Reader’s Note: Here is another piece of short fiction I’ve decided to dump on you poor saps. It’s from my creative writing class and is not based on anything I have ever experienced personally. Enjoy.
“The funny thing about seeing your parents having sex is that there’s nothing funny about it.” I say this with a half smirk and come of as someone not unlike a sex offender. There is absolutely no way to respond to a statement like that, so she just stares at me and I keep smiling back with a grin I could have bought at a discount store for a dollar. I desperately hope I used deodorant this morning.
“Is that supposed to be a joke?” She says this in a tone that suggests she just found out I masturbated on her cat. I definitely did not use deodorant this morning. I swallow hard. “And what kind of sick freak watches his parents while their having sex?” I have to admit, she’s got a point. What kind of sick freak am I?
“I never said ‘watch.’ I’m…I’m talking about when you accidently walk in on them, ya know, having sex. It’s like, ‘Mom, do you have two fives for a…Oh, I’ll come back later.’ It’s not like I was hiding behind the Ficus with a camcorder.” I say this but she makes a mental note to call the pedophile tip-line the moment she gets home. It’s not my fault, I just get nervous. If you shook my hand right now, you would be noticing that my palms feels like the inside of a cadaver’s thigh. Sweat is slowly gaining a controlling interest in my shirt, starting at the arm pits. I try to calmly remind myself to stop blurting out ever thought that pops into my head, especially when I am speed dating. I ask her what she does for a living but while she is still trying to make up an answer- DING. The moderator approaches the podium, holding a microphone that’s volume is turned up so loud I can hear blood pumped through the veins in his fingers. The command, projected out of the speakers at the front of the room, sounds like a decree from God.
“New date. Women, to the right.”
As Hello-My-Name-is-Jennifer gets up to leave she tells the next girl (her name tag reads “Audrey”) to watch out for this one because she thinks I am a perv and I keep talking about my parents having sex. “Mommy issues,” she mouths. With that kind of introduction, I’m positive I will get laid tonight.
Aubrey sits down across from me and states the obvious. “Hi,” she says. “I’m Aubrey.” Have you ever seen something so beautiful it made you want to kill yourself? You took one look and just wanted to end your life then and there because you’ve just seen what God looks like and now you want to meet him. If you have, then I don’t need to describe Audrey Wexler to you.
“Hi,” I say. “My name is John. I’m not really a perv.” Audrey nods her head and we sit for several seconds without any words passing between us. I try to smile in a way that I hope will invoke pity. This is my only shot and we both know it. If my life stretched out like a timeline and I could see it from start to finish, I would notice that this is the happiest I will ever be. My eleventh birthday is a distant second (I got a Batcave playset). Sad, right?
“I didn’t think you were a perv. You don’t look like one.” Rapture. She will be mine. “I think you look kind of like a Basset hound.” I tell her thank you and I tell her she looks very beautiful. I tell her we should get to know each other better. I tell her I am gainfully employed.
If I could, I would telling you that I bought her a few drinks and made some witty jokes and she laughed and then we went out on a real date and then we had three delinquent kids who didn’t straighten out until after college and then put us in a nursing home where we both died slow and painful deaths due in part to neglect, but all that would have been too complicated. I like to keep things simple.
The truth is we went out on eleven dates and had unfulfilling sex twice. She stopped returning my calls and I heard she moved to Seattle. As I sit here right now, it was still the best relationship I have ever had.
