A Perfect Romance

by Layce Gardner

  I continued my nervous diatribe, "I think it'd be cool to have a fridge magnet from there. One that said 'I've been to French Lick.'" I crunched on more cold niblets and concentrated on breathing.

  Kimmy lifted one leg up above the counter. Her purple silk panties, the thong type, were hanging off her ankle.

  "Or maybe a snow globe. You shake it and it snows. And it says French Lick inside the globe." I crunched corn faster.

  She kicked her leg and the panties flew across the bar and hit me smack dab in the middle of my chest. They stuck there, dangling off my boobs.

  I kept talking, "They might even have bumper stickers that say something like 'I went down to French Lick.' I wonder if they have an airport there. That's where you buy stuff like that."

  Crunch, crunch, crunch.

  "Are you going to sit there eating corn all night?" she asked. "Or am I going to have to do this all by myself."

  I swallowed. I ran my tongue over my front teeth. It wasn't the best time to ask for a toothpick.

  Kimmy stood and pranced around the bar toward me. I gulped. She was bare from the waist down. And I do mean bare. As in bald, as in hairless. I'd never seen a real live bald one up close before—outside of the girls' bathroom when I was about seven years old. I couldn't wait to tell Trudy about this. Her Lindsay Lohan make-over was really working.

  I wondered if Kimmy was a nympho or a sex addict or something? She was coming on awful strong. Then I wondered if I cared. I didn't have time to wonder too long. She grabbed me by the ears and tugged my face right into her crotch.

  So much for foreplay.

  I wiggled my nose a little and she moaned. I tentatively stuck my tongue out and she wiggled her hips a little and moaned louder.

  "Your tongue is ice cold," she gasped.

  "Frozen corn" I tried to explain, but it came out sounding more like "Fuzzy kore."

  "Right there. Oh, baby, right there," she said, plow-reining my face with my ears.

  I put my hands on her bare ass and pulled her closer. I figured if I was going to do this thing, I might as well do it up right. I kneaded her ass and flicked with my tongue.

  What was that?

  I flicked again and distinctly felt something hard.

  Oh my God, she's pierced.

  My tongue found the barbell thingee and I speed-flicked at it like it was a punching bag. Each time I flicked her hips jerked and she made noises in her throat like water boiling inside a tea kettle.

  I decided I liked the piercing. It sure made my job easier. It was like an X marking the spot on a treasure map.

  I flicked and nipped and sucked and after only thirty seconds, she boiled over and I heard a teakettle whistle.

  She held me by the back of my head and screamed. Screamed loud too.

  Oh geez, I hoped I didn't hurt her. I tried to wiggle away, but she had a death grip on my ears and I heard her say, "Smoke! There's smoke!"

  Seriously? We had enough friction going to cause smoke?

  That was when she stumbled backwards and because she still had me by my ears, I tumbled out of the chair along with her and we fell to the floor. I was nose-deep in her bald crotch when I heard the door crash open.

  I snapped my head back and this time Kimmy let go and all I could see was black smoke everywhere and that was when a stream of water hit me in the chest, threw me back against the wall and pinned me there. I held my arms over my face and sputtered, "What the heck is happening?" over and over.

  The water stream moved from me to Kimmy lying on the floor and the force of it sent her rolling to the other side of the kitchen.

  I wiped my face and saw the living room was filled with firemen and they had their water hose turned on and were dousing everything in the apartment. Black smoke was pouring out of the oven, and that wasn't Kimmy I heard screaming, it was a smoke alarm shrieking.

  A fireman aimed the hose at the smoke alarm up on the wall and it burst into tiny pieces.

  Silence.

  It took me a good ten seconds to put it all together: Dinner had burned in the oven and the smoke had set off the smoke alarm and we were so busy getting busy we didn't even know it or know when the fire department had arrived.

  Finally, one of the firemen had enough sense to turn off the hose and they all stood there staring at half-naked Kimmy lying on the floor and me, sopping wet, huddled against the wall.

  I made up the only excuse I could think up spur of the moment and said, "The smoke made her faint. I was giving her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation."

  The firemen grinned and one of them said, "You were working on the wrong end, darlin'."

  That's when Kimmy stumbled to her feet, looked at me and said, "That was fucking incredible."

  ***

  Dana had been walking on air ever since she'd hung upside down on the monkey bars the night before and it had nothing to do with an engorged brain. She had stayed up the better part of the night writing and didn't even feel tired. She didn't even bitch about cleaning out Mrs. Olsen's garage all day. It was a sure sign that love was invading her body like an airborne infectious disease.

  She had a renewed sense of well-being that she usually was only able to achieve after watching It's a Wonderful Life or reveling in the dopamine rush of an orgasm. This sense of all's right with the world gave her a new lease on life. Yesterday she wanted to kill herself or at the very least lock herself away until she grew fingernails as long as Howard Hughes', but today she was all about exploring her potential with Ellen. Her mission, should she choose to accept it, was to climb out of the hole of Kimmy, figuratively speaking, and dive into the hole of Ellen, literally speaking.

  All this thinking about climbing and missions made Dana ravenous. As soon as she got home, she rushed to the kitchen and opened the fridge door to see what there was to eat. There were stacks and stacks of unlabeled Tupperware containers. Maw Maw never threw anything away. If you so much as left one pea on your supper plate she packed it away and you'd find back on your plate at the next meal.

  Dana grabbed the first Tupperware she saw and popped the top.

  Ick and double ick. It looked like one of Maw Maw's experiments. She put it back in the fridge and opted for two slices of bologna, a slice of white bread and a couple of hunks of Velveeta. She was going to make what she called an inside-out sandwich. An inside-out sandwich was exactly what it sounded like: a piece of bread in between two slices of bologna and Velveeta. Whenever Dana got some spare time she was planning on selling this idea to the Oscar Myer or the Velveeta people. She was sure they'd pay her to put the recipe for her inside-out sandwich on their packaging. The recipe could be her golden ticket out of Dooley Springs. Dana's only concern was that the bread people might be sore. If her inside-out sandwich was as big as she thought it would be, bread sales would be cut in half. She hoped the bread corporations didn't send Mr. Slugworth after her like in Willie Wonka.

  Dana took a big bite of sandwich and scanned the to-do list she had posted on the fridge door one day when she was under the influence of Hoarders. All she had accomplished was writing the list, but according to the show's certified professional organizers that was at least a step in the right direction.

  The to-do list read: “Wash windows. Clean top of fridge. Dust ceiling fans. Lose ten pounds.”

  Somebody (her butthole brother, judging from the handwriting) had X'ed out the “ten” and written “one hundred” above it.

  Dana picked up the pencil on a string that was hanging from a magnet and added to the bottom of the list, "Get rid of Kimmy." She was fully aware that Kimmy might see this and she would have to pay the consequences. But on the plus side maybe she would see it and then Dana wouldn't have to tell her to leave. She would see how unwanted she was and leave of her own accord.

  Writing down those four words made Dana feel better. They were like the death gurgles of her relationship with Kimmy, signifying the end was near.

  She shoved the last of the bologna in her mouth, got a rag and c
leanser out of the cupboard, stood on a chair and attacked the top of the fridge. She scrubbed until she could see her own reflection smiling back at herself. Satisfied with that job, she put a check mark beside number two on the list. Only three more to go.

  That accomplishment felt so good Dana allowed herself a Pop Tart to celebrate. She bit off all the corners of the pastry as she walked upstairs and into the bathroom. She turned on the hot water in the shower and sat down on the toilet lid, eating her dessert while the water heated up. She listened to the old water pipes groan. The pipes sounded a lot like Kimmy when she was in throes of an escalating climax. That was a sound she wouldn't miss.

  Dana considered her options for finding Kimmy cheating on her:

  1. Follow her and catch her in the act

  2. Find written proof

  3. Ask her point-blank

  Since Dana was a chicken and avoided all confrontations and Kimmy would lie anyway, that ruled out number three. She wasn't sure that Kimmy could write so that meant number two was out. That left Dana no choice but to follow Kimmy and catch her making water pipe noises with somebody else.

  She swallowed the last of the Pop Tart, stood up and stepped on something yucky. What the heck? She sat back down on the toilet lid and examined the bottom of her foot. A blob of something that looked like wax was stuck to her heel. She pried it off and sniffed it. It even smelled like wax. She rolled it between her thumb and forefinger, booger-style, and flicked it into the waste basket.

  She had no earthly idea how wax could've gotten on the bathroom floor. She hadn't burned any candles. She got down on her hands and knees and took a closer look at the linoleum. The entire bathroom floor was dotted with little blobs of wax. That's when it hit her—dripping wax, Kimmy's bald whoozit—she'd been waxing her whoozit and walking around the bathroom while she did it and it dripped and left burn holes where the hot wax had landed. Son-of-a-gun! Kimmy had ruined the linoleum.

  Dana was furious. That was just like Kimmy to drip her pussy wax all over the linoleum and not even notice or care or take the time to scrape it up. In Kimmy World the sun revolved around her pussy.

  Unable to stand another second of pussy wax blobs on her floor, Dana ran downstairs to the kitchen, pulled the utensil drawer out of the cabinet and dumped its entire contents on top of the table. She picked a metal spatula out of the jumble of silverware and ran back the way she came, taking the stairs two at a time.

  She threw open the bathroom door, dropped to her knees and began using the spatula as a lever to pry the blobs of pussy wax off the linoleum. One by one, the blobs popped off, leaving tiny burned pockmarks behind. The entire time she worked, Dana chanted a mantra under her breath, "I hate Kimmy I hate Kimmy's bald pussy I hate Kimmy I hate Kimmy's bald pussy."

  Behind the chanting words Dana's brain kept sane by concocting the perfect plot for her book. It would be a revenge fantasy. The antagonist, Kimmy (she would change her name, of course), would meet her demise in a cruel death caused by her tragic flaw. In the final climatic scene of the book, Kimmy would meet a horrible and gruesome death. She would be run over by a train. No, that was too quick a death. Maybe Kimmy could parachute from an airplane with a defective parachute. That would give her plenty of time to realize the wrongness of her ways. No, that might make the reader empathize with Kimmy and Dana didn't want to create pathos. Maybe she could have Asscat gnaw through the brake lines on Kimmy's car and she would spiral out of control and fly off a cliff and smash to the ground.

  "What're you doing with my pancake spatula, young lady?"

  That question sucked all the air out of Dana's revenge fantasy and she looked up to see that the bathroom was clouded with steam from the hot water she had forgotten to turn off and Maw Maw was standing over her with her hands on her hips. Maw Maw's face was a putrid shade of green and she had a huge wart on her chin. She was wearing a black filmy dress and a pointy hat and she was holding a broom.

  "Did you let Trudy have her way with you?" Dana asked.

  Maw Maw ignored the question by asking one of her own, "What're you doing with my best spatula?"

  "Trying to pry this dried wax off the floor."

  "How in the tarnation did you get wax all over the floor?"

  "I didn't do it" is all Dana said.

  "Kimmy?"

  Dana didn't answer, which was as good as an answer.

  "What the heck was she waxing in here anyway?" Maw Maw asked next.

  Dana raised one eyebrow, giving her the "did you really have to ask" expression.

  Maw Maw pursed her lips. "Remind me not to make pancakes with that spatula." She turned and headed for the door, mumbling, "I can't have anything nice in this house with you kids." She stopped, whipped around and poked the air between her and Dana with the bristly end of the broom, saying, "I put your new costume on your bed. Get dressed. You have five minutes." She sighed and all the bravado leaked out of her and her shoulders sagged. She walked away, dragging the broom behind her like a very sad, dejected witch, muttering, "I don't ask for much. One spatula. One measly little spatula and even that is…"

  Crapola.

  Dana totally forgot that it was Halloween. No wonder Maw Maw was so upset. Halloween was Maw Maw's favorite holiday and every year she made Dana dress up with her to hand out treats. Dana could forget Christmas or even Maw Maw's birthday, but if she was five minutes late for her annual Halloween candy handout, there would be hell to pay.

  Dana's house was the highlight of the town's trick-or-treaters. Maw Maw thought the kids loved her costumes and sound effects recordings that she piped over the speakers she set in the windows. Dana knew better. The kids lined up halfway down the block for the full-size candy bars Maw Maw handed out.

  Dana furiously bent back over the spatula, working on a big blob. She leaned her weight on the handle, hoping to get more leverage. The spatula curled under the extra pressure. She held it up and examined the damage. The spatula was completely bent in half. In a fit of anger, she threw it as hard as she could. It clanked off the wall and splashed into the tub.

  Dana swiped her stringy hair out of her red, sweaty face and sat back on her haunches. The bathroom was like a sauna. She pulled on the front of her shirt, unplastering it from the sweat rings under her boobs. She closed her eyes and inhaled the hot, humid air.

  She thought of an even better ending for her book: Kimmy could be using hair spray on her hair and smoking at the same time and her head would catch on fire a la Michael Jackson. Then her head would be as bald as her pussy. She would have a matched set. Her scalp would be so burned she'd have to have skin grafts. Doctors would take the skin from her butt and put it on her head and the next time Dana called her a butthead, it would be the truth.

  ***

  Excerpt from Bad Romance:

  After the firemen left, Kimmy's entire apartment was smoke-filled and water-logged. There was no way she could stay there, so I gallantly offered my place. It only took one trip to pile everything she owned into the backseat of Betty—two suitcases, one passed-out dog, a toothbrush, a flat iron, a dog bowl, a blowdryer and half a bag of thawed corn. It all smelled like a campfire. Especially the dog.

  After the cold shower I got from the fire department, I was stone cold sober and not sure I wanted to be. I knew that with Kimmy I was in over my head, but I didn't know what to do about it. I didn't even know if I wanted to do anything about it. All I knew was I wanted to get Kimmy out of my head and into my bed.

  I drove with my hands on the wheel and one eye on the rear view mirror watching for any sign of life from Snickerdoodle. He was stretched out on top of the suitcase in the backseat. The only way I knew he was alive was because he hiccupped every other beat.

  "It's so nice of you to offer me a place to stay," Kimmy said all formally-sounding like I hadn't gone down on her and given her the orgasm of her life. (Her words, not mine.)

  I waved away her words with a devil-may-care toss of my hand. "I have lots of room. It's a big house, ol
d, but big. Maw Maw lives with me, but in the mother-in-law house out back. She only comes in to cook, do laundry and stuff. You can stay as long as you want, you know, as long as you need to get back on your feet."

  I pulled into the driveway of my house and shut off the engine. Betty's headlights were a little cockeyed and they shone eerily at the turret on the side of the house. My old house was built by my great-grandfather, Daniel Dooley. Daniel was a carpenter by trade. Unfortunately, he was missing his left arm. He was fond of telling anybody who would listen that he got caught in a bear trap and had to chew off his own arm to escape. That was a lie, but it was a good one, and most people believed it. He didn't let having only one arm stop him from building things. His career soared after he said he ate off his arm. People either liked the novelty of hiring him or they felt sorry for him. Either way, half the town hired him to build their new homes. Which explained why most of the houses in town listed several feet to the left.

  My old house not only leaned several feet port side like a drunken sailor, but it sunk some in the middle too. It looked like a soufflé that had fallen in the oven.

  "What's that thing?" Kimmy asked, pointing up.

  "That's called a turret. They were originally designed as defensive fortification during the Middle Ages. You could shoot a gun from it and still be…" I could tell Kimmy had stopped listening because she was putting on a fresh coat of lipstick using a lighted compact mirror and humming to herself. The way the light shone up from the compact under her chin reminded me of the way kids shine a flashlight on their faces to tell a ghost story. I continued with my history lesson in a smaller voice, "It's decorative now. A little circular room. It's part of my bedroom."

  "It looks like a giant penis," she said, snapping her compact shut.

  I nodded. Maybe she was listening after all. "It’s a phallic symbol. I've often thought it was designed as part of the house to symbolize power and virility..."

  She interrupted, "I knew a guy once who had a dick like that. It kind of curved to the left."