Monkey Business

by Sarah Mlynowski

  Sunday, November 9, 9:30 p.m.

  “So assets equals liabilities plus stockholder equity.”

  I wonder what Russ is doing right now. Is he thinking about me? I bet he’s thinking about me.

  “The stockholders’ equity is therefore the difference between a firm’s assets and the firm’s liabilities, right?”

  He is the best kisser ever. Not too rough, not too soft, a little bit of tongue, but I didn’t feel like I was playing in a hockey match. His lips were round, plump and warm.

  Layla taps me on the head with her course pack. “Kimmy, you’re not listening to me. What are you daydreaming about?”

  Oops. “Nothing.”

  “Liar. Tell me.”

  Can’t tell, can’t tell, can’t tell. “I can’t.” How has she not figured it out?

  It’s Sunday night and we’re lying on our stomachs on Layla’s floor, teacups, textbook and calculators beside us. “Sounds juicy,” she says.

  Can’t tell, can’t tell, can’t…what the hell. I’ve held it in since my birthday and that was almost a month ago. That must be a world record. I swing my feet in front of me and sit up. “Okay. I wasn’t going to say anything, but I’m exploding.”

  “What happened?”

  “Russ.” Even his name sounds sexy and wonderful.

  “Russ happened? Is that like an earthquake?”

  I give her my best knowing look.

  “Did he cheat on his girlfriend with you?”

  Yikes. Does she have to put it like that? What about, did you finally physically express your feelings? I shrug, suddenly uncomfortable. “Kind of.”

  “Kind of? How does one kind of cheat?”

  I wish she’d stop using the C-word. It makes me feel whorish. “We didn’t sleep together. We just fooled around. Kissed. Some non-friend appropriate touching, but no sex.”

  She picks up her teacup and, pinky out, takes a long sip. Is she avoiding looking at me? “So what does this mean?”

  An excellent question. “I don’t know, Layla.”

  She takes another slow sip, pinky still out. “What about his girlfriend?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “Do you think he told her?”

  I snort. “Not likely. Men never come clean unless they’re leaving.” My mother realized my father had cheated only after she heard the message he’d left on her answering machine, telling her he’d moved his belongings to his ho-bag mistress’s apartment. But Russ seems more decent. He’s probably not the sort to walk out on someone that way. What if he’s planning to break up with her but he doesn’t want to do it over the phone? Maybe he fell in love with me after we made out, and the reason it hasn’t happened again is that he wants to be split up with her before we hook up again. “Do you think he’ll break up with her?”

  She balances her tea on her Accounting textbook and looks me in the eye. “Kimmy, I don’t think what you did was right.”

  I shouldn’t have said anything. Now Layla thinks I’m a big slut. “I’m not in the mood for a lecture, thanks.”

  She sighs. “What do you expect to get out of this?”

  What kind of question is that? What does she think? A record deal? “I want him to break up with her and start dating me.”

  “But…if he cheated on her, don’t you think he’ll cheat on you?” she asks, her voice rising.

  They all cheat anyway, so what’s the difference? “He might. But I would keep a better eye on him.”

  “That’s your long-term strategy? Buy him a leash?”

  Can it have rhinestones? “No. Maybe. But giving in to temptation wasn’t entirely his fault. I kind of pushed it.”

  She shakes her head. “There will always be someone like you, pushing it. To be entirely safe, you’d have to keep him under house arrest.”

  I’m not going to show her my Steal Russ project plan, but she should understand what he was up against. “I got him drunk and orchestrated a game of spin the bottle. Please don’t repeat that we played spin the bottle. Or about Russ.” Truth is, I want Layla to tell. If everyone knows, he’ll have to break up with Sharon. I roll a Hi-Liter between my fingers.

  “Who played spin the bottle?”

  “My work group.”

  “Your group has more fun than mine does,” she says, sighing.

  I don’t doubt that. Her group looks like their idea of a fun night is getting together and watching Star Trek reruns. (I shouldn’t jest. Russ has a Mr. Spock pencil case.) “Anyway, Russ and I kissed during the game. And then when everyone left, we kissed again. And again. We made out for like an hour. And then he left.”

  She sighs, louder this time. “Has anything happened since then?”

  “No. And we haven’t even talked about it, either. He’s acting totally weird. Sometimes I think he’s avoiding me, but then other times he flirts. Like at the Halloween party. We were both drinking, and he would stand a little too close to me, so I thought, for sure we’re going home together. But then he left with Nick. So what do you think I should do?”

  Layla downs the rest of her tea. “Honesty is usually the best policy. Talk to him. He owes you an explanation. And he certainly owes Sharon an explanation.” She puts down her cup. “But now we have to get back to work.”

  Work, shmurk. “Talking about Russ is much more fun.”

  “Balance sheets are fun.”

  I worry about her sometimes.

  “I think we should talk about the midterm Economics assignment, which I bet you haven’t started yet,” she snaps. “It’s worth sixty percent of our final grade.”

  Despite the attitude, she really is a godsend.

  By ten-thirty, I (unbelievably) have a basic understanding of what I have to do for the assignment, and I pack up, then leave her to transcribe today’s tape-recorded lessons. Yes, she’s a freak. My eyes are killing me from the excessive reading, and I need something to drink that does not involve hot water or chamomile. I check for change in my pocket and skip down to the basement to buy a bottle of apple juice from the building’s sole vending machine.

  And look what we have here. Russ staring at the machine. A balm for my sore eyes.

  He spins around, surprised. “I forgot this doesn’t take loonies,” he says, fingering a gold coin, which I assume is Canadian.

  “I don’t think so.”

  He laughs and says, “You don’t happen to have an extra dollar do you? I’m not sure why I think we’re in Canada.”

  “Oh, but I do,” I say, and hand him one. I pat his arm. “See anything good?”

  “I had a craving for Pringles, but all this has is pretzels.”

  “I have salt-and-vinegar chips in my room.” He doesn’t respond. I backtrack. “You don’t like pretzels?”

  He gives me a lopsided smile. “I like chocolate pretzels.”

  “Those sound gross.” I’m trying hard not to point out the massive elephant in the room that we’re both ignoring: the fact that he has a girlfriend and we hooked up.

  A candy bar pops out of the machine, and he bends down to pick it up. “I shouldn’t be eating this,” he’s saying as I get an eyeful of his perfectly sculpted behind.

  “Why?” I ask, very much distracted.

  “Bad for the body.”

  “Your body looks fine.” Oops. Didn’t mean to say that. I buy a bottle of juice. “Where do you want to sit?” Wasn’t that clever? I’ve implied he wants to sit with me.

  “Here?”

  We slide down to the floor. I wish there were chairs. No one’s stomach ever looks good when we’re crouching on the floor. He unwraps his bar and breaks it in half. He consumes his portion in one bite. I nibble on the corners and ask, “How are you doing?”

  “Busy. You?”

  “You know.” You know as in you know I’d rather be naked in my room with you.

  He fiddles with the wrinkled wrapper. “I wanted to talk to you about the other night.”

  Why is he staring at his hands? I’m getting a bad feeling her
e. He’s going to tell me it didn’t mean anything. I need to take a different tack. “What night?”

  He blushes. How cute is that? “You know,” he says, looking at me sideways. “Spin the bottle?”

  “Spin what bottle?” I scoot close to him and tap my shoulder against his. “Like this?” I put the lid on my juice and spin it. It hits my knee and stops. “First it’s a kiss on the cheek.” I kiss him on the cheek, quickly, then spin the drink again. It stops against his thigh. “Second it’s a kiss on the lips.”

  Before he realizes what I’m doing, I lean over and kiss him. He doesn’t stop me.

  “That’s-” more kissing “-what I wanted-” more kissing “-to talk about.” His lips are juicy. Sweet like chocolate milk. “I have a girlfriend,” he continues. And then kisses me again.

  Tongue in my mouth, tracing my teeth. “And?”

  “Who I care about.”

  “And?” I finger the dark hairs on his arm.

  He’s still kissing me.

  I move my hand up to his chest and press my nails into the cotton of his shirt.

  “I think we should stop,” he says.

  “Do you want to stop?”

  “No.” And then his hand is on the back of my head, pulling me closer, into him, under him. My back is flat against the stiff, cold, basement floor. Something sticky is in my hair. I’m thinking spilled liquid detergent from the laundry room down the hallway. I want to tell him that we should go to his room, but I’m afraid of breaking the spell.

  I hear the sound of someone skipping down the stairs, change jingling in a pocket.

  That decides it. “Let’s go upstairs,” I say. He helps me to my feet and I lead him like he’s a puppy. (That rhinestone leash would come in handy right now.) We pass someone from another Block and nod hello. Three flights later, we’re alone in the hallway. When he pulls his key from his pocket, I rub myself against his back. He moans and opens the door. He doesn’t turn on the lights. Instead, he shuts the door behind him and pushes me up against it, then rubs his hands up and down my arms, legs, breasts, stomach, like he’s trying to rub off my clothes.

  My body’s on fire. I pull his hair and kiss him.

  He pulls my shirt over my head and discards it onto the floor, undoes my bra and then bites my neck. I squeeze my hands between our bodies and unbutton his shirt and drop it next to mine. Now we’re getting somewhere. I squeeze in again for his belt, but he blocks me. Strike one. “Don’t,” he says, but continues sucking my neck. What is don’t? What guy says don’t?

  His mouth descends to my nipples. Well, that’s better. At least now we’re progressing. Last time we hooked up, there was zero nipple action. I take his move as a sign to try for his belt a second time, but again he stops me. Strike two. I’ve never been on this end of the tug-of-war. In high school it was always me doing the hand block. The guy would stick his hand under my shirt, I’d use a Karate Kid move to stop him. He’d try again two minutes later, and again I’d do the block.

  Interesting stat: since coming to B-school, I’ve tried and failed to have sex with two different men, on two different occasions. Is this normal?

  My next move is the back-door move-I gently squeeze his ass through his jeans. Is he going to stop me? Nope. Not stopping me. He squeezes mine. Wahoo! We’ve successfully moved to our body’s lower quadrants. I push him to his bed.

  He presses Play on his CD player. The song “Hero” from Spider-Man comes on.

  I go for his belt again.

  He doesn’t stop me. In high school, I used to give in at round three, too.

  Three strikes and Sharon’s out.

  russ caves in

  11:45 p.m.

  What am I doing, what am I doing? Don’t think, don’t think. She’s taking me out of my boxers now, stroking me. Must stop. Must say stop. Stop. Stoooooop. Her breasts are floating above me like magical, poisonous clouds.

  I don’t know how I let this get this far. Honestly. Last thing I remember, I was minding my own business, craving Pringles. And then she was kissing me, I was telling her to stop (mentally), and the next thing I know I’m flat on my back and she’s undoing my belt.

  Oh, man.

  Maybe she has secret Iceman qualities and has (zing!) frozen me to the bed.

  Ooh. Ah. She’s rubbing her nose on my stomach. Lower. Yes, lower. I don’t think I’ve ever been this hard. This is wrong. So wrong. I must stop. I must say stop. I should not be in this predicament. Can’t.

  Now she’s licking me like a Popsicle. Then she wraps her whole mouth around me and sucks. This is even worse. Must stop her. So good. Must say stop. Stop. Yeah, right. Instead I say, “I’m going to come.”

  The good news: she doesn’t stop. The better news: she swallows. Sharon never swallows.

  At least I didn’t have real sex.

  That’s a line I will not cross.

  Doesn’t that count for something?

  Kimmy rests her head on my stomach and I doze off.

  Ring. Phone. Shit. Ring. Kimmy stirs. “You getting that?”

  Ring. Gimme a break. ’Course I’m not getting that. It’s Sharon. How can I talk to Sharon when I’ve just come in Kimmy’s mouth?

  Ring.

  “No.” Thank God for voice mail. Imagine having to listen to Sharon’s voice echoing through the room. That would be so wrong. Not more wrong than what just happened, but definitely wrong.

  Kimmy scoots up to my pillow and kisses my collarbone.

  I feel out her ears. The lobes are nothing special, but there’s a pointy pyramid on the top of her cartilage that might be fun to play with. I run the pad of my thumb over it.

  “My mother used to get mad at me when I did that,” she says. “She told me that if I kept playing with it, it would grow.”

  “Did it?”

  “No.”

  I continue playing with it, until my thumb gets sore. Is she planning on leaving soon? Not that I’m trying to throw her out. I’ve never been a wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am kind of guy. But-well, I’ll have to call Sharon back. Not this second. But in the next hour or so. Anyway, besides the Sharon-telephone issue, this is a single bed. Two people can’t sleep comfortably in this baby, that’s for sure.

  I shift and stretch in the hopes that she’ll realize how uncomfortable she is and leave. Doesn’t happen.

  Ring.

  Shit. My spine feels twisted and prickly, my skin clammy. I think the walls of my room might be compressing like the trash compactor scene in Star Wars.

  Ring.

  What does Kimmy expect from this? Does she want me to break up with Sharon? Start dating her? I don’t want to break up with Sharon. I love the way she’s tough but not too tough to make baby kisses into the phone. I love the way she plays with my hair. She picks one strand and then rolls it in her fingertips while we’re watching TV, my head in her lap. I love the way she eats chocolate peanut butter cups. She bites off the rim, peels off the top chocolate layer, and then licks the chocolate off the bottom so that all that’s left is the peanut butter circle, which she pops into her mouth. Then she closes her eyes and makes adorable “mmm” sounds.

  If I break up with her she’ll never do that again. Worse, she’ll do it again but not with me.

  My stomach hurts. My back’s in pain. I can’t breathe. I can’t break up with Sharon. No way. I have to tell Kimmy that this isn’t happening again. Now might not be the best moment. Maybe sometime when I’m wearing my boxers. Maybe if I say I’m going to the bathroom, she’ll leave. And then I’ll call Sharon back. I pat her forehead. “Bathroom time.” I almost said bathroom break, but in the nick of time I realized that she might take that to mean that I’m expecting her to return.

  She stretches her arms above her, like Catwoman. “Me, too. I should go back to my room, anyway.”

  “Yeah?” You don’t say. “Okay.” I re-dress, then peer into the hallway to make sure the coast in clear. A run-in with Rena would not be good. Coast is clear.

  “I’ll see
you in a sex,” she says, heading to her room.

  I think she meant sec. Or not. When I see her in front of the sink brushing her teeth, I peck her cheek. “Good night,” I say while hurrying out.

  “But wait-” she says, but I’m already out the door and pretend I don’t hear.

  Voice mail from Sharon: “Hi, honey, it’s me. Just want to say hello. See what’s up. Miss you.” She blows a series of baby kisses into the phone and I feel like a bastard.

  Second message: “Honey, where are you? I want to go to sleep.”

  I lie down and dial. “Hi.” A strand of Kimmy’s hair is on my pillow.

  “Hi, honey. Where were you?”

  “In the bathroom,” I answer. At least I didn’t have to lie. Yet.

  “I can’t wait to see you,” she murmurs.

  I put on my sweet voice, the one that sounds almost babyish, the one I would never use in front of another guy, ever. “I can’t wait to see you, too.”

  “It’s only two more weeks till American Thanksgiving. You have your plane ticket, right?”

  My sheets smell musky, like female sweat. “I have my plane ticket.”

  “I’m so happy you’re coming home. Do you want to do anything special? I have a bunch of new recipes I can make you for dinner.”

  Sure. And would it be okay if Kimmy gave me a blow job for dessert?

  How does she not know? All I know is that I can’t tell her. Not that I was planning on telling her. You can’t tell someone that you cheated only ten minutes after it happened. What’s your excuse? Sorry, I was drunk then, but I’m sober now? I didn’t realize how special you are, but now I do? I was hard and now I’m not?

  What if we get married? Did I just cheat on my future wife?

  “Sounds great,” I say.

  “Any more thoughts on Christmas? I was thinking about a cruise.”

  Christmas? That’s two months away. What if I decide I want to be with Kimmy? Not that I’m planning to decide to be with Kimmy. I don’t know what I’m planning. Except changing my sheets. Smelling Kimmy and talking to Sharon is like watching The Hulk turn orange when he gets angry instead of green. Just wrong. “Um, no thoughts yet.”

  “Okay, but decide soon or we’ll never get reservations. What did you do tonight?”