were moving, so the words had to have come from him.

  She could only nod now. Her bout of coherent verbalization was as dead as the nerves in the tip of Duke’s penis. Johnson had just a half smile as he embraced her. She didn’t trust herself to move, afraid she would punch him in the nuts or turn her head the wrong way and bonk her nose against his. He put his hand in her hair and came so close it was as if he was going to kiss her. She watched as his lips got closer. She went cross-eyed for a bit and then had to look in his eyes.

  “Breathe, Dove.”

  This time his voice was a whisper, and it was the sexiest thing ever put in her ears. She also realized her lungs were dying the slow death of her numb shock. She took a breath and she could smell his cologne. Old Spice. She recognized it from her grandfather’s bathroom. She might have to hump the bottle the next time she took a piss at his nursing home.

  She gasped as Johnson grabbed her firmly and twisted her into a dip.

  This is it. He’s going to kiss me. Like a fucking movie star. Or a cartoon character. Like Minnie and Mickey. Oh God.

  He licked his lips, and the whole waiting room was on their feet, clapping and hooting. She’d blush, but all her blood was in her pussy, she was sure of it. She said a silent prayer that her mouth wouldn’t taste like ass he leaned in and kissed her softly. And his lips. And his taste. He was beautiful.

  He kissed her right here, where she thought she might die of shame earlier. He kissed her deeper, and she finally had the courage to wrap her arms around his neck. She was smooth, for once, when it mattered most. She wanted to dig up the tile floor, bronze it, and wear it as a necklace that said: He’s Kissing Me.

  And as he lifted her and set her back on her feet, she put her fingertips to her lips as if she could trap his kiss there. He put his arm around her like they’d been dating since third grade. She snuggled into him and wanted to bite his nipple like bubble gum, but she didn’t.

  Johnson looked the nurse up and down, “Where’s your hospital ID?”

  The nurse looked flustered. “I… uh… I inserted it anally into a patient.”

  Johnson and Dove shared a puzzled look. As if asking for her credentials had broken some good luck charm, another nurse—with ID—came onto the scene.

  “Mrs. Duffington. You made it out here again? I swear I’m calling the doctor right now to change your meds. These hallucinations are getting more and more vivid.” The real nurse turned to Dove and Johnson. “I hope she didn’t fool you. These meds she’s taking compel her to ask the most inappropriate questions. Honestly. Let’s go, Mrs. Duffington.” The fake nurse relinquished her stolen clipboard.

  Dove might have noticed that the delusional patient had a hospital gown stuffed into a pair of scrub pants if she hadn’t been so mortified about being in the hospital in conjunction with Duke’s dick.

  Johnson’s laughter was loud, as usual, but because he was hugging her she moved, too.

  I can’t believe I died of shame and went to heaven. Today is the best day of my life.

  Duke couldn’t help but be proud of his large, pointy, always-erect penis, but it hurt like a motherfucker’s motherfucker.

  And he was bored. The nurses were frightened of him—mostly because he kept begging them for dick drugs. He flipped through the TV channels at an alarming rate. At this point, he was just trying to break it. He missed Bobbin and Fordicks.

  Dicks. Ouch.

  So the piercing had been a shitty idea. It wasn’t his first and definitely would not be his last.

  A woman wandered into his room with a clipboard. “I’m Mrs. Duffington. So, you’re here about your penis injury, is that correct?”

  “And you’re here to pinch it? Or are you one of those bitches that insists on checking my butt every ten minutes for hemorrhoids? Cause the next bastard that puts their nose in the crack of my ass is getting a special fucking delivery of something my bowels have been cooking up.” Duke popped a warning fart as a threat.

  “No need to be rude, sir. I’ll just need an accounting of how this incident happened. They are considering pressing charges against your girlfriend, who—by the way—was just kissing another man in the waiting room.” Mrs. Duffington was all business with a splash of gossip.

  “Why are your tits saggy?” Duke pointed emphatically at the nurse’s misplaced—in his opinion—nipples. “That shirt looks like a fucking hospital gown. Nurses wear bras, and you don’t have one on.” He squinted his eyes the way he liked to when he was on to a faker.

  Mrs. Duffington gathered her wayward breasts closer with her clipboard.

  “How dare you!” She started backing out of the hospital room, trying to look more offended than caught.

  “Oh, the hell you’ll get away, you dirty bitch. You want a book report on my wanker?” Duke threw everything he could reach at the wall to call attention to his room. First, the remote, then his fork, and finally his food tray—complete with hospital slop—all took a flying ride. When he tried to hurl his call button, only the wire attaching it to his bed thwarted him.

  Pressing the button, his voice boomed and echoed about the nurses’ station down the hall. “Pecker pervert! Call penis 911! Pecker pervert with wild tits! Help!”

  The real nurses responded quickly. Mrs. Duffington looked guilty but also a little pleased with the genital talk.

  “What kind of place is this? I feel like I’m in the fucking zoo with the monkeys eating bugs out of each other’s asses! Get this nutball back to her cage. Son of a hairy nut sling. What does a man need to do to get a little penis privacy around here?”

  After a scuffle, in which Mrs. Duffington launched into a very demeaning tirade on the size of Duke’s bandage, the nurses were able to clear his room of the intruder.

  Duke scowled at the orderly who came in to clean up the mess he’d made. He hated the hospital room. No one ever remembered to close the goddamned door and sometimes—just some fucking times—he didn’t want the crack of his ass to have an interested audience. His choice to close the door had been taken away.

  He fiddled with his bandage as he tried to pretend the news about Dove kissing a dude in the waiting room didn’t make his chest burn a little. It wasn’t like he wanted her to be his girlfriend. It wasn’t like he looked forward to the times she came home from her horrible job and collapsed on his couch, exhausted and easy to tease.

  It wasn’t like that at all.

  He flicked the top of his penis wrap like he was playing tiddlywinks.

  Oops.

  “Fucking ducks.” Duke squirmed and tried to get away from himself.

  There was a knock on his door.

  “Smash a giant cactus up your asshole!” he yelled in an attempt to scare away the visitor.

  The door opened anyway. “Listen, I probably deserve to do that to myself while you watch. I’m sorry I disfigured your man meat.”

  And there she was, the girl he didn’t give a damn about, looking awkward as usual, except she was blushing and touching her lips. She was so fucking obvious. She might as well wear a shirt that said, “Someone just kissed the hell out of me.”

  He was willing to bet the day after the pharmacist plowed his nerdy self into Dove, she would walk around cuddling her pussy like a teddy bear. The quick flash of her creamy skin under the pharmacist’s hands in his imagination made Duke’s toes curl and his teeth clench with jealousy. He shook his head at his own stup
idity. She was like a sister to him. A sister who probably would laugh just as much as pant if he got her in bed.

  Awww. Fuck.

  He shook it off and tried to mock her. “You were just afraid you’d make my dick so irresistible you’d have to fight your way through the throng of women waiting to hump it just to get to your crappy apartment.”

  “Oh, you like girls? I thought your TV had convinced you to switch teams. Dick jewelry is a porn thing. Right?” She sat in the horrible vinyl chair.

  Duke shook his head imperceptibly. “So you had sex in the waiting room?”

  She squirmed and touched her lips again, and then she leaned forward as if he was her best girlfriend.

  “Oh my God! Johnson was here delivering drugs to the hospital pharmacy, and he was worried that you and I were together.” She added a disbelieving laugh that tore Duke’s heart open at the seams a little bit.

  She continued. “So of course I told him I wouldn’t screw you with someone else’s ten foot pole.”

  Duke gave her the laugh she was expecting but couldn’t meet her eyes.

  “And then he asked if I would be his girlfriend, and I said yes!” She had gotten squeaky in her excitement and clapped her hands together. “Nothing like this has ever happened to me before. I mean, I like him and he likes me back? I didn’t think it was possible, like, ever.” She sighed.

  “I’m glad to hear that, Dick Pickler. When do you have your first date?” Duke made an effort to pick his nose, keeping everything light and disgusting—just like she would expect.

  “He’s going to tweet me later. He’s beautiful and loud and beautiful. I just can’t imagine how I’ll ever manage to be perfect enough for him. I’ll die trying, though.” Dove made her hands into useless claws, surely picturing all the ways she could fall short of perfection.

  “You know, you’re pretty amaz—” Duke stopped himself as Dove’s phone alerted her to something more important than him.

  He finished his sentence in his stupid head. You’re pretty amazing flopping around in your pajamas on a Saturday, eating your cereal at my table because you hate to hear yourself chew and my TV is always on. You’re already perfect at being you.

  “It’s him. He’s tweeting while running again. It’s so adorable! He says, ‘Is asking your girlfriend for a date on the Twitter appropriate?’ What should I say?” Dove looked up and bit her bottom lip, composing the perfect response in her head.

  “How can I say ‘Fuck yeah!’ without saying ‘Fuck yeah!’?” Dove typed as she talked. “Absolutely. What time and what should I wear?” She batted her eyelashes at her phone and totally ignored Duke as she stared at her screen. They both jumped when it vibrated and rang.

  “Oh! He said, ‘Four o’clock post meridiem, Eastern Standard Time. Please wear all black.’ I’m going to just throw up; I can’t wait!” Dove typed in her response and pocketed her phone. “I’m betting he’s taking me to a Goth concert. I better ask Flower for advice, which I hate to do because, you know, the ten words. Hmm, I wonder if she can write instead? He’s so smart! Post meridiem? Seriously, that’s so sexy.”

  She was talking a mile a minute as she stood. Her thighs made a ripping noise as her heated skin unmolded from the crappy fabric of the chair. Duke didn’t even have the heart to crack a fart joke.

  “Sounds like he’s taking you to a fucking funeral. What Goth concert starts at four? Those bastards don’t even get out of their coffins before ten post meridiem.”

  Dove reached into the pocket of her shorts and pulled out a plastic daisy. “Got this for you. Well, I stole it from the waiting room. Plastic flowers are tacky; I’m sure they won’t even know it’s gone.”

  She walked closer and popped the green stem in his dick cast like it was a vase. He didn’t like that his genitals were now pushing up daisies.

  Dove kissed his cheek and patted his arm. “Sorry I sneezed. I hope you’ve learned your cock’s lesson. I guess I still owe you one.”

  Duke watched her turn and go. She was bouncy and happy. Her pharmacist had acted like a man and done everything Duke should’ve done months ago. Why did he think she’d always be single and around to watch him eat sausage?

  Le fuck.

  Dove did her happy nerd dance all the way down the hall to her apartment. Even the creepy Anastasias couldn’t sog down her delighted intellectual maxi pad. Debra Anastasia was wearing an obscene nurse getup. Mr. Anastasia was wearing what looked like medical tape fashioned in honor of Borat’s bathing suit.

  Dove grabbed her stomach and pretended to have a mad case of diarrhea to avoid the two freaks. “Sorry, got the shits. Later!”

  Debra Anastasia pushed more weirdness into the conversation by ignoring Dove. “We’re going to visit Duke’s dick. We’ve heard you mutilated it.” Debra Anastasia shook her head like Dove had pissed on some ancient eternal flame.

  “He wanted it. Listen, I have to get in my place.” Dove futzed with her keys, but she kept forgetting which one opened her door every damn day.

  Debra Anastasia reached into her purse and pulled out a variety of sex toys. One by one she handed them to Mr. Anastasia, who tucked each into his medical tape as if it were a naughty tool belt. Last, but definitely not least, was a cat-o’-nine-tails.

  “Wait! I made a card, and I’m trying to get everyone to sign it.” Mrs. Anastasia pulled out a photoshopped nightmare.

  The front of the card pictured a huge phallus with a spike through its tip. As Dove accepted the card and a pen from the overly prepared porn writer, she was reluctant to see the thoughtful message but read it anyway.

  It was signed by a buttload of people. Debra Anastasia had left her two-lipped mark. Mr. Anastasia left a mark that could only have been inked by his perfectly healthy penis.

  “You guys didn’t want to just sign your names?” Dove wanted to light the card on fire like the abomination it was. Just for touching it, she wished her hands would curl up and blow away like ash à la the Wicked Witch of the East feet.

  God, that part of the movie was freaky.

  Debra Anastasia smiled widely despite her crappy poetry that called Dove a bitch. “See? Those are my vagina lips.” She pointed to the obvious mark.

  Yuck.

  “That way Duke can cut out my and Mr. Anastasia’s spectacular parts and watch us have sex. Sort of. It’s like portable, low-tech porn.”

  Dove looked incredulously from Mr. Anastasia to his wife and back again. There were times she thought the man looked like he wanted to run screaming, but then Debra Anastasia would seem to sense it, too, and manipulate her fun bags in such a way that her husband would just smile.

  I bet Debra Anastasia has a suction button or something on her pussy. Why else would that poor man stay with her?

  Dove hastily signed her name under the word Sorry. She noticed that Preston had signed it, as well:

  The Frenchman had made a little heart after his name, so maybe it was an apology in French? Who knew? Who cared?

  Johnson is taking me on a date!

  Dove felt her boobs heave in excitement, and she shoved the card at the Anastasias. As an afterthought—an evil, evil afterthought—she added, “You guys should go visit a patient named Mrs. Duffington. She told me she was a big fan of your writing.”

  When Dove finally unlocked her door and stumbled into her apartment, she felt a little tiny bit guilty—mostly for Mr. Anastasia. She forgot all about them, however, when she spied Steve the Cat licking his privates just inside the door.

  Dove decided to try a new tactic: maybe if she treated him like a cute cat, he would act like one.

  “Stevie-boy, quit doing your laundry! Mommy’s got a date! With Johnson! Remember what his balls tasted like? Well maybe by the end of tonight, we’ll both know!”

  It was like trying to talk to a very angry senior about why he was not going to get his AARP discount—not successful. Dove giggled a little, but it sounded false. She stepped carefully around Steve, who had stopped his licking to listen
to her weird baby voice but remained spread eagle.

  “Close your legs, freak show, no matter how many times you lick them, your nuts will never grow back.” The cat seemed pleased that she had returned to her normal tone of voice.

  It was time to get dressed. In all black. Dove pictured Johnson in Goth attire, and it was insanely hot. Guyliner and black polish—maybe leather pants? It was all a fabulous win for her womanly parts. Her pussy was so excited she half expected it to crawl down her leg and put on its own pep rally, bonfire and all.

  “Go Team Bodily Holes!” Dove laughed again.

  She was stupid with happiness. But she had to call Flower to arrange her outfit. Dove dialed the number and waited. Would the woman waste a word to say hello to a caller? Hopefully Flower utilized her Caller ID because a run of telemarketers would sap her word bank for a day.

  After the third ring, Dove could hear the phone line was open—no more ringing. Dove waited and was surprised when Flower slammed the phone against a hard surface three times. Dove rubbed her now-throbbing eardrum. So this was how Flower said hello on the phone. Dove wasn’t worried about the telemarketers anymore. She explained her dilemma and waited. There were two more loud slaps before the call was disconnected.

  Was that a yes? No?

  Dove shrugged and made her way up to Flower’s apartment. It would be her first time in the silentish Goth’s home, and she was a little worried. She was expecting décor consisting mainly of broken Christmas decorations from the Save-Mart 90% off sale. When Flower opened her door, Dove wasn’t sure she should be pleased that she was right on the money. Armless Frostys, broken animated deer, and a glorious fake tree shaped more like a bush filled every corner of Flower’s apartment.

  “Great place.” Dove tried to force the sarcasm out of her voice.

  “I will make you a Goth Princess.” Flower disappeared behind a wall of old Christmas cards. Dove was scanning over 2001, 1998, 2007… all wishing the recipient the best year ever when Flower burst back into the living room, holding a very large dress covered with a Hefty bag.