How to Avoid Sex

by Revert, Matthew

  I spend some time drawing up a blueprint of the apartment and dividing it into quadrants. I’m going to approach this with the precision of an archaeological dig. Every cell of the apartment will be thoroughly examined. I’m going to find this fucking nook. I’m going to cordon it off and the next time that fucker, Greg tries to slip into it, he’ll fail and I will never let him live it down. I’ll go to his place and find my own fucking nook and rub his face in it. Of course, that means I’d have to go to Greg’s, but I’d be willing to do that in order to screw him over.

  …

  Why can’t I find it? What the hell’s going on here?

  …

  Morning brings nothing but the grisly reality of a sleepless night. The veins in my eyes are so engorged they look black and wriggle like decapitated snakes. I’m trying my best not to throw up last night’s beer. The sheer quantity of upchucked muck soaking my nightgown suggests that I’ve been unsuccessful.

  I decide to call in sick from work. I need to pour all of my focus into finding the nook. Greg will inevitably be here tonight and if the nook hasn’t been located by the time he arrives, I doubt I’ll cope. Nothing has ever felt so important.

  I deduce that the nook must reside within the walls – it’s not logical to assume anything else. I’ve seen enough movies to know that you can tap on a wall to find hidden hollows. I spent many hours last night drawing up numbered grids on my walls. Each square in the grid will be thoroughly tapped. If I hear something untoward, I’ll tear the fucking wall down. I only wish I knew what to listen for.

  I have a stethoscope, which I stole from a doctor during a thoroughly unprofessional prostate exam back in the 90s. I press it against the wall and listen… nothing… I repeat the process… nothing…

  The hours pass…

  Still nothing…

  Waves of frustration and tension are crashing against my skull. Why am I doing this? Can’t I just let it go? If I suck up to Greg and swallow my pride, he’ll tell me where this damn nook is. I begin to rehearse the conversation in my head. I’ll offer him a beer. He’ll offer me some shitty VHS porn. I’ll accept it in the spirit of friendship. We’ll talk about child stars of the 80s for a spell and then… then I’ll very calmly apologise for last night’s outburst and simply ask him where the nook is. He’ll be happy to tell me and we’ll get drunk and laugh about it and he’ll joke about doing inappropriate things to my mother. It will be the same as it always was. I’ll even learn to feel comfortable in my apartment again.

  These are calming thoughts that allow me to refocus. I press the stethoscope back against the wall and continue my fastidious listening game. A faint beating sound begins whispering in my ear. My eyes bulge like aroused trousers. I move the stethoscope wildly, ignoring my carefully ruled grid. The beating grows fainter and louder in response to my jerks until the beating explodes in my eardrums. The beating has a familiar rhythm. Fuck that sounds like a heartbeat…

  I run toward the kitchen and fish a handful of forks from the drawer, before returning to the entombed heartbeat. I start slamming the handful of forks into the plaster, chipping away at its surprisingly weak constitution. It falls away and coughs plumes over my body. I’m experiencing my apartment in a brand new way and it feels good. I’m really getting to know her. I’m uncovering secrets that no one else knows. Not even Greg!

  Within minutes I’ve really opened the wall up. I don’t know what I’m expecting to find, but the anticipation thrills me. I find a cigarette lighter in my hair and illuminate the cavity.

  There’s nothing - just melancholy, lonely space. I drop to my knees and feel earthquakes of pain in my bones. I close my eyes to satisfy the burning sleeplessness. I suppose I’m going to fall asleep.

  …

  The sole of Greg’s shoe mashing my face wakes me up. I cough up a ball of soggy plaster and wheeze my way back into consciousness.

  “What the fuck, man?” he asks.

  Greg is surveying the gridded walls, the mess, the damage. I’ve never seen him so confused.

  “I think you’re cracking up.”

  “I lost something… I’ve been looking for it… it’s important.”

  “Yeah… must be pretty damn important.”

  He waltzes over to the fridge and exhumes a beer. He sits down on the couch, puzzlement contorting his face.

  “Wait a minute! Is this about that fucking nook I found last night?”

  I work my way onto all fours and begin crawling toward him, shaking my head like a seizure.

  “No. I’ve forgotten all about that,” I lie. “I’ve been looking for my Sega Dreamcast. Do you have it?”

  Why can’t I just tell him the truth? Greg starts laughing callously.

  “Just ask and I’ll tell you where it is.”

  I sit silently, biting my tongue until blood drizzles from my mouth.

  “Or don’t,” he continues, “and I’ll slip back into the nook and taunt you.”

  “Fuck you,” I seethe.

  “Fine!”

  He sets down his beer and walks confidently past me. I try to scurry after him on my hands and knees, but fall onto my stomach. Seconds later, Greg’s muffled voice starts assailing my ears again.

  “Seriously, man… I can’t believe you haven’t found this. There’s enough room for me to walk around. It could be used as another room if you were desperate.”

  I get to my feet, orient myself and start pounding on the walls.

  “Where the fuck are you?” I scream.

  “Ask nicely,” he jokes.

  “This is my apartment. You can’t do this to me.”

  His laughter starts again. I can no longer hear frivolity in his cackling. It pummels me like angry fists. How could he be such an asshole? Once again I try to locate the origin of the sound. I walk past the hole I forked hours before and peek inside. The laughter clearly isn’t coming from here. I turn around and there he is, standing before me, arms crossed and intimidating.

  “We had a bet, dude,” he says.

  “Just tell me where the nook is.”

  “No, no, no. Go grab the VCR and some porn of your choice. We have some vids to watch first.”

  I slump my head forward and mindlessly obey. I forage the VCR out of the laundry cupboard. The waft that hits my nose doesn’t even smell familiar anymore. My home has abandoned me.

  The VCR is covered in A-Team stickers and dried jam. I don’t even know if it still works. Drool leaks from the interior, as if it’s involved in deep sleep. I drag it by the power cord and walk toward the lounge room, where Greg sits, full of sickening self-satisfaction.

  “Can you set it up? I need to get some porn.”

  He nods before picking the VCR up and cradling it in his arms. He strokes it like a kitten and whispers something at it that I can’t make out. I can’t help but think he’s letting it know where the nook is.

  The wardrobe full of porn is intimidating and fills me with unwanted arousal. I don’t even know what to choose. Preferences aren’t jumping out at me. I pick a few at random and stop to look at the covers. I don’t want to watch this shit with Greg. The gaping pussy on the cover of GANGBANG GIRLS #19 is really turning me on. My cock is throbbing in synchronicity with the ache in my head.

  I hear the television moaning as I approach the living room. Greg has the VCR up and running, albeit at a slowed down rate. I’m on the screen. The footage must be at least five years old because I have a potent neck beard. I’m asleep on the couch. Greg, also in possession of a neck beard, is standing over me naked. Greg is saying something to the camera that I can’t make out through the slo-mo distortion. A rictus paints his face, flashing those grey teeth I’ve recently come to dread.

  “What is this?” I ask.

  “It was stuck in the VCR. Come and watch.”

  He pats the couch cushion next to him. I don’t feel as if I have a choice. I’m sitting next to him and I don’t remember moving to achieve this.

  “I used to record you whi
le you slept.”

  He says it without emotion. He starts rubbing his thighs.

  “You should see this bit,” he says with a slight nudge of the elbow into my side.

  His pernicious nudity flickers and jumps as the tracking tries to settle. I watch Greg caress my head while his penis breathes in and out. He starts to rub it over my face, leaving a trail of pre-cum in its wake.

  “When did you do this?”

  “A while back.”

  “Why?”

  “Coz it’s fucking hilarious!”

  The imagery remains, even when I close my eyes.

  “Don’t close your eyes, dude,” he says with a slap to my face.

  I open them again. Greg’s masturbating above my sleeping face, knocking his cock against my lips. His hand has ventured between my legs and starts to squeeze as if he’s testing for the perfect mango. His masturbation intensifies. His body shudders while his cum leaps over my face. He gives a thumbs up to the camera and the image disappears. I’m asleep the whole fucking time.

  I remain staring at the screen, unsure what to make of it all.

  “What do you think?” he asks with a wink.

  I don’t even begin the psychologically damaging act of considering this question.

  “Where’s the nook, Greg?”

  He stretches his arms toward the ceiling and makes a real show of yawning.

  “I’ll tell you tomorrow, dude. I’m really fucking beat.”

  He pats me on the shoulder and leaves. I can still feel his residual warmth on the couch beside me. It stops me feeling completely alone. An episode of ROGER RAMJET flickers on the screen before me.

  I very calmly stand up and leave the apartment.

  …

  I return with a sledgehammer borrowed/stolen from a neighbour and feel its hefty weight in my hands. The walls of my cheating, lying whore of an apartment tremble and plead. No fucking mercy.

  The sledgehammer decimates all it collides with. The walls begin to crumble and sob. Each strike sends reverberations throughout the apartment and blood to my cock. Each new section of wall is Greg’s face. I destroy him over and over.

  “Where the fuck are you!”

  The nook remains elusive, but I remain determined. If she refuses to give me her secrets, I’ll take them by force.

  “You were supposed to love me!”

  I set the sledgehammer aside and start crushing the wall with my fists. It feels better this way – more intimate. It doesn’t take long before my knuckles have pulped into a mess, but the burning sting feels so good.

  More and more of the wall is crushed at my feet and finally, I find something. A scrap of paper floats to the ground. It’s covered in handwriting. It’s covered in Greg’s handwriting. It reads:

  We can’t keep this from him forever.

  One day I’m going to have to tell him.

  He thinks you belong to him.

  It hurts to see you with him, acting like I don’t exist

  Shock overtakes me and I can’t stop my teeth from chattering. I feel desperately cold and hug myself for warmth.

  “Why Greg?” I ask.

  I receive no response.

  “Nobody has ever treated me like I treat you.”

  I receive no response.

  Tears begin to suffocate my eyeballs. I don’t even have the energy to blink them away. I’m trying to process what’s happening. How long has Greg been seeing my apartment? He helped me move in. This seed may have been planted from day one. Maybe he fell in love with her before I did.

  What I feel extends beyond jealousy or betrayal. I feel as though my basis for existence is gone. Does Greg even like me? Does he just come over to see her?

  “Are you okay, dude?”

  I tilt my head to empty my eye sockets of tears. Greg has the crumpled letter in his hand.

  “I didn’t see or hear you enter. Where did you come from?” I ask.

  “The nook, dude. I came from the nook.”

  A lifeless, silent laugh escapes my mouth.

  “Why were you in the nook?”

  Greg kneels down beside me and strokes my hair.

  “I’m always in the nook, dude… I mean, unless I’m out here with you.”

  “Why won’t you tell me where the nook is?”

  “He won’t let me tell you.”

  “He?”

  Greg shifts uncomfortably. A fart that sounds like an opera singer escapes him.

  “Sorry, dude,” he says, trying to fan the smell away from me.

  “That’s the first time you’ve ever apologized to me for farting.”

  “It just… didn’t seem very appropriate.”

  Try as I might, I can’t keep a smile forming on my face.

  “What’s so funny?” he asks.

  “I honestly have no idea.”

  “Do you want to watch something?”

  I nod and feel Greg’s soft hands pluck me up by my armpits and drag me toward the couch.

  …

  We’re watching an episode of SAMURAI PIZZA CATS. My/Greg’s apartment lies in a shambles around me. Evening has encroached and the only source of light is the television. I feel a strange contentment. We’ve barely said a word to each other. We just throw the occasional glance. I can sense when Greg’s looking at me, just as I’m sure he knows when I’m looking at him.

  Greg props himself up with his elbow and starts staring more intently at me. I turn to face him, meeting his gaze with one just as intense.

  “Can I ask you something, dude?” asks Greg, eventually breaking the silence.

  “Sure.”

  “Would you mind if I kissed you?”

  Are You Ever Going to Put Me Down?

  I’m not a romantic man —hell, I’m barely even an adequate man. Still, I met a girl who, despite looking like a bag of shrimp, became my wife. She was a good woman, still is in fact. I met her at a rope convention. I was a patron and she manned a vendor’s stand. She represented a company that flogged rope stiffeners for snake charmers. I wasn’t a snake charmer, but I looked like one so she approached me with hands slathered in stiffener. Something about her caught my attention. Perhaps it was the way she spat when she talked, or the hair that exploded in a glamorous tuft from her cleavage. It’s hard to say - all I knew was that I’d grown smitten.

  …

  We immediately participated in several unsatisfactory sexual encounters, decided we were perfect for each other and married the following week. The wedding was memorable in that we both died several times throughout the ceremony. We were resuscitated by a kind child who happened to be attempting to seduce a nearby bridesmaid. His technique was sloppy but he got our lungs heaving again.

  …

  As husband and wife we were satisfactory. Each Tuesday night we’d pretend we knew how to play canasta. Afterward, she’d begrudgingly allow me to have sex with her anus. This continued for several years without major deviation. Life was good in that it wasn’t especially challenging.

  …

  The complaints started to occur soon after our 10th anniversary. I remember the first complaint well. We were out and about collecting children for a lady who lived next door. She paid us five dollars a head, so we were more than happy to oblige. A ferocious storm struck. Mutilated frogs and bashful wrens rained down around and upon us. The storm was too heavy to partake in playful frolics. Our minds were set on the dry environs of home. The only thing standing in our way was an impressive puddle.

  “Carry me across, darling,” she said.

  I stared at her and then the puddle. Weighing up the pros and cons, I eventually shook my head in refusal. She appeared to accept my response without too much drama and made her way toward the puddle. The second the puddle felt the kiss of her foot, it sucked her right down. She was flailing like a sack of exorcisms. I could see she was drowning and, being her husband, decided to help her. I snatched a walking stick from an old man and hooked it around the crotch of my wife’s underpants. I dragged
her to shore and jumped on her gut a bit, until anything she’d swallowed came out. This is how I found my Gameboy.

  …

  Things were icy that night. She came out of the coma and refused to talk to me. I buttered her up with some jokes about genitals and eventually she emerged from her shell.

  “Why didn’t you carry me?” she said.

  “You looked a bit heavy.” I replied.

  “But you’ve never carried me.”

  “I wasn’t aware this was an issue.”

  “I didn’t think it was. And then I nearly drowned.”

  “You did drown. Drowning doesn’t have to result in death.”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “Then what’s the point?”

  “You never carry me.”

  She rolled over, avoiding me for the rest of the night. There’s something about being ignored that compels one to ponder. She was right. Never in my life had I carried my wife anywhere. Not to bed, not across the threshold of our first home, not out of the McKinley fire and not across the puddle that nearly killed her. Was it the duty of a man to physically carry his woman? Was it the desire of the woman to be carried by her man? Inadequacy reverberated within me. I’d never questioned my masculinity before this day. What kind of man was I to have never carried his wife? A masculine instinct took over my body, suppressing all logic.

  I approached my wife, who was sleeping like a dead manatee in the hospital bed. I scooped my arms beneath her and picked her up. She’s not a skinny woman and her weight was a difficult thing for my arms to comprehend. IVs and catheter tubes snapped free as I moved her away from the bed. Having become disconnected, the heart monitor she was attached to barked like a digital dog. Nurses wafted into the room like a silent fart. With my wife awkwardly cradled in my arms, I turned to face them.

  “I’m awfully sorry,” I said. “This is something I simply must do. I’d appreciate it if you moved aside.”

  The nurses talked amongst themselves for a while like bad turkey impersonations. They chose a representative who said, “Please leave. You strike us as a good man.”