by Julia Kent
Josh starts reading:
“Anterdec CEO Andrew McCormick has bought his fiancée one nice nose job as an early wedding present! But if the bags under her eyes are any indication, Amanda may be the ‘something blue’ in this wedding.”
My fingers fly up to my face, gingerly touching the skin beneath my eyes. “I do not have bags there! And my nose – on what planet do they think I got a nose job?”
“Look at your before-and-after photos. Pretty convincing,” Josh adds.
“You’ve known me the entire time! I never got a nose job!”
“Are you sure? It says so on the internet, so it must be true,” he says with a sneering mockery that pushes me over the edge.
I grab his shirt, reaching for the elastic strap, and pull exactly once.
Josh screams.
“Boy, your surgeon did a great job, Amanda,” Marie marvels, looking at the gossip site’s pictures. “You’d never guess you had a nose job.”
“That’s because I didn’t!”
“But they do have a point about your breasts.”
I look down. “My breasts are fine! They are not uneven!”
Josh glances in my general chest direction, then looks quickly away. “If you say so.”
I jut the girls out as far as they can go. “Look at them! Not as sex objects, but as two items that are meant to be, you know, the same.” I cup them, adjusting. “Are they even?”
“First of all, I don’t look at those and see ‘sex object,’ no matter what anyone says. And second of all, they look very natural.”
“What does that mean?”
“They’re fine. Breasts are like testicles.”
“No, they’re not!”
“Yes, they are. Everyone has one that hangs a little lower than the other. Some of us,” he adds, closing one eye, squinting at me, “hang a little lower than others.”
“That photographer just got me at a bad angle!”
“If you say so.”
“Quit saying that! ‘If you say so’ is the weasel-word equivalent of ‘I’m sorry your feelings were hurt.’”
“Well, Amanda, I’m sorry your feelings were hurt by my saying ‘if you say so.’”
I reach for his elastic band again. He leaps out of reach.
“Yank me once, shame on you. Yank me twice, shame on me.”
“Is that the Tuggers Anonymous version of the Serenity Prayer?”
Josh inhales sharply, pointing at me in horror. “You are just outright being cruel now.”
“And you blew our cover today!”
“Did not!”
“Did too!”
“Did not!”
“Did -- ”
“Ooooooo!” Marie squeals, reading on her phone. “Amanda, you’ll have to tell me how Andrew’s foreskin restoration goes.”
“His...what?”
She points to her screen. “CelebrityNewz4Evah says you’re calling the wedding off if Andrew doesn’t tug. I didn’t realize Josh had that kind of influence on you!”
There is a very, very badly photoshopped picture of Andrew on the site, with an elephant trunk where his crotch is.
“If you read it on the internet, Marie, it must be true.”
“Look! This is hysterical!” Josh reads from yet another internet gossip site. “Sources confirm that CEO playboy Andrew McCormick’s fiancée made a visit to the medi-spa with her grandma to check out the spa’s foreskin restoration services.”
“Grandma?” Marie gives Josh a once-over. “I mean, you have a receding hairline, your cheekbones are nice and high, and you look older than you are, but you don’t meet the definition of ‘grandma.’”
Josh points to the screen. “They’re talking about you, Marie. They think you’re Amanda’s grandma.”
“WHAT?”
“At least they’re not calling you ‘scrotoxic’!” I shout. Andrew is going to kill me when he reads about the foreskin restoration leak.
How do I explain that?
“I’d rather have people call me that than think I’m old enough to be your grandmother!” She thwacks her loose neck skin. “I knew this aged me prematurely!”
“You don’t look a day over sixty, Marie,” Josh says brightly. I’m behind Marie and look over her shoulder at him, grimacing and shaking my head.
“I’m fifty-three,” she responds with a deadly stare. I know she’s actually fifty-five, but at this point, I’m more concerned about my complete and utter online humiliation than correcting Marie’s neverending vanity.
“Oh.” Josh shrivels.
“Those bastards!” I rant. “They make fun of my looks and accuse me of trying to change my poor fiancé’s twig and berries!”
“And they think I’m your grandma,” Marie wails.
Josh gets shifty-eyed. “I’m the only one they didn’t make shit up about.”
“Lucky you.”
Worry lines crease his brow. “No. No. This is bad. This means I’m too boring for gossip sites.”
“What?”
“I’ve become wallpaper!”
“Wallpaper?”
“People who are too boring to bother with are just wallpaper. I’m, I’m not even interesting enough to get a hashtag, or a before-and-after picture!”
“And you’re upset about this?”
Marie starts rubbing his back. “I’m so sorry, Josh.”
Is he actually crying? Are those real tears? The guy’s upset because the paparazzi didn’t make fun of him, or lie, or use him as a tool to exploit?
“All day I sit and write code, debug code, and help stupid people with their stupid computer problems.” Not crying. He’s outraged.
“Hey! I’m one of the people you help,” I object.
“Me, too!” Marie adds.
“See? Point made.” He sniffs. “I finally get to do something exciting.”
“And get help with your tugboat,” Marie notes.
“Tugging.”
“Whatever.”
“And this is how it turns out. I might as well be invisible.”
Carol walks in. “Hi Mom. Hi Amanda. How did it go?”
Josh waves his arms like he’s a drunk, topless girl at a One Direction concert, trying to get Harry’s attention. “See? Invisible.”
“Oh. Sorry, Josh. Didn’t see you there.”
He makes a dismissive sound.
Carol peers at my computer screen. “Is that you?” She points to the nose job split screen.
“Yeah.”
“Your nose job looks great!”
And with that, I pick up my purse and leave as Josh and Marie giggle, because what else am I going to do?
My uneven breasts and my brand new nose are taking my #scrotoxic self home for a pity party.
Chapter 14
Defeated, exhausted, and mildly horrified that I blew my cover on a mystery shop because I was arguing with Josh about which one of us was the bigger transgressor of Anterdec fraternization policies, I change into my flannel granny pajamas the second I walk in the apartment, stripping naked and leaving my clothes in a fabric puddle right by the front door.
There is a glorious freedom in walking around your own home naked, without anyone else in the house to see you or hit on you.
I make my way to the bedroom, pull out the well-worn pink flannel PJs with tiny yellow ducks all over them, and slip my feet into fuzzy fleece slippers.
By the time Andrew comes home, it’s after eleven o’clock and I am in bed, under the covers with a heated lavender rice sock buried near my feet and a half-eaten pile of Cheeto-marshmallow treats on a plate beside me.
Earbuds in, episode after episode of Shameless making me feel infinitely better about my screwed-up day.
He walks into the bedroom, loosening his tie and unbuttoning the top buttons of his shirt, talking about something I can’t quite understand because until three seconds ago, I didn’t realize he was even speaking.
Frantically, I grope for the pause button, Cheeto pieces spil
ling between my breasts as they roll into the V of my pajama top.
“Wait – what?” I yank out an earbud. “Sorry. What did you say?”
He’s in the walk-in closet, his voice muffled. “I said, I got a very interesting call today from Inviajaa Industries.”
I wince. That’s the parent company of the medi-spa.
“Yeah? Um, can we talk about it later? I’m about to find out whether Frank will really stay dry this time and be a good father.”
He appears, completely naked, wearing nothing but a wry smile. “Spoiler: he never, ever does.”
“You don’t know that! The series isn’t over!” Yes, I’m stalling. Wouldn’t you? Plus, naked Andrew is a sight to behold. Let me pause for a moment and take in the majesty of his long, muscled body, peppered with hair in all the right places, strong thighs flexed as the day’s need for social convention falls away like his clothing. His waist is tight, hips carved by all those workouts with Vince, and his shoulders stretch wide, rolling muscle resting against bone as if ready for whatever challenge life throws his way.
Like my tongue.
“Amanda.” The way he stands, arms crossed over his chest, thighs tight, face amused, makes it clear he expects me to cough up an explanation. Which is kind of hard when my ears are ringing, my mouth fills with drool, and the last year disappears. In this exact moment, a remarkable sense of gratitude fills me. Without a doubt, Andrew is the hottest man I have ever dated, sharp and sweet, cunning and built.
He’s mine. Really mine.
That deserves a moment of silence and deep meditation, but instead, I jump to my own defense, squirrelly and nonplussed.
“You don’t know about Frank! Unless you’ve watched ahead.”
“I cheated and read the Wikipedia listings for the entire series.” His tongue rolls in his cheek, one eyebrow raised as if we’re playing poker and he’s upped the ante.
“What? Why would you do that? Why ruin the surprise?”
“It doesn’t ruin anything. And you’re deflecting.”
“When you stand there all naked and alluring, it’s hard to pay attention to whatever you’re saying.”
He smirks, looking down at his own rock-hard body as if it’s an afterthought. “Nice try. How was your day at the medi-spa?”
“Medi-spa? What medi-spa?”
Playing innocent works, right? Sometimes. Maybe. Kinda.
He frowns.
Okay. Not this time.
“You blew your cover. You never blow your cover, Amanda. What happened?”
“Josh said something about working for Anterdec.”
“Why was Josh there? He hates mystery shopping.”
“They had some services there he wanted to try. Plus, he’s working on expanding his penis – er, his skills. Expanding his skills so he’ll be in a better position to be promoted.”
“He’s really pulling his weight.”
“More than you could ever imagine,” I say tightly.
Andrew’s eyes narrow, taking me in. “You look comfortable.”
“I look like a slob.” We’ve been together just long enough that I let him see me like this. In those first few months after I moved in, I’d wake up and go to the bathroom before his alarm went off, brushing my teeth and washing up. Sex was an every morning event back then.
Still is.
One morning he caught me. We kissed. The dragon living in my mouth didn’t kill him. Ever since, we’ve chipped away at the domestic relaxation that all those women’s magazines say takes place naturally. Dirty socks on the floor. Period sex. Strange noises from body parts. You know.
Cheetos crumbs in bed after you blow your cover and potentially sabotage a major corporate division’s investments.
“You look beautiful.” He’s sizing me up. Not my beauty.
My mood.
You know what he’s doing. Every guy does it. They’re evolutionarily primed to be hunters, right? He’s scanning the African grasslands for prey.
Note to self: are my grasslands neatly trimmed? When did the Serengeti last have fresh water in the watering hole?
All guys do it. I’ve never lived with a guy before, so I have no basis for comparison, but I don’t need any. Andrew is feeling me out. Sex or no sex?
Deal or no deal?
He climbs into bed, pulling back the covers and sliding those muscular legs between the sheets, propped up by pillows. We both keep books on our nightstands, but hardly ever read for pleasure these days.
The day’s flurry of non-stop weirdness infects my imagination.
I pull back the covers and take a good long look at his naked penis. Like every other penis I’ve ever seen, it’s flesh-toned. It has veins. It’s various shades of skin, depending on the part. There are testicles inside a scrotum. One ball rests on his upper thigh, slightly uneven compared to the other.
Suddenly my different-size breasts don’t feel so lonely.
A shadow covers the light behind me, and then the heat of Andrew’s chest radiates to my shoulder.
“Excuse me,” he says, his voice soft and amused. “Enjoying the view?” I take in the contoured edge of his strong thighs, muscles swelling as the tendons stand out in contrast with the carved, hard lines of his legs. His waist is tight, hips textured with the little indents that make touching him so pleasing. He’s tall and stretched out, sitting up slightly, a feast for the eyes.
“I’m looking at your penis.”
“I noticed. Like what you see?”
I say nothing, concentrating. As the whole of his nude body comes into focus, I feel an intense sense of connectivity, like separate bolts of electricity all joining together to form a large fireball of synergy, blood heating up, the sense of separation between my body and his fading.
Seconds tick by. He shifts slightly, the angle changing.
I would have given him a C3 until he moved. Now I might have to say C4.
“Amanda?”
“Yes?”
“While you’re welcome to look at my naked body anytime – on demand, in fact – I’m curious. Why the sudden attention?”
“I’m rating your penis.”
“Rating?”
“Yes.”
“On a scale? You want to know how much it weighs?”
“Not weighing. Rating.”
“I heard you.” His amusement deepens. “What’s the rating scale?”
“C1 to C10.”
“You’re seeing ten now.” His penis perks up at the mention of its name, and the foreskin stretches to about a C2. I make an involuntary sound of horror. Josh and his stupid, stupid body modification fetish have invaded my bedroom.
And yet I can’t help myself.
“No, no. It’s a rating system to determine where your foreskin rests on the continuum.”
“There is a foreskin continuum?”
“Yes.”
“I’m circumcised.”
“I noticed.” You and every other guy I know, I don’t add. Circumcision rates for guys born in the 1980s in the U.S. were around sixty to sixty-five percent. When you have a mom like Pam, you find your mind searching for data to fill in concepts. Until Josh mentioned tugging I’d never thought about it.
Now I can’t stop thinking about penises.
Andrew’s, in particular.
“And you learned about this foreskin continuum where?”
“At the medi-spa mystery shop today.”
“The medi-spa does circumcisions?”
“God, no. The opposite.”
He crosses his legs, penis hanging out above where his thighs meet, like a compliant lap dog. “What is the opposite of a circumcision?”
“They restore your foreskin.”
His penis visibly shrinks at my words.
“Wow,” I marvel aloud. “You just totally went from a C2 to a C4 right before my eyes.” I poke the turtleneck. Three pokes and he’s back to C2. Hmmm. It’s like coefficients of linear expansion in seventh-grade science class, but instead of wat
ching how heat expands metal rods, I get to watch how my touch expands...a different rod.
“Let me get this straight. You’re not looking at my merchandise because you want to have sex with me. You’re checking it out to grade it?” His arms go slack, resting next to his ribs and hips, palms turned up. Thick veins run the corridor from shoulder socket to wrist bones, rolling muscles making his arms like flesh hills of Ireland. On and on they curve and flow, leading to the tributaries of fingers at the ends.
Said fingers move to point to his rod.
“I never said I didn’t want sex.”
He perks up, belly curling in slightly, all those core muscles acting in a chain of movement that forces my palm to flatten against his navel.
Just because. Displays of beauty like this cannot go untouched.
“Do you miss your foreskin?” I ask, inexplicably sad for a moment, taking in the whole of him.
“Excuse me?”
“Do you miss it?”
“How can I miss something I’ve never had?”
I peer closer. He shifts slightly.
And then --
“Hey! Stop that!” I admonish.
“Stop what?”
“Growing! I can’t figure out which C you are if you keep letting it do that.”
“I don’t really have much choice when you sit that close to it. I can feel your warm breath tickling the tip. It’s suggestive. Promising.” A vocal sound of encouragement punctuates his words.
I blow lightly, like trying to fog a mirror on purpose.
From C4 to C1 in seconds.
“Andrew! This is serious.”
“I’m always serious when it comes to my penis. If you don’t want it to grow, quit doing that.”
I back away.
“You don’t have to stop unless you want to!” he quickly adds. “But what the hell is this foreskin restoration business?”
“Josh is a tugger.”
“Tugger?”
“Google it sometime. We went to the medi-spa today to evaluate some of the services, to see if we should add them to the O Spa chain. Josh said tuggers are trying to restore their foreskins, and it got me thinking about yours.”
“Uh...thanks?”
