Untamable

by Jamie Schlosser

  “And she has nine cats.”

  He guffawed. “Sounds like she’s perfect for you.”

  Loud cheering from the TV pulled his attention away. We sat together and watched the game for several minutes before he spoke up again.

  “If I drop my bag over the railing, will they let me go get it?”

  I turned my head toward him, my stomach sinking. “What do you mean?”

  “My backpack,” he said, getting more distressed by the second. “My baseball glove is in there. Will they let me go onto the field to get it?”

  “Where do you think you are right now, Dad?”

  Finally glancing at me, he blinked twice. “I don’t know.”

  Closing my eyes, I swallowed around the rising lump in my throat and told myself to be thankful for those few lucid minutes I got with him.

  “Yeah.” My voice was raspy. “They’ll let you go get it.”

  He gave me a lopsided smile. “Oh, good. Wouldn’t want to lose my glove.”

  “No,” I agreed. “I wouldn’t let that happen.”

  “Thanks.” He studied me for several seconds before grinning again. “You know, my wife has the same color eyes as you. Do you know my wife?”

  “Yeah,” I replied sadly. “I know her.”

  “Where’s Mary? I’d like to see her now.”

  “You’ll see her tonight.”

  I knew from the hospital staff that he dreamed of my mom often, and I was glad. I was glad he had that one thing left. At night when he closed his eyes, they were together—he was young and in love. He got to experience the best days of his life over and over, moments frozen in time.

  “I can’t wait to see Mary. She’s the best part of my day.” Dad reached over and patted my arm. A subconscious fatherly gesture.

  His hands were still callused from years of working as a handyman, playing sports with his kids, and gardening with his wife. The life he’d once lived was etched in every wrinkle on his face and every gray hair on his head.

  And somewhere in his mind all the memories were jumbled, but they weren’t gone. Simply misplaced, but not missing.

  “Tell me a story,” I requested, as I often did. If there was one thing Dad loved, it was regaling everyone with tales of his youth.

  “Oh, I’ve got a bunch of good ones. Which one do you want to hear?”

  “The one about the boy and the thumbtack.”

  Slapping his knee again, he laughed.

  “That’s the best one I’ve got. So,” he started, “I believe I was in the second grade. And there was this kid named Billy who used to torment all the girls. Real ornery. He used to put thumbtacks on their seats when the teacher wasn’t looking. Poor things got quite the unpleasant surprise when they sat down.”

  “No way.” I acted shocked, even though I’d heard this story so many times that I could’ve recited it word for word.

  “Yes way. One time, the teacher caught him in the act and sent him to the principal’s office. And do you know what the principal did?”

  I hid my smile behind my hand. “What did he do?”

  “He put a thumbtack down on the chair in his office. Turned to Billy and said, ‘Well, go ahead and sit down.’” His voice got deep, and I laughed at his impression of the old man he used to describe as a wet blanket.

  “And did he sit down?”

  Dad nodded. “Nowadays, schools would never get away with that kind of punishment. Keep in mind, this was the ’60s. So Billy sat down, expecting to get a sharp tack on his backside.” He paused dramatically. “But Billy just sat there and smiled. The principal pushed down on his shoulders, just to make sure he was down all the way. Still, Billy smiled. Eventually, he got sent back to class and the principal was baffled. Can you guess what happened?”

  “Tell me.”

  “When he sat down, that sharp point went right between his ass cheeks! Right in his crack. He couldn’t feel a thing.”

  I laughed. “That’s a great story.”

  “It is. Just too bad Billy didn’t learn his lesson.”

  “That is a shame,” I agreed.

  We went back to watching the game. I stayed until Dad dozed off and one of the nurses came to get him ready for bed. He didn’t say good night to me as he shuffled away.

  My heart was a little heavy as I made my way out of the building. Leaving was always difficult because I knew my dad’s condition would only get worse over time.

  But then my phone pinged with a text, and when I checked it my mood instantly lifted.

  Estelle: I have a pussy emergency.

  I grinned.

  Guess I knew how I’d be spending my night.

  CHAPTER 12

  ESTELLE

  The crew had just arrived, bright and early, and even from the other side of the apartment, I could hear Steve bitching about the low quality of the continental breakfast at the hotel.

  Serves him right for snubbing my biscuits and gravy.

  Leaning against my closed bedroom door, I took a moment to enjoy a minute of alone time. I had no idea how Emery did it all the time. Smiling for the camera, the hustle of the staff, the twelve-hour days. I thought owning my shop was exhausting, but this took it to a new level.

  It had been one of the longest weeks ever. Also one of the best weeks ever.

  At least there were no cameras in my room. Heat rushed through my body when I thought about all the things they would’ve seen in here over the past couple days.

  Reveling in the pleasant soreness between my legs, I changed into skinny jeans and a flowy black T-shirt. I’d gone a little heavier on the eyeliner today, hoping to look my best on the show. Sometimes standing next to Emery made me feel like a plain-Jane.

  I had just applied some lipstick when I realized I wasn’t alone in the room. Peter meowed and scratched at the door.

  “When did you come in here? You want out? I’m glad you’re finally being more social. We have plans for you today.”

  Just as I opened the door, Peter picked something up in his mouth and dashed out. It looked a lot like…

  Something pink. Something much bigger than a regular cat toy.

  No. Oh, fuck no.

  I had no choice but to chase after him, and his fluffy tail disappeared into the second bedroom. My suspicions were confirmed as I cornered him by a scratching post—my vibrator was dangling from his teeth.

  “Where the hell did you find that?” I whispered.

  My mind flashed back to the night of too much wine and how the sex toy had rolled under my bed after it gave out on me. I’d forgotten all about it, and now my cat was ready to show it to the entire world.

  “Drop the vibrator,” I hissed quietly, glancing at the doorway. “Drop it now, mister.”

  His gaze stayed pinned on me, but his body language said he was going to make a run for it. My eyes flitted to the red light on the camera facing our direction. This room was being filmed 24/7 so we could catch the pisser. At the time, I’d thought that was a brilliant idea.

  Now? Not so much.

  Grabbing a nearby stick with feathers on the end, I waved it at Peter and cooed, “Come on, Peter. Be a good boy and give me the dick.”

  Oh, that did not sound right at all.

  A deep, booming voice sounded from the living room. Distracted by the possibility of everyone getting an eyeful, I looked toward the door again.

  Big mistake.

  Peter took the opportunity to zoom past me. I threw the feather stick in his direction, cutting him off from running into the living room. I followed him into the bathroom and shut the door behind me.

  Breathing out a sigh of relief, I glared at the traitor hiding behind the toilet. “This is the most uncool thing you’ve ever done. I’ve forgiven you for a lot of shit, Peter, but this? This is crossing the line.”

  His response was a low growl.

  I crouched down on the floor. The cumbersome object was still hanging from his jaws. Backing farther away, the hair on his back stood and his ta
il puffed out.

  I could tell I was going to have a fight on my hands.

  CHAPTER 13

  EMERY

  Day four of filming. Today’s objective was to introduce Marty to Peter and hope for a love connection. Or something.

  Love was a long shot, but maybe they’d hit it off. Marty had just arrived, and Rhonda was getting him hooked up with a mic when I heard a commotion from down the hallway.

  “Damn it, Peter!” Estelle’s voice was muffled. “Put it down!”

  In the short time I’d known Estelle, I’d become familiar with that warning in her tone. The one that said, ‘I’m about to lose my shit.’

  I had no idea what was going on, but it didn’t sound good. I followed the ruckus to the bathroom and knocked. “Estelle? Everything okay?”

  “Yes,” she replied, sounding panicked. “I’m naked. You don’t want to come in here.”

  I smirked.

  “If you’re naked, I’m pretty sure I do,” I said quietly into the wood. If she was trying to keep me out, that was a bad strategy.

  I heard some scuffling and hushed whispers from the other side of the door. Just then, Joel came into the hallway, camera at the ready. I tried to get the shit-eating grin off my face as I knocked again.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “I’m fine!” she shrieked. “Everything’s just fine.”

  “Okay. The man who wants to meet Peter just got here.”

  “Sounds great,” she chirped. “Be out in a minute.”

  Shrugging, I started to turn away when I heard a pained, “Ow!” from inside. My protective instincts took over and I turned the knob. It wasn’t locked, so I opened the door far enough to peek my head in.

  Estelle wasn’t naked, but everything definitely was not okay. On all fours, she looked up at me with wide eyes and I spotted blood running down her arm.

  She held up her uninjured hand. “Don’t come any closer.”

  I frowned. “You’re hurt. Let me get the medic. Can we get a medic in here?” I called over my shoulder.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Estelle huffed.

  As I stepped inside the bathroom, the situation became even weirder. She’d corralled Peter into the corner under the toilet, and I craned my neck to see what kind of trouble he was causing.

  “Emery, can you please shut the—”

  Suddenly, Peter jumped up onto the counter and flew through the doorway with a large phallic-shaped object in his mouth. Naturally, Joel followed him, intent on getting the scoop. Estelle wasn’t far behind as she scrambled by me—still on all fours.

  “Was that a…? Um, it really looked like a—”

  “A huge dildo? Yep,” she replied, out of breath from the encounter as she crawled over my feet.

  Out in the hallway, Peter and Estelle entered a face-off, with Joel at one end to document it and me at the other, gaping as I watched the chaos unfold.

  Intent on keeping his new toy, Peter covered it with the length of his body. But his weight must have been enough to press the ‘on’ button because it began moving.

  Startled, he jumped three feet in the air.

  And there it was in plain sight—a pink dildo twisting and jittering around on the floor, hopping down the hall like a giant caterpillar on meth.

  Crawling forward, Estelle made a swipe for it, but Peter beat her to the prize. Batting at it with his paws like it was his mortal enemy, he knocked the wiggling object against the wall a few times until it stopped moving. Then he picked it up in his mouth and took off again, zig-zagging between Joel’s legs out into the kitchen.

  “I give up.” Plopping down on the floor, Estelle sagged back against the wall and covered her face with her hands. “Everyone’s already seen it anyway. Oh my God. I’m never gonna live this down.”

  “Shit.” I was torn between running after them and staying with Estelle, who was now lightly banging her head on the wall. Each impact made a dull thud. I decided to stay with her. “Stop,” I said softly, cradling the back of her head. “You’re already injured. It’ll be fine.”

  Picking up her hand, I inspected the scratches. They weren’t too deep and had already stopped bleeding.

  “That’s easy for you to say,” she retorted. “You’re not the one who just had your sex toy recorded on national television. I don’t give a fuck about what the rest of the world thinks, but my parents—oh my God, my parents. They’re conservative people who live in a very pretentious neighborhood. When everyone sees this, they’re gonna be horrified.”

  “Hey, I’ll talk to Steve about deleting the footage, okay?” I rubbed my thumb over her cheek.

  Estelle’s hopeful eyes were filled with hero-worship as she stared up at me. “You’d do that?”

  “Of course.”

  Loud laughter rang through the apartment and Estelle cringed while turning an even deeper shade of pink.

  “Take a minute if you need it,” I told her. “I can just say you’re not feeling well.”

  “A minute?” she asked incredulously. “It’s going to take a lot longer than sixty seconds to recover from this. And ‘not feeling well?’ Like suddenly I’m incapacitated because everyone saw my vibrator? What would we call it, the dildo flu?”

  I barked out a laugh. “It doesn’t sound so great when you say it out loud. Maybe I could do something really embarrassing to distract everyone.”

  A small smile played on her lips. “Like what?”

  “I could spill sweet tea on my jeans and tell everyone I peed my pants.”

  Shaking her head, she sighed. “I appreciate the offer, but we don’t need to make a bad situation worse. I might go hide in my room for a few minutes. Tell Janice I’m definitely gonna need some extra time with her today.”

  “Will do.” Giving her a reassuring smile, I turned away to go do some serious damage control.

  The laughter I heard before continued, and I was about to tell whoever it was to fuck off. But when I turned the corner, I realized the humor had nothing to do with what had just happened.

  Marty was on the couch, his big frame looking oversized in the small living room. Greg was perched on his round stomach while licking the hell out of his beard. Apparently, Marty thought it was hilarious.

  “Uhh, Marty, meet Greg.” I did the introductions while turning in a circle, looking for a cat with a giant dildo in its mouth. Shouldn’t have been hard to spot it, but Peter and the vibrator were nowhere to be found.

  Not under the coffee table, not behind the couch, not in the kitchen.

  The leather-clad man was still chuckling as Greg made a tangled mess of his facial hair. “This one. This is the one, Emery.”

  “Really?” My eyebrows went up. “I should warn you that he does that a lot. In a couple days, you might not have a beard anymore.”

  “That’s okay,” he said, petting the cat who was grooming him. “I was thinking about shaving it off anyway. Just saves me the trouble.”

  Okay, then.

  Not the original plan, but it was great news.

  Smiling, I glanced around the room, still searching for the orange-striped devil. “I’m really glad to hear that. I wanted you to meet Peter, but I think this is a good match.”

  A psst sound came from around the corner, and I turned to find Janice beckoning me into the kitchen.

  “I think I might have something you’re looking for,” she whispered.

  “Did you get it from him?” I whispered back, reaching under my shirt to unplug my mic.

  She nodded.

  “How did you manage that?” I asked, perusing her arms for any scratch marks.

  She shrugged. “Easy. He just hopped up onto the counter, dropped it, and ran away.”

  Of course he did. “Where is it?”

  “I wrapped it in a dish towel and threw it under the sink,” she replied, her face beet-red.

  Every time Janice said ‘it’ her voice dropped and the blush deepened. Maybe Estelle wasn’t the only one traumatized by
this event.

  While Marty and Greg were bonding on the couch, I pulled Steve out into the hallway to ask him to delete the footage of the dildo debacle.

  “Are you kidding?” He laughed. “This is reality show gold! You can’t make this stuff up.”

  “You can’t show that on TV, Steve. I’m gonna need you to erase it.”

  “What? No way,” he said, aghast. “We’ll probably get two full episodes out of this deal. Do you have any idea what this will do for our ratings?”

  “Fuck the ratings.” Clenching my jaw, I tried to reel in the impulse to punch him in the face. “Estelle is embarrassed.”

  “Well, of course she is. That’s what makes it great.”

  “You can’t do that to her.”

  Steve’s smile faded away, his lips pressing into a flat line. “You don’t make the rules here. I’m not going to lessen the quality of this show just because you have a soft spot for this chick. Do you want to keep your job or not?”

  I jerked back like I’d been hit. “You’d fire me just because of this?”

  “No. You don’t get it.” Huffing, he threw his hands in the air. “We’re in hot water with the network. They’re making demands, wanting to make changes. They want more sexual content, but less profanity. More drama, more humor, less heart-warming. It doesn’t make any sense, but I’m not in the position to challenge it.”

  So that was why he was being such a prick lately. Suddenly, the short temper and bad moods made sense. And he’d probably been provoking Estelle on purpose, hoping for tears or angry outbursts.

  I didn’t know why the network was putting so much pressure on him, and the last thing I wanted was for the show to get canceled. Still, I wouldn’t allow him to make a fool of Estelle.

  “I won’t let you do it,” I insisted, crossing my arms over my chest.

  “She’s under contract, Emery. We have permission to show anything we film. You think I picked her at random? You think I chose this project because of the unique situation?” Shaking his head, he scoffed. “She’s fucking hot, that’s why. Again, think about the ratings. It’s not my responsibility to make everyone look like a saint on this show. I’m doing my job. You do yours.”