by Fanny Merkin
I shake my head.
“Too bad,” he says, washing down his McRib with a Shamrock Shake, another out-of-season menu item. “I like girls who can take orders.”
“Is this your way of asking if I’ll play this kinky BDSM game with you, Mr. Grey?”
He sighs, setting down his grilled corn on the cob. “Could you at least act like you’re shocked? If you’re not shocked by how naughty and perverted my deviant tastes are, it kind of drains all the tension out of our relationship.”
“So I should be shocked that you like to do bad stuff to women? Do you sexually abuse them against their will? That would be really shocking.”
“No, that’s not it at all. I mean, they’re into it. I only do it if they like it. Sometimes they’re more into it than I am, to be honest.”
“But you really injure them? That’s why it’s shocking?”
“No. They’re fine. Some mild redness occurs on their bottoms, but that fades in a few hours.”
“I’m not following,” I say. “Why am I supposed to be shocked?”
“Anna, if you’re game, then why are we tiptoeing around the issue?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “I’ve been DTF since we first met.”
“Then, without further ado . . .” He sweeps the food off the table, just for dramatic emphasis. He pulls a bugle out of his bathrobe, sounds a long note, and clears his throat. “Let the fucking begin!”
Chapter Eight
AT ONCE, Earl Grey’s mouth is upon me. His arms crawl up the back of my robe as his tongue penetrates my lips. Our mouths create an airtight seal, and our tongues battle it out for supremacy. His is the more dominant tongue; I let my tongue go limp and submit fully to Earl Grey. For the first time in my life, I have found my purpose: to be a doormat for this ridiculously wealthy, attractive, impossible-to-resist man.
Suddenly, he withdraws his tongue and releases me from his grasp.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
He narrows his eyes. “Perhaps we shouldn’t have started kissing so soon after eating. Your mouth tastes like you ate an entire garlic bulb.”
“That’s because I did,” I say.
He sighs. “Go brush your teeth. I’ll wait here.”
I lower my gaze and walk to the bathroom. I close the door. There’s only one toothbrush on the sink, and it belongs to Earl Grey. I pick it up and run the bristles over my lips. It’s like a six-inch piece of Earl. I slide the toothbrush into my mouth and, angling my head and neck, slowly ease it down my throat. Mmmmm . . . I can’t wait to deep throat Earl’s—
“Hurry up, woman,” he says from the next room, startling me. I drop the toothbrush straight down my throat. I’m such an idiot! My inner guidette rolls her eyes. The toothbrush is caught in my esophagus; I can’t breathe. I clutch my throat and try coughing, but it’s no use. My body crumples to the floor . . .
“What is going on in there, Anna?” Earl says with concern in his voice.
I try to call out, but nothing comes out of my mouth except drool.
The door swings open, and Earl Grey stands above me. Earl Grey, my savior!
“My God, Anna, what are you doing on the floor?”
I motion to my throat with both hands. Earl, immediately sensing the gravitas of the situation, props me into a sitting position. He kneels behind me and wraps his arms around me. He attempts the Heimlich maneuver, but it’s no use. I’m fading into unconsciousness quickly . . .
Earl lays me on my back and tilts my head back. “I can’t lose you, Anna,” he says. “I can’t!”
He pushes his long fingers into my mouth. I feel them creeping down my throat. He carefully backs his fingers out, holding the toothbrush between his impossibly long index and middle fingers. I breathe again, and it’s the sweetest breath I’ve ever taken. Air is like cable TV: you don’t appreciate it until you don’t have it.
“Thank you,” I say to Earl. If his fingers weren’t so freakishly long, I would be dead right now.
“I don’t know what I would do without you, Anna,” he says. It’s an emotional moment, and we both pause to gaze at each other. Is he going to kiss me again?
Earl stands up and helps me to my feet, for the second time in two days. Or the third time. I’m losing track of how often he saves me from myself.
“Now brush your teeth,” he says. “That garlic is really quite overpowering.”
I nod. He closes the door on his way out of the bathroom. No playing around now. Just brush your teeth, go out there, and ride his D to O-Town, my inner guidette says. You got this, babe!
I squeeze out a dollop of mint toothpaste onto Earl Grey’s toothbrush and begin polishing my teeth. The faster you do this, the sooner you can lose your virginity to Earl Grey. Mmmmm . . . Earl Grey . . . The more I think about him, the more the toothbrush becomes him, and I swear I don’t know how it happens but thirty seconds later I’m on the floor, choking again.
I’m lying on my back on the bed, the same position I started the morning in. The big difference is that Earl Grey is now hovering over me. Well, not literally hovering, because that would mean we’re in zero gravity or that Earl can levitate, but you get the idea. He’s, like, on top of me. We’re both in our robes still. He has just saved me from choking twice in the span of three minutes. My breath still reeks of garlic.
“I’ve been waiting for this moment forever,” he says.
“We just met last week,” I say. “How can that be?”
“You take everything so literally, Anna. I love that about you.”
“So you haven’t been waiting for this moment forever?”
He laughs that wicked Earl Grey laugh. “Oh, Anna . . .”
Earl unties the cloth belt holding my robe together. I shudder. Oh my . . . We’re really going to do this. He slowly opens my robe, exposing my pale skin to the air. He runs the back of his fingers down the length of my body from my neck to my untrimmed thigh hair. He smiles at me, though he smiles most of the time. Maybe I should just start mentioning when he’s not smiling? That would be easier.
“I’ve never done this before,” I say meekly. I shut my eyes in embarrassment.
“Never had sex in a hotel room?” he says, cradling my face in his hand. I kiss his palm.
“Never had sex . . . at all,” I say.
He doesn’t say anything. I open my eyes.
“I know, Anna,” he says. “I’ve read transcripts of all your therapist appointments from the time you were sixteen until last week. You don’t think you’re desirable, but you don’t know the power you have . . .”
“You’re not mad?” I say.
“Why would I be?”
I shrug. “I didn’t think most guys wanted to date virgins. We’re not very experienced, and we usually have emotional hang-ups involving sex.”
“Who said we’re dating?”
Gulp. It’s like I was following the bread crumbs on a trail to his heart, but a big bird came along and ate them all. The trail of bread crumbs has gone cold.
“I already told you, I’m not a 'girlfriend’ kind of guy, Anna,” he says, scolding me. “But that reminds me . . .”
Earl reaches a hand into his robe and pulls out a thick manila envelope. He sits up on his knees and hands it to me. Uh-oh. What is this?
“It’s a quiz,” he says.
“A quiz?” I say, holding it. “What kind of quiz?”
“The kind you might find in Cosmo,” he says, and the smirk is back. How I missed his smirk! “It’s a sex quiz, baby.”
Chapter Nine
MY ROBE IS TIED AGAIN, and it doesn’t look like Earl Grey and I are going to be jumping back into bed anytime soon. He’s relaxing on the bed, watching oiled-up men in their underwear roll around with each other on some WWE wrestling program. He’s giving me a chance to read over the entire quiz, and refuses to even go to first base with me until I’ve filled it out. This isn’t how I expected to spend my Sunday; in some ways, it’s even more tedious than studying for my
final exams.
Name: _________________
My ideal man is:
a. Smart
b. Funny
c. Good looking
d. Wealthy
e. Sociopathic
f. All of the above
I feel sexiest when I’m wearing:
a. New shoes
b. A slinky black dress
c. Nipple clamps
d. All of the above
I’m afraid of:
a. Being flogged
b. Being tied up
c. Running out of toilet paper in a public restroom
d. None of the above
My favorite body part is:
a. My butt
b. My boobs
c. My eyes
d. My partner’s eyes
Toys I would like to try include:
a. Vibrators
b. Butt plugs
c. Hello Kitty–brand toasters
d. All of the above
I am:
a. Team Edward
b. Team Jacob
c. Team Edward Does Jacob
I find it really hot when a man:
a. Listens to me
b. Cooks dinner for me
c. Canes my ass like a Singapore prison warden
One extracurricular activity I’ve always wanted to try is:
a. “Dirty Sanchez”
b. “Rusty trombone”
c. “Amish plow”
d. “Abraham Lincoln”
In a relationship, I prefer to be:
a. Submissive
b. Dominant
c. Awake
One day, I’d really like to:
a. Meet Tom Cruise
b. Go skydiving
c. Have sex with Earl Grey
d. All of the above, at the same time
The amount of pain I can tolerate on a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 is “none” and 5 is “listening to anything by Fergie or the Black-Eyed Peas,” is:
1–2–3–4–5
And there’s more.
I look up from the quiz at Earl in disbelief. “You actually want me to fill this out?”
He turns the television volume down. “That was kind of the idea, Anna,” he says.
Every time he says my name, a chill runs down my spine. That doesn’t change the fact that I’m irritated with him. He won’t be using his charm and good looks on me, not this time.
“You’re out of your damn mind,” I say. “I’m not filling anything out.”
“If you don’t, then . . .”
“Then what? You won’t make love to me?”
He cackles, then growls, then cackles. “I don’t make love, Anna. I hardly play. I mean, I play hard.”
Woah. Just hearing him say the word “hard” makes me want to fill out the sex quiz. But no! I have to stand my ground. Be strong, Anna, my inner guidette says. Don’t let this juicehead push you around.
“What happened to you as a child to make you this way?” I ask Earl.
“What way?” he says defensively.
“So afraid of forming any real emotional connection.”
“I resent that remark,” he says. “I’m a people person.”
I shake my head. “You use people, Earl. The billion people who work for you are nothing more than grains of sand that make up a beach that you relax on, with a piña colada in one hand and a blond receptionist in the other.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says. “I’ve never had a piña colada in my life.”
“I may not be the smartest person in this room, but I’m not some stupid college kid,” I say, emboldened by the rise I’m getting out of him. Actually, I am a stupid college kid; hopefully, he doesn’t pick up on my verbal slip.
“Stop this at once, before you say something you regret,” he says.
“You’re not a people person, Mr. Grey. You dispose of employees with the slightest provocation. You buy and sell companies based on whom you’re dating, without regard to the employees whose lives you affect when you act so willy-nilly. You can’t even enter into a relationship without your partner answering a twelve-hundred-page Cosmo quiz. You’re afraid of people.”
Earl Grey, no longer smirking, shakes his head and lowers his gaze. Have I broken through the great Earl Grey’s ego?
“The quiz is only a thousand one hundred eighty-seven pages, but . . . you’re right. You’re right, Anna,” he says.
“I am?”
“Yes,” he says. “Fine. Don’t answer the quiz questions. We can discuss it later.”
Did he just cede a point to me? I think he did! Score one for the away team.
“Now, if you’re not man enough to slay dragons with me without some stupid quiz, I’m leaving,” I say.
His eyes open wide. Now I’ve shocked the dark and dangerous Earl Grey!
“Don’t go,” he says, a hint of desperation in his voice. “There’s something I need to show you first. Get dressed.”
Chapter Ten
WITH MY BACK TURNED to Earl, I slip my underwear on and adjust my bra underneath my robe. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch a glimpse of Earl changing. I’ve already seen every part of his body except for his dangling participle. He wouldn’t make me get dressed just to see that, would he? He must have something else planned for us.
“Are we going somewhere?” I ask.
“My apartment in Seattle,” he says, zipping his jeans. Each new outfit he wears is a revelation. His skinny jeans ride low on his scrumptious hips.
I pick up the quiz and we head for the elevators. I didn’t know we had elevators in Portland! Earl presses the button for the roof.
“Oh,” I say. “I don’t know if I’m up for a three-hour helicopter ride today . . .”
“We’re not taking my helicopter,” he says.
When we step out of the elevator and onto the rooftop, I see what Earl means. “A private jet!” I scream.
He smiles. “The helicopter is okay, but when I need to jet somewhere fast . . . well, I use a jet. Hop in, baby.”
He presses a button on his keychain remote and raises the jet’s glass cockpit. I climb a short ladder and settle into the rear seat. Earl takes the front seat where the controls are.
“You know what kind of jet this is?” he says, pressing a button to lower the glass shield. I have no idea, and he doesn’t give me a chance to answer anyway. “It’s an F-14 Tomcat. The same fighter jet that Tom Cruise flew in Top Gun.”
“Is he some kind of pilot? I thought you said he was a bartender?”
Earl fires up the engine. “No, baby, he’s an actor. Tom Cruise played Maverick in the 1986 film Top Gun. Man, I can’t believe you haven’t seen it. That just blows my mind.”
I shake my head. “Before my time, I guess.”
Earl ignores me and backs the jet up to give us the maximum amount of runway space on the Holiday Inn rooftop. “There were only seven hundred twelve of these bad boys built,” he says. “Most of them were scrapped by the US Navy; a few were sold to foreign governments. This is the only one in private use in the world. Put this on.” He hands me a helmet with GOOSE printed on it.
“Who’s Goose?”
“You are, today,” he says, strapping on his own helmet that reads MAVERICK.
“You really like this Tom Cruise guy,” I observe.
The jet has come to a halt on the rooftop. He turns and frowns at me. “What are you implying?”
“Nothing, geez.”
“Anyway,” he continues, “You’re in for a treat. We should be in Seattle in no time. This jet can go up to fifteen hundred miles per hour.”
Holy speed of sound! “We’re going to die,” I whisper.
“Not on my watch you won’t,” Earl says. “How many times have I saved your life so far?”
“Three. Or four,” I say meekly.
“Exactly. Buckle up. We’re about to take a ride into the Danger Zone.” He pauses. “Sorry, poor choice of words. It’s from a song
on the Top Gun soundtrack.”
Earl pops a cassette out of the F-14’s tape deck and searches in the glove compartment for a different album. “No Danger Zone today. I think this song is more appropriate,” he says, popping in a new tape. Most people my age probably don’t know what “cassette tapes” are, but I know all about them thanks to Kathleen. When I get home, I’ll ask her about this Top Gun movie. She might have it on VHS or laserdisc.
The music that Earl has picked out starts off with lyrics comparing a woman to cherry pie. Earl hums along, flipping various controls and doohickeys. I don’t want to make him feel any more uncomfortable about our six-year age difference, so I keep my mouth shut and don’t ask who the band is. They sound embarrassingly bad, like Adam Lambert if he were straight. I don’t always pick up on double meanings, but even I can tell the song is about sex. “Mixing up the batter while she licks the beater”? I mean, c’mon, guys. That’s just crude.
“And one more thing,” Earl says, turning around. “Take your finger out of your nose.”
“Sorry,” I say, pulling it out. I’ve got to stop being such a disgusting idiot around him!
I feel the jet inch forward. The engine roars, drowning out the awful music. We speed up and before I know it we’re airborne! I look out the window and see the Holiday Inn below us getting smaller and smaller by the second. Soon, the entire quaint city of Portland shrinks from view. What was life like before I met Earl Grey and started going on these crazy adventures? I can hardly remember. It’s like I was born yesterday. That’s something Dad’s always telling me: “What were you, born yesterday?” I never understood his question, because of course he knows my birthday. Now I think I get what he was saying. It’s an amazing feeling.
