The Wrath of Dimple

by Lucy Woodhull

  “Guess what? I really did have a period moment.”

  “Are you telekinetic now? I hope so—I want to meet the X-Men.” He chuckled at his own joke and picked up the phone again. The man asked the concierge for tampons and ibuprofen.

  I burst into tears, the very picture of strong heroines who came before me. But what else was I supposed to do when my man ordered tampons for me, hmmm? Unasked? He’d saved me from a makeshift diaper of toilet paper! Or having to walk a block to the pharmacy! Oh, my tragic hero, who bringeth forth cheeseburgers and feminine sanitary products. “Th-th-thank you.”

  His pretty, mossy-green eyes blinked in their red-purple sockets, but he leaped into action rather than watch me flail. I said, “You take a bath. When you get out, I bet the food will be here. It’s okay, Sam. It’s all gonna be okay.”

  His eyes said okay was fifty-fifty at best, but I chose to have faith in anyone who supplied French fries, which explains many of my shitty life choices. He took my shoulders and walked me to the bathroom. He started to run the bath, but I laughed and said, “It’s okay. I’m fine, really. Sorry for the crying. I’m a crier. I don’t know how it happened—my parents have upper lips of steel.”

  “You’re an over-dramatic actress.”

  “How dare you slander me in this villainous way, you cretin!”

  He flashed me the dimple then left the room.

  I ran the bath, and he passed me a box of tampons through the door. He held them like I’d held Taylor’s gross-ass shirt. Seriously, I would never understand the desire to be with someone who will not take advantage of our modern conveniences, such as soap and water. I’d had a roommate once with a stinky boyfriend, and the day he’d cheated on her was the best and most confusing of my life—on the one hand, she’d dumped him, so no more nasty boy in the house, but on the other, how had he gotten another woman? The mysteries of life.

  I left the door open, not at all in the hopes that Sam might ogle me, like he had once upon a time in a bathtub.

  The hot water and medicinal effects of the whiskey tamed my angry uterus somewhat, and it clicked something in my brain— My marriage was in Sam’s grasp. I would not give up on him. Ever. He’d risked everything, his very life, to change himself and be with me. If he chose to walk away now and build a new life, then what could I do? How much fight was too much fight? If you love something, set it free, right? My mind rebelled, screaming, No, just tie him to the bed and keep him. He kidnapped you once, it’s allowed!

  I slipped under the water, blowing bubbles made of sighs.

  “Everything okay?”

  I sat up and swiped water from my face.

  Sam’s head had poked through the door. He was having the conversation with my tits. “The food is here.”

  My magic words. The essence of cheeseburger wrapped me in delicious bliss. Which was disrupted by my uterus, which, and I’m describing this scientifically, hammered a rusty nail into itself using a chainsaw.

  I rinsed off the suds and wrapped myself in the robe thoughtfully provided by the staff. It was even a small size to fit my Hobbitness, and I said a brief thanks to the god of kissing ass.

  Sam had flipped on The Simpsons, and we sat on the bed to eat. I tried not to fix on thoughts like, He remembers you. He got you cheeseburgers, and now you’re eating them together on the bed. How many times had we done this? My throat closed with lady-emotions, so I chose to concentrate on Homer, Marge, et al. instead of thinking. I was so tired of thinking. I took a sip of beer to help in the not thinking.

  “So, I was thinking,” said Sam.

  Ugh.

  “I want us to date.”

  The cheeseburger dripped mustard on my cleavage, and he fixated on it with a soft mouth and hungry eyes.

  “Go ahead, fellow on this first date with me.” I smirked.

  He fought it for a moment, but then swooped in and licked between my breasts. My breath hitched, and he pulled back, looking hungry for more than mustard. Heh heh.

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  “What?”

  Sam is to boobs as cat is to laser pointer. I lifted his chin to break his concentration. “What do you mean by ‘date’?”

  “I just was thinking…let’s get to know each other outside the confines of criminal investigation.”

  I took a bite of burger then forced it through my suddenly tight throat. “I know you.”

  “I considered that.” He sat up on his knees, so earnest that my smile emerged of its own volition, as if he were a magician. “I bet you don’t know everything.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Because I keep thinking of things about myself, and telling myself not to tell you those things.”

  “Like Lisbon?”

  His mouth dropped open, just a bit, just enough to tell me I was right.

  Oooooh. This could be good. Or scary. Or scary good. But… “If we’re ‘dating’, then are we…?” I lifted my eyebrows in the universal expression of ‘getting it on’.

  Lips twitching, he made hopeful expressions, but didn’t actually say anything.

  I would regret saying this. “I think we should not. Because sex often confuses an issue. And our issues are massive.”

  “Very funny.”

  “I’m a professional.” If sex was the only thing I had going for me, then this experiment wouldn’t last long. What a depressing notion.

  Disgruntlement marred his handsome features. “I need—”

  He put his food down. “What?”

  I licked my lips and soldiered on. “I need an end date. Like…after thirty days of dating, we meet at the top of the Empire State Building and someone rings a gong or something, and we’ll decide if we want to be married or not.”

  “Do I have to bring the gong?”

  “Yes.”

  I took another bite of my burger, secretly upset that he hadn’t fallen to his knees and rejected my stupid idea in favor of declaring his everlasting love right now. But he simply finished his dinner as if masticating on my heart.

  I knew I’d be at the Empire in thirty days’ time, ringing whatever he wanted me to ring in order to keep us alive. But I might be gonging all alone. I could see the headline now— Sherlock Samantha Goes Mental, Sobs at Tourists While Menacing Them with Gong Hitter Thingie.

  Wait, does one gong when they want to be married, or gong like The Gong Show if they’re rejecting their Samantha?

  I shouldn’t have introduced props.

  He cleaned up the remains of dinner then tucked me into the only bed, saying he would sleep on the couch.

  The lights went out, and I heard him settle on the couch. Only a few feet away, yet a mile of distance separated us. Five thousand, two hundred and thirty feet filled with brain scans and confusion. Five thousand, two hundred and fifty feet? Jeez, I didn’t remember third grade except for Brian Spivey, who’d kissed me in the band room, but mocked me at lunch.

  Men were the worst.

  “Tell me about Lisbon,” I said, turning on my side to face his couch.

  A sigh. A curse. “Women never forget anything,” he whined.

  “Men always deflect.”

  A pillow landed on my head.

  “Hey! Just because I’m right is no reason to throw things.”

  “Give it back.”

  I hugged it to my chest. “As if.”

  More cursing sounded, and, if my witch sense was accurate, the grinding of teeth. “Fine,” he uttered, and uttered no more.

  “Mmmmmm, what an excellent pillow. I think I’ll fall asleep on it unless I’m entertained by a story of derring-do.”

  “I never promised derring-do. This story is more one of drunken antics.”

  I tossed the pillow in his direction, and he oof-ed. “Thanks. Okay. Lisbon. Years ago. One of my first solo jobs. I was sent to liberate a painting from an extremely wealthy European playboy who shall remain nameless.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “Name one extremely w
ealthy European playboy.”

  “Point taken.”

  “May I continue? I miss the cat.”

  I nearly bit through my lip. Him and that cat, the amnesia-proof love affair. He should have married Captain Taco. That’s what all the homophobes thought would happen when they passed gay marriage in New York, anyhow. “Meow,” I replied.

  “Quiet, pussy. So, I got myself into the mansion, no problem. Most security systems are easy to beat with a little practice. The painting hung in the guy’s master bedroom. My bribes told me that he would be out of town for a week, but I’d just gotten the thing off the wall when—”

  “He came home.”

  “Yup. With two friends. Two buddies. Who came into the bedroom with him. And…stayed there.”

  I sat up on my elbow. “Are you saying they…?”

  “Oh, yeah. Yeah. For hours.”

  “Where were you?”

  “Trapped in the closet.”

  “You and R. Kelly.”

  The couch groaned under his weight. I could kinda see him, facing me through the near-darkness. I fancied the flash of his teeth lit the room. “This closet was huge, an entire room, basically. I wanted to ask these dudes what vitamins they took, because they were at it for over twelve hours.”

  My mouth dropped. I marveled. I wondered. I did some maths in my head. I decided to ask, “How—continually? Was their superpower some sort of anti-chafing ability?”

  “I don’t know! I was truly amazed. At first I just worried they would catch me, and then I felt kinda…embarrassed, and then really impressed after a while. I mean, they should teach a collegiate class. But the door to this closet was right next to the bed, so there was no way out.”

  “So what happened?”

  “What you guess happened. Many, many times. Seriously, I think they were all on coke. They had to be.”

  “That’s not what I mean!” I threw a pillow at him.

  He laughed, yet ducked too late. “Well, after a while, I got pretty hungry and thirsty. I found a crate of forty-year-old Scotch stashed behind an impressive collection of scarves.”

  I cracked up. “Oh, my God. How drunk did you end up?”

  “So. Drunk. But it was damn tasty. I sat there for so long, and I had nothing in my stomach, and they had so much sex.”

  I nearly fell off the bed in my mirth. It kinda made my cramps feel better.

  “Inebriated beyond all reason, I finally heard the Great Orgy of 1999 come to a grunty end. Some snoring began. Relieved, and really having to pee, I snuck out and, halfway through the bedroom, I remembered the painting.”

  “You went back for it?”

  “Duh! I turned on a dime, sprinted to the wall, and yanked off the painting.”

  “Huzzah!”

  “I’m not done. Then, I tripped over nothing, ran into the wall, broke my nose—for the first time—screamed, and bled everywhere. Much like I did with you.”

  My shame silenced me.

  A pillow landed at my feet. “You don’t have to beg—I forgive you.”

  I hugged this pillow to me as—well, as if it were him. I refrained from humping it, as the ‘no sex’ rule had been my own stupid suggestion.

  He continued, “They all woke up, hollered in various romance languages, and then brought me ice and told me they thought I was cute. They didn’t wonder what I was doing there—I think a passably attractive, built twenty-something automatically got the benefit of the doubt from them—until they saw the painting on the floor. That I had bled on.”

  “Oh, shit. How old and/or expensive was it?”

  “Four hundred years, and way the fuck above my pay grade at the time.”

  I fell onto my back and gripped the sheet to my chest. “How did you get away?”

  “I didn’t.”

  A squeak forming the word “What?” erupted from my mouth.

  “Three on one—they tied me to the bed posts, which I thought was unnecessarily sexual. They did put the comforter over the, um, sheets.”

  “That was courteous.”

  “I thought so. And they let me pee, which might have been the best thing that had ever happened to me up to that point in my life. When the cops came, they untied me and one of the policemen began taking a statement from the house owner. The other cop was supposed to be watching me. But he started flirting with the blond half-naked threesome dude, so I sneaked out the front of the house and ran.”

  “No!”

  “Yes. I don’t think I would have tried it had I not been so drunk.”

  “On forty-year-old Scotch.”

  “Yeah—the guy had discovered the empty bottle in the closet and wanted to add that to the burglary charge.”

  I giggled and turned onto my side again. “They never caught you?”

  “I carried no ID. No security cameras, and no cell phones to snap a quick picture back then. And that’s why you what?”

  I considered carefully my answer. Professor Robs-A-Lot was a tough grader. “Wear gloves?”

  A slow clap rang through the room. “Wear gloves.”

  “Wait—I thought this was supposed to be a dangerous story?”

  He cleared his throat. “I was trying to sound important. I really, really avoid things like firearms and sharp weapons. I’m much more of a ‘cut and run’ kinda guy.”

  “Thank goodness.”

  He sniffed and shifted on the too-short-for-him sofa. “That part of my life is over now, anyway.”

  “You could go back.”

  “With the vision of burning bridges behind me?” He chuckled. “No. Besides, I was right to get out while the getting was good. I’ve met some senior citizens in my old line of work. Usually still up for it because they’re a true adrenaline junkie, or because they need the cash. It’s easier to enjoy something dangerous if you don’t need to do it. Does that make sense?”

  I nodded. “Yes,” I followed up with, because he couldn’t possibly see me, “You don’t have to sleep on the couch, you know. I have lady cooties right now, anyway.”

  He sat up. The couch groaned hopefully. “Really?”

  “Come here, idiot.”

  “I was trying to respect you, Ms Pain in My Ass.”

  He jumped into the bed, and I giggled like an infatuated schoolgirl. He flailed around, on purpose, and I giggled more. He strayed to my side, also on purpose, forcing me to beat him off with a pillow.

  So to speak.

  Finally, he simmered down, facing me. “Give me a kiss,” he said.

  “What? We agreed—”

  “We agreed to date. And have I not given you a fabulous date full of mean texts, accidental spouse-swapping, a menstrual cycle, and the story of my semi-participation in a gay gang bang?”

  Laughter thundered through me, nearly wiping out the horrors of half his list.

  “I respectfully ask for a goodnight kiss, Ms Lytton.”

  In moments like this, I believed that he would gong in my favor at the top of the Empire State Building. So, naturally, I gave him a kiss.

  It took me a minute to sit up and find the correct part of his face, but I managed somehow. Soft and slow, I pressed my chaste, closed mouth to his warm one. He opened his lips and slipped me a lovely, sexy tongue, which seemed to connect to the very deepest parts of me. Not deep as in soulful, but deep as in mama horny, must bone now.

  He wove his hand through my hair, and he yanked me across the sheets so he could press every gorgeous part of his body to mine. I began to wrap my leg around him, remembered that I was supposed to not be slutty, and yanked it reluctantly from the bliss that was his hard hip. He grunted and grabbed the pit of my knee to put my leg back, his fingers teasing the flesh there, coaxing my desire through maddeningly tiny caresses.

  I had to mentally dig around the slut part of me, past the love boner, and beyond the ‘oh, fuck it’ cortex to gently push him away before I jumped him. Jumped him more.

  “Goodnight,” he whispered in the most suggestive tones ever uttered. It�
�s like he spoke a sex language, in which the words ‘goodnight’ meant ‘I command you to lie there all frustrated-like for hours’.

  “Hhhhhnnnnnggg,” I replied.

  It made him laugh, the smarmy shit. What a total clit tease.

  I didn’t know what tomorrow would bring, but I prayed to Jesus—and Dolly Parton—that we’d get Taylor out of our hair, maybe date a little, then live happily ever after.

  I almost forgot to ask for Sam’s memory to just…come back. That would be the real miracle. He’d made an appointment with a hypnotist for tomorrow—perhaps that would help. I didn’t have nearly the faith I should have in my ability to make him fall in love again.

  Maybe I would try that hit-him-again tactic to bring me back into his brain. Heh—if he tried to cuddle me in the middle of the night, he’d get smacked anyway. This crampy lady likes her sleep almost as much as she likes her sex. And food. Wait—sex, food, sleep. Food, sex, sleep. Wait—Xanadu needed to be in there somewhere…

  “Shut up and quit humming Olivia Newton-John.”

  Maybe he wouldn’t reach for me in the night after all.

  * * * *

  I dreamed of a pile of cats that could perform acrobatic tricks, and Captain Taco was mad that he wasn’t the lead performer. He hissed and scratched me, even though I wasn’t the one casting. That dream probably didn’t mean anything. But the next one was that Sam got his memory back and everything was joyous kaloo kalay… Until I got hit on the head and lost my memory. I spent the next few dream hours frustrated, angry, and crying. Ugh. Then the phone began ringing, but I couldn’t find it anywhere. It rang and rang and—

  After the tenth ring, I climbed from sleep enough to realize it was my phone in real life. I slapped my hand against the nightstand until I found it. “Hello?” I groaned.

  “Samantha Lytton, how could you ruin your career this way?”

  I bolted upright. The derisive words of Suzie jangled between my ears. “What? In English, Mom? With as little hyperbole as you can manage.”

  “You got your period in the middle of a foursome with Taylor? I taught you better than that!”

  My jaw fell open. So many pieces of that statement to address… My tongue tasted of morning breath, which was about right.