Those colors of hers really begin their attack on me now, ripping through my skin, electrifying my bloodstream, sending sparks zapping around in my stomach. I take a long pull on my whisky but I can’t keep a hard-on from starting. I only mention this because I have a theory that the hard-on is the number one reason for sexism down through history. I mean, it is seriously impossible to really soak in a girl’s ideas, no matter how deep or true, when you have a stiffy coming on.
This is what makes guys think of women as cute, cuddly airheads. But it’s not the women who are the airheads. The guys’ brains have turned into oatmeal, so they sit there staring at the girl with no idea of what she’s saying but assuming it must be cute. She could be explaining quantum physics, and the guy would hear nothing but some kind of cutesy-wootsy baby babble.
I know this because it’s happened to me many a time, and now it’s happening to me again. While she’s delivering her perfect essay on relationships, all I want to do is lean over and kiss her neck and then take off her sweater and kiss along her br**sts and down to her belly, leaving little red spots on her white skin like roses blooming in the snow.
“And if you can just do that,” she says, “I think we can make it. We can really, really have a good relationship. But this is it, Sutter. This is the last time I’m going to say it. Do you think you can do it?”
Uh-oh. Big problem. How do I know if I can do it? For all I know, she could have been talking about making me wear a cocktail dress and high heels. This is no time to submit my theory on sexism and the hard-on, however, so I just go, “You know I’d do anything for you, Cassidy.”
Her eyes narrow. “I know you’d say you’d do anything for me.”
“Hey, didn’t I just climb up on a two-story roof for you? I busted my ass for you. Look, I’ll stand on my head and chug the rest of this whisky upside down for you.”
“You don’t have to do that.” She laughs and takes a swig from her own drink and I know I’ve got her now. I go into the living room, set my glass on the carpet, and kick myself into a headstand against the end of the couch. This causes some dizziness, but still it’s nothing for me to tip the glass and finish the whisky off in one upside-down swallow. Unfortunately, I can’t quite maintain the headstand and topple over into a pile like one of those skyscrapers they dy***ite to make room for something fancier.
Cassidy’s really laughing now, though, and it’s a beautiful sight to see. I shoot her my famous eyebrow tilt and big brown eyes, and she takes a drink and goes, “You really are an idiot, but you’re my idiot.”
“And you are a tremendous woman.” I slip the glass from her hand, take a drink, and set the glass on the bar. She spreads her legs so that I can stand between them and brush her hair back from her face and slide my fingers along her shoulders. “Your eyes are a blue universe, and I’m just falling into them. No parachute. I don’t need one because I’m never going to hit the ground.”
She grabs the front of my shirt and pulls me in closer. See, this is the other side of the coin. This is a girl’s downfall. The guy goes soft in the head and starts talking to her like a moron, and she wants to take care of him. He’s just her cuddly fool who can’t make it without her. She melts and he melts and it’s all over then.
The best way I can describe Cassidy in bed is triumphant. If sex were a sport in the Olympics she’d win a gold medal for sure. She’d stand there on the tallest platform with her hand over her heart, crying to the national anthem. Afterward, she’d sit in the TV studio with Bob Costas asking her questions about technique.
I know I’m lucky. I know being with her this way is like being a part of the deepest inner workings of the cosmos. But, for some reason, I feel a dark crack opening up way back in my chest. It’s just a hairline fracture but definitely something you don’t want to get bigger. Maybe it’s the ultimatum she gave me a while ago. This is it, she said. This is the last time I’m going to say it. But what is it she wants me to do?
It’s stupid to worry about it now, though. I’m lying here in my beautiful fat girlfriend’s crisp, clean butterfly sheets. I have an extra-strength whisky sitting on the nightstand. Life is spectacular. Forget the dark things. Take a drink and let time wash them away to wherever time washes things away to.
Chapter 4
Okay, yes, maybe I do drink a little bit more than a little bit too much, but don’t go getting the idea I’m an alcoholic. It’s not some big addiction. It’s just a hobby, a good, old-fashioned way to have fun. Once, I said that exact thing to this uptight church girl at school, Jennifer Jorgenson, and she goes, “I don’t have to drink alcohol to have fun.” So I’m like, “I don’t have to ride a roller coaster to have fun either, but I do.”
That’s the number one problem with these anti-drug-and-alcohol programs they shoehorn you into starting in grade school. No one will admit any of that stuff is fun, so there goes all their credibility flying right out the window. Every kid in school—except the Jennifer Jorgensons of the world—recognizes the whole scam is faker than a televangelist’s wife with a boob job.
I’ve taken those questionnaires on the Internet that are supposed to tell you if you’re an alcoholic: Do you ever have a drink first thing in the morning to get your day going? Do people annoy you when they criticize how much you drink? Do you ever drink alone? That kind of thing.
First, sure, I drink in the mornings sometimes, but not because I need to. It’s just a good change of pace. I’m celebrating a new day, and if you can’t do that, then you might as well be laid out with your arms across your chest studying the pattern on your coffin lid. Second, who’s not going to get annoyed when someone starts nitpicking at them? I mean, you could just have one beer and your mother smells it on your breath and she and your stupid stepfather start in with the good-cop/bad-cop interrogation routine, except there’s no good cop. What, are you supposed to enjoy that?