by Julia Kent
“This is, without a doubt, the strangest client conversation I’ve ever had,” I blurt out. Innuendo dies when exposed to bluntness.
“TMZ has photos to prove that’s not true,” he counters. “I cannot imagine that your interactions with Spatula and Beastman weren’t worse.”
“You have a point.”
Laughter booms through the phone, along with a sigh, then a swallow that goes straight to my bloodstream. “How’s the house?”
“It’s beautiful.” Now we’re on firmer ground.
Firm.
No, Mallory! No! Stop thinking about firm and twelve inches and Will touching his balls while you touch your breasts and—
“It is. Why isn’t it selling?” Will’s voice is rich and complex. It reminds me of college radio, when you’re listening late on a Saturday night while everyone else is out on their third drinking binge of the week and you just want to catch up on political philosophy and introductory Spanish. The quirky, smart guy with the whiskey voice who plays a mix of Depeche Mode, Thermal and a Quarter, and college bands that are going to break out five years later and be called an overnight sensation but you'll know better.
You and your local college DJ with that voice that lights up your limbic system and melts your panties.
“Why isn’t this house selling? Because you have a secret porn production company running out of the house?” I choke out, trying to lean casually against the cool marble counter with panties that are in flames.
“Ah, so you figured it out,” he says in a conspirator’s voice, amusement tinging his words. “You’re a smart woman. I should have known you’d put the pieces together.”
“You mean there was no rental? This house really was a movie set? You’re actually Spatula and Beastman’s boss? I knew it. Will Lotham–former Harmony Hills quarterback, Rhodes Scholar, and king of the creampie scene.”
I didn’t know you could feel a spit take through the phone.
“For someone who claims she had no idea what a fluffer was, you’ve got a dirty mouth, Mallory.” He makes a sound, deep and amused, that connects to every red blood cell in my body, setting it aglow. “A dirty, filthy mouth.”
My dirty mouth goes dry.
Other filthy parts of me get very, very wet.
I breathe. I know I breathe because I don’t pass out, and generally speaking, that’s a good indicator of consciousness. Silence fills the air between us, no one making a sound. Nothing but the heavy rasp of breath.
As seconds tick by, I become more turned on, the outrageous cocoon of this surreal conversation spinning me into a hyper-aware state. He’s not even in the room with me. Not within my visual zone. We’re miles apart, connected only by jokes and innuendos.
And yet, what he does to my body.
And oh, what this man does to light up my mind.
“I—”
I have no idea what I’m about to say, but whatever it is, I’m sure I’ll humiliate myself.
And just then, my phone dies.
9
“You still have the best apartment of all of us, Mal, so if you ever can’t make rent, you know we’ll take this place off your hands,” Perky announces as she walks in with bags of Indian food in her arms and plunks them down on the big, reclaimed barnwood counter. She looks up at the ceiling, wide beadboard painted a soft, glossy white. No common plaster here.
This is the real deal, all finishes considered.
“Will Lotham is going to make it so I never have to worry about where to live again,” I inform her. It’s evening after my first crazy day working for Will and I need curry therapy. Perk and Fiona are here to administer it by mouth.
Perky pauses. “Because he’s proposed and you two are moving in together and getting married and having adorable babies with your perfect auburn curls and thick-lashed eyes?”
“Don't forget the dimpled chins and Perfect Taco Ratio Radar,” Fiona chimes in.
“What? No! Where on Earth did you come up with that?” Hope–a strange and fleeting feeling born of fantasy and subconscious wishes–makes my heart skip a beat and rush to catch up.
I also touch my hair involuntarily, because thanks for the unsolicited compliment, Perk.
“Ninth grade. Probably during a football game while we sat in the band bleachers. You told me that. And then you repeated it pretty regularly for the next four years.”
“I was fourteen!”
“You were still saying it at eighteen.”
“That was ten years ago!”
“But I’ll bet your fantasy factory is still working that Will angle really hard.”
Damn her. “How did we get from talking about my awesome apartment to Will Lotham?”
“Because you can’t have a conversation without mentioning him, Mal. It’s like high school all over again, only with more debt and no one’s a virgin.” Perky’s grasping a container of mint sauce like she’s holding it hostage.
“Pfft. The only one of us in high school who was still a virgin was Mal,” Fiona says.
“Uh, thanks? I guess?” I lean across the counter and start opening white take-out containers to find my order.
“I want to learn more about Will Lotham and how he loves your dirty, filthy mouth,” Fiona announces, hands under her chin, giving me a wide-eyed ingenue look that is better than any truth serum. “He said that? And then you let your phone die?”
“I didn’t let my phone die,” I argue.
Perky and Fiona glare at me.
“I didn’t! It wasn’t intentional.”
“It’s never intentional,” Perky snaps back. “But look at the trouble it causes. First, you end up on a porn set with pictures of you all over the internet and almost get arrested because your phone died before I could explain what a fluffer really is. Then you lose out on some great aural sex with Will!”
“What? Oral sex? How the hell did you get from phone sex to oral sex with Will Lotham? We weren’t having oral sex! He only touched his balls and I only touched my boobs!”
“A-U-R-A-L sex,” Perky says slowly, spelling it out. “You know. Phone sex.”
“Will was not trying to have phone sex with me!”
“He totally was. Boobs? Balls?” Perky takes two vegetable pakoras out of the aluminum foil wrap and holds them in her hands suggestively.
“Was not!”
“Mal, when was the last time a client told you over the phone that you had a dirty, filthy mouth?” she asks, dropping the pakoras and tearing off a piece of naan bread, chewing while waiting.
“And touched his junk while talking about your tits,” Fiona adds.
“Stop saying that word,” Perky says, turning her attention to Fi. “You know I hate that word.”
“Tits!” Fiona says, because we’re frozen in time at age fourteen.
“Tits,” I add, because. Just... because. See above.
“I hate you both.” Perky dips a pakora in the mint sauce, taking a big bite. It looks like she’s teabagging Shrek’s ball.
“You can’t hate me,” Fiona declares. “Because I am in charge of the honey-raisin naan.” Holding up the warm, foil-wrapped treat, she grins, triumphant. Every time we eat Indian, we overstuff ourselves at the end with the sweet bread. It’s tradition.
She who holds the honey-raisin naan rules the world.
“You’re right. I love you, Feisty,” Perky mumbles around her mouthful of Shrek.
“Don’t call me that, Tits.”
“Did he call you back?” Perky asks, changing the subject away from anything that draws attention to her breasts, which have been viewed more times than unboxing videos of Elsa dolls on YouTube.
“If he did, I wouldn’t know. My phone died and then I just came home.” I spread my arms out as if I’ve invited them on a house tour.
“So that’s it? You left each other hanging? Because when I have phone sex, I always have to take care of business.” Fiona clears her throat like she’s being suggestive but she just sounds like an actress in a
post-nasal-drip medicine commercial.
“I did take care of business. I arranged Will’s parents’ house and got rid of the bad chi. I put the peanut butter and the Fluff and bread away in the cupboard, cleaned up, and—”
“Not that business.” Fiona makes another sound like she’s clearing pebbles out of her throat with a bubble wand. “You know. Business.”
“You have got to be kidding me.”
“I never joke about business.”
“You can say the word masturbation, Feisty,” Perk informs her. “You don’t need to use euphemisms. We’re modern women.”
“Right. No more euphemisms,” Fiona says pointedly. “Like saying bosom instead of tits.”
Perky is biting into a green-covered pakora and makes a face.
“Bad pakora?” I ask.
“Bad friend.” Eyes narrowing, she glares so hard at Fiona. Doesn’t work. When you’re a preschool teacher with a class of four-year-olds, your skin becomes Teflon for angry stares from immature beings.
“We shouldn’t be arguing,” Fiona says softly, in that soothing tone she uses for correcting little kids. And Perky. “We have a common goal: to get Mallory to tell us why she didn’t let Will go all the way.”
“All the what?” My brain shouldn’t have to work this hard to understand them.
“Phone sex. You know. Why didn’t you let Will give you some relief?”
“Why do I tell you people anything?”
“Because you’re a masochist. I thought we established that a long time ago,” Fiona says, carefully spreading aloo gobi all over a plate covered with a thin layer of rice.
“Speaking of enjoying self-abusive behaviors, are either of you actually going to our high school reunion? Ten years, can you believe it? I got invitations by email, Facebook messenger, a direct message on Twitter, another one on Instagram, and some kind of text alert I know I didn’t sign up for.” Perky’s casual drop of this question sets my skin to Creepy-Dude-in-Back-Alley mode.
“I’ve been ignoring them all for months,” I say brightly, plastering a smile on my face.
“I downloaded the app,” Fiona cheerfully says.
“Our high school reunion has an app?” I choke out. As my mouth takes in the yummy curry I’m finally eating, my mind tries to parse what Perky’s up to, and my body keeps hijacking my heart.
“Everyone has an app,” Perky says with a hand wave.
“I don’t have an app!” I protest.
“You can’t keep your smartphone charged above six percent at any given time, Mallory. You don’t deserve an app.”
“That’s not— ” Fiona shoves a piece of pakora in my mouth before I can finish.
“I’m going!” Fiona announces, and my stomach craters. Herds move as one unit, but choosing directions takes a tipping point.
One person saying yes is one third. Two is—
“I’m going, too!” Perky declares.
A disaster.
“I can’t,” I inform them with an officiousness that peels my fingernails off. “I have to man the table at the Dance and Dairy festival for Habitat for Humanity.”
Check.
“No. You don’t. I already talked to Mrs. Kormatillo. She said they can find someone else,” Perky says.
Checkmate.
“Please,” I groan. “Please don’t make me go.”
“Why wouldn’t you want to go? You were valedictorian! You went to an Ivy League school! You came home and got a job with benefits and— ”
“I am the overachiever who never left and now I’m unemployed and fat.”
“Whoa! Who took Mallory and replaced her with her sister’s voice?” Fiona asks, shocked. “You just morphed into Hastings for a minute there. She was drunk the night she said that crap to you, Mallory. That was four years ago! Don’t internalize it.”
“And you are not fat.” Perky shuts one eye and examines me. “In fact, I’ll bet you’re within five pounds of high school weight.”
“I am.” I’m actually two pounds lighter, but I don’t say that aloud, because that’s just begging for the universe to throw three pounds my way.
“Stop calling yourself fat. You are an overachiever, however,” Perky notes.
“She is not!” Fiona jumps in. “Quit insulting poor Mal.”
“Overachiever is an insult?”
“It implies she’s pushed beyond her natural abilities. Like it's some kind of psychological problem.”
“You have a very negative view of the world for a preschool teacher, Fi,” Perky shoots back.
“Says the woman who hates everyone.”
“Not everyone. Just people who say the word tits.”
We settle in with our rice and curries and deep-fried chickpea flour concoctions and for five minutes, we shut up about the stupid reunion.
Five minutes.
That’s the outer limit of how long Perky can stay silent.
“So,” she says, exactly three hundred and one seconds later (yes, I clock watched), “Now that Will is back in town and the reunion is coming up—”
I start gagging uncontrollably on a piece of spiced cauliflower. Coriander burns when it coats your uvula.
Massive side eye gets thrown my way by my two friends. “You’re going, Mal,” Perky declares. “Plus, remember Rayelyn Boyle? She checked 'Going' on the reunion app.”
“Rayelyn’s going?”
“Your nerd friend,” Fiona says casually.
“Uh, she was just my friend. We were in all the academic curriculars together.”
“Right. Nerd friend.”
“If she was my nerd friend, what were you two?”
“Your hip friends,” Perky interrupts.
“Ha!”
“You live here. All three of us do. If we don’t go, everyone will assume we’re losers,” Perky argues.
“Or maybe they'll assume we’re mature women who don’t need to go back to some stupid high school nostalgic gathering where the popular kids relive their importance and the rest of us try to pretend we’re not still traumatized by the social dynamics of an oppressive system where people with underdeveloped frontal lobes were forced to operate by survival of the fittest!”
They stare at me.
“Wow, Mal. Baggage,” Fiona says, clearing her throat as I chug water to clear that nasty taste out of my mouth.
The taste of the past rising up.
My sigh comes out with more anger than even I expect. "I don’t have baggage. I didn’t. I didn’t until Will Lotham waltzed back into town and re-entered my life. I take a lot of crap from people for deciding to come back after Brown and live in my hometown. You both know that.”
Perky shrugs. “I don’t.”
Fiona smiles serenely. “I know what you mean. Our high school was so competitive. Leaving town was a sign of being serious about going out into the world and conquering.”
“But you’re a preschool teacher, Fi. You’re collaborative. Not competitive,” I point out.
A flash of emotion fires up in her eyes, tamped down quickly by some other part of her. “I used to be. I’ve mastered that competitive part.”
“Your kickass kickboxer part?”
“Right. She’s still inside me. Waiting. Watching. But that kind of anger and worry isn’t good to carry around. I let it go a long time ago.”
“You can’t,” Perky declares flatly. “You can’t let it go entirely. We carry alllllll our crap around with us on some level. I can decide to let go of my anger at Parker for turning our sexting into a worldwide meme about my boobs and two dogs screwing, but it’s always there.”
“Like Will Lotham,” I mutter.
“Exactly,” Perk says, grabbing her tablet. “Which is why you need to find an FWB.”
“No–she needs an ONS.” Fiona huddles heads with Perky.
The conversation has clearly shifted, but I don’t know in which direction. Like a sewage plant spill, the direction matters.
“What are you two talking about?
ONS?”
“One night stand,” Fiona says slowly.
“You need a date,” Perk says.
An image of Will in his suit takes over my mind.
“Do not! I hate dating.”
“Which is why you need it. When was the last time you got laid?”
I go quiet.
“Knew it! It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?” Perky’s tapping on her glass screen. The sound of fingers thumping reminds me of cantaloupes falling off a kitchen counter onto an area rug.
“The reunion is two weeks away,” Fiona starts, her voice making it clear she’s about to prove a point.
A point involving me.
“Yes?”
“So that’s two weeks to find a date.”
“Or two weeks to avoid, avoid, avoid and come down with strep throat at the last minute so I have an excuse not to go.”
“This isn’t debate finals, Mal. That’s not going to work this time.”
Tap tap tap.
“In!” Perky announces. “I’ve logged into your online dating profile,” she informs me.
“What? After that weird guy who bragged about how he scales his own teeth with a nine-dollar kit from DebtSlavesNoMore.com and showed me his DIY-dental channel on YouTube, you know I swore off online dating.”
“His videos were impressive,” Perky says. “I didn’t know gums could bleed like that and still heal.”
Fiona and I share a shudder that rates a 3.2 on the Richter scale.
“I am not so desperate that I need to find a high school reunion date on an online matchmaking website.”
Fiona and Perky look at each other.
“Come on!”
They turn their attention to the dating site.
“I’m just going to flip you to Available,” Perky announces, her fingertip slowly swiping. She peers at the screen. “When did they add Desperate as an option? Huh.”
“You have to field the dick pics,” I inform her. “No way am I sorting through those again.”
“Why do guys think that’s a good idea? Do we send them pictures of our labia?”
“Only when they ask,” Perky mumbles.
“You do not!”
“No. I don’t. I send back a picture of a huge cock and say, ‘Mine is bigger than yours.’”
