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Lift left knee. Hold to fifteen. Release left knee.
Lift right knee. Hold to fifteen. Release right knee.
Too bad there is not enough room for sit-ups. Would Annoying-Lying-Drooling-Snoring-Businessman notice if I lifted the seat divider and used his lap as a headrest?
Not worth his potential consciousness. Then I might have to talk to him.
3
EMMA GETS PISSED
EMMA
“You’re not wearing that. Go back inside and change.”
Why is Nick so full of shit? Was he a toilet in his last life? “I most certainly am wearing this. I bought it today. It’s gorgeous.” It is a soft, luscious, red silk tank top with a plunging neckline. It cost a fortune. It could be the most stunning tank top ever designed. It feels like lotion against my skin. Like my favorite thirty-dollar lip gloss against my lips. I love it. If he makes me choose between the tank top and him, he’s not going to get off on my decision.
He pounds his fists against the steering wheel. “Why do you want to wear something that makes you look like a slut?”
I don’t understand the question. Because I like looking like a slut? “Funny that you hate when I look like a whore, but love when I act like one.”
He scrunches his face as though he just swallowed a shot of tequila. “Fuck off,” he swears.
“You fuck off.”
Another lovely night out with Nick. Best thing about Nick: he’s amazing in bed. And I mean fucking incredible. It’s always all about me. He won’t settle for anything less than two orgasms every time. Even if I tell him it’s okay, tonight can be a blow job night, he still insists on making me come. Worst thing about Nick: he’s more stubborn than a TV remote control without batteries.
“Go change,” he says, crossing his arms in front of his chest.
Big baby. He didn’t mind my cleavage-revealing tops when we started dating last year. Lately, he’s like a pig-in-shit whenever I wear a sweatshirt and sweatpants. In his ideal world I’d be wearing a full-piece snowsuit twenty-four hours a day. Or fourteen hours a day. The other ten hours he’s happy to have me parading in front of him in the cheesy-ass lingerie he buys me. Red, lace, crotch-less panties. Feather garters. Snakeskin teddies. Could he want me to look any more like a porn star? He even likes when I design my pubic hair so that I look like a twelve-year-old. I think he’s been watching too much Playboy TV. For his eyes only there’s no such thing as too tarted up, but when he takes me out in public, it’s like we live in Iraq. Other men aren’t entitled to catch a glimpse of my ankles or neck or whatever else they’re not allowed to see in foreign countries. Talk about your Madonna-whore complex.
“I am not changing.” Why should I change? I have a great body. I’m not one of those fake-modest do-I-look-fat? does-my-ass-look-big? girls. I do not look fat. My ass does not look big. My bras are 34Ds. I look forward to bikini shopping come spring. That may sound conceited, but aren’t magazines always telling women to be proud of what they have? Judging from my mother’s chronology of old pictures, I have about eight years, tops, to flaunt my looks before everything starts to go. At thirty-three my mother’s size-five pants were a little too snug. At thirty-six, her husband was sleeping with someone my age. My age now, not my age then—I’ll give him credit for that, at least. The window of opportunity to have men salivate at my scantily clothed perfect breasts exists for just a limited while; it is therefore my sacred duty to use them at full capacity.
“Then we’re not going anywhere,” Nick says, his lips pouting. Ironic, really. He was first attracted to my breasts, and I was first attracted to his stubbornness. We were at a club on Richmond and he kept staring at my black negligee with no back and barely any front. He repeatedly sent me vodka martinis and I repeatedly sent them back to him. We ended up in his bed—where I’ve been pretty much ever since, except for the four times I’ve broken up with him. And then got back together once he proved his undivided love and desire.
By now he should be trained not to pull this bullshit with me. Who does he think he is, dictating what I get to wear? I will wear whatever I want. I am in charge of my own body. I am in charge of what parts of my body will be flaunted and what parts will be kept under snowsuits. Not that I even have a snowsuit. I have a ski suit, which is too trendy and too tight and too lacking in protective layers to be appropriate for anything but the chalet. I haven’t worn it since I moved to Toronto, because the skiing is shit in this city. Compared to Montreal, anyway. Not to mention lacking in the nightlife, restaurants and men department.
“Fine!” I yell, throwing the door open and swinging my feet out of the car, feet dressed in gorgeous new patent leather red sandals purchased last week. “If you’re going to behave like a fresh piece of shit, I’m going home.”
Why must I play this game? He’s in love with me. He can’t live without me. It’s now his turn to proclaim that I’m being silly, I can wear whatever I want, I look beautiful, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera…
“Em…” He leans toward the open window.
“Yes?”
“Don’t wait up,” he says, and drives off.
“Go to hell!” I scream and give the finger to the tail of his Mustang as it tears down my street. “If you don’t stop that car, don’t ever bother calling me again!”
His car slows down…and then turns the corner.
Bastard. Pervert-bastard. This time it’s over-over.
“I thought you were going out?” my father asks as I slam the front door, post breakup cigarette. He and the stepbitch are sitting at the kitchen table, probably involved in one of their many discussions about how fucked up I am. I’m their favorite topic of conversation. If it weren’t for all my supposed screwups, I bet they’d be divorced for lack of a common interest.
“You sound disappointed. Don’t stop discussing me just because I’m here.”
“Of course we’re not disappointed, dear,” AJ says, patting my father on the arm and speaking extremely slowly. “Don’t be silly. Stephen and I just thought you were going out, that’s all.”
Blah, blah, blah. I ask you, is AJ an appropriate name for a stepmother? What happened to Marge? Or Stella? AJ sounds like a boy I pinned down at recess in the fifth grade during an episode of kissing tag. I’m pretty sure AJ stands for Annoying Jerk-off. First of all, she’s only thirty-six. That’s ten years older than I am and eighteen years younger than my cradle-snatching father. AJ has the annoying habit of speaking for my father, and my father has the annoying habit of letting AJ speak for him. She also tends to speak to me in the identical voice she uses while speaking to her six-year-old daughter.
“Spare me the bullshit, please,” I say. “You’re counting the seconds until I’m out of the house.”
AJ, aka Stepbitch, rolls her eyes at my father.
I am moving out in eight days. AJ found me a room in an apartment with two complete strangers. She works with one of the girls, Allison, but unlike Allison, she’s a volunteer. They do something for Ontario University a few times a week. AJ acts like I should be grateful, as if she’s doing me a favor, but she only set it up to get me out of the house, away from her precious daughter, Barbie. I’m not kidding. Her name is Barbie. Not that she’s ever going to look like a Barbie. She’s a chunky, short kid. And let’s not forget her big nose and glasses. I guess conniving ol’ AJ (actually, young AJ) will manipulate my father into spending my inheritance on a nose job and laser eye surgery.
Apparently I have a bad attitude and I’m negatively influencing Barbie’s development.
Fuck that.
Barbie is not really a bad kid. When I baby-sit, I let her watch music videos and I teach her how to do the moves. She might be a pretty good dancer one day, that is, if her legs ever get long enough to reach the floor from a sitting position.
I even let her play with my hair. I’m amazed at how long it took that kid to learn how to make a braid. Of course, she uses only two strands, which is kind of like juggling with two balls instead of three.
I brought back some of my old clothes, after visiting my mother in Montreal. Too bad AJ feeds her so much, because poor Barbie couldn’t even get one of her bloated thighs into one of my dresses.
I’m trying to get her to dance the weight off.
I try to pretend to like AJ in front of the kid so I don’t add to her list of things she’s going to need to talk about in therapy one day.
“I’m not going to listen to this abuse,” AJ whines, and leaves the kitchen.
Silence.
I pour myself a glass of juice and sit down in her deserted seat. It’s hot. She probably farted in it.
“Why do you insist on upsetting her?”
I’m upsetting her? Let’s tally up, shall we? She had an affair with my father. She convinced him to desert my mother and me, move to Toronto and marry her. As far as I’m concerned, I’m entitled to blame her for every messed-up thing I do. I have problems maintaining relationships? AJ’s fault. I don’t trust people? AJ’s to blame. I killed someone? AJ. I haven’t actually killed anyone, but if I did she would have driven me to it. How can anything I do possibly equal her actions? She drove a clearing truck right through the soft patch of snow that was my life.
“Fighting with your boyfriend does not give you the right to take out your anger on us,” my father says.
“Nick and I aren’t fighting.” I hate when he blames Nick for everything. It’s like when Nick says I’m being a bitch because I’m on my period, which is a dumb expression because how can someone be on her period? Are they straddling it? And just because I’m being a bitch doesn’t mean I have my period. It may mean that I have PMS, mind you, but that Nick doesn’t need to know.
“Does AJ ever ask you for a thank-you? For letting you live here for the past two years? No. For getting you a job at Stiletto? For finding you an apartment? No. For lending you her basement furniture for your apartment? No. All she asks is that you treat her decently. And can you even do that? No.”
First of all, why was she “letting” me live here? Isn’t part of a father’s responsibility to take care of his kid? I wanted to do the two-year design program at the Toronto School of Art. I would have been happy to live on my own and let them foot the bill, but my father thought all of us living together would be a good opportunity for us to get to know one another. Apparently AJ has now changed her mind.
Second, she didn’t get me the job at Stiletto to help me. She used employment as an excuse for exiling me from her Rosedale palace. Is it my fault that she happens to know someone in the industry of my dreams? What does she expect from me? It’s not even a high-paying job. If my salary were a shirt, it would barely be enough material to cover my nipples.
“Thank you, Daddy,” I say in a Popsicle-sweet voice. “I truly appreciate everything AJ has done to make my life more successful. If she hadn’t fucked you while you were married to my mother, I might not have ended up right here at this kitchen table, drinking juice.”
So I’m a big baby. Shoot me.
My father gets up and leaves the kitchen. He’s always taking off. Maybe he was an airplane in his last life.
The moonlight spills into the kitchen and my body glitter dances.
Maybe I’ll play dress-up with Barbie.
Maybe I’ll take her shopping tomorrow.
Things could be worse. Daddy dear hasn’t taken back his credit card.
Another breakup equals another shopping spree.
4
ALLIE GETS EXCITED
ALLIE
One hour till Clint comes. Well, not comes exactly, but comes over. Maybe comes.
So that’s it, then. I’ll organize for potential coming. I’ll take the vodka out of the cupboard and put it into the freezer. Hea-vy. Why did I buy the supersize bottle? Was I planning on bathing in it? How much vodka can two people drink?
Ditto for the cranberry juice. Supersize? Puh-lease. But it will make a perfect vodka diluter later and a fab dry-mouth remedy immediately. Mmm, good. Back into the fridge. Whoops…cranberry juice leakage. Why can’t I ever remember to screw the top back on properly?
Will cranberry juice make me have to pee? It’s supposed to cure bladder infections, but I don’t want to be running to the bathroom every five seconds, do I? Talk about ruining the mood. Although I read you have a better orgasm when you have to pee. I think that’s just for women. I don’t think guys can have to pee and be hard at the same time. I also read that if you’re about to have a G-spot orgasm you feel like you have to pee.
I’ve never had a G-spot orgasm. I’ve never had an orgasm during sex. I’ve never had sex.
I’m a twenty-two-year-old virgin.
Is that crazy? It’s not like I have a third eye or a missing front tooth or anything. There are other virgins. Thousands of them, probably. It’s just that the others are either waiting for marriage, religious or ugly.
Or thirteen years old.
I’m pathetic.
But I’m waiting to meet a man I’m utterly in love with! Or a little in love with. Or, at least, a man I like.
Or, at least, a man who likes me.
Okay, fine. I’m waiting for a man, any man, as long as I like him and want to sleep with him, and as long as he likes me and wants to sleep with me. I don’t think that’s too much to ask for, is it?
Open mouth. Insert nail of left ring finger. Mmm.
I almost did it in high school. With Gordon. God knows he wanted to. He asked me pretty much every day: “When are you going to be ready? Are you ready yet? How come everyone else is doing it? How come everyone else is ready?” I wanted to, but for some mind-numbing, inexplicable reason, I felt it was my duty to say no. We’re too young. We’re not ready. Why is that exactly? Someone remind me, please. Teenage girls want to do it as much as guys do. We daydream about doing it, we imagine ourselves doing it, but we believe it is our duty not to do it. Except for the girls who actually do it. They’re the ones we call sluts when their backs are turned. They’re the ones we pretended to be when our eyes were closed.
Is it possible I waited too long and now it won’t even work? Does that happen? Can a hymen ferment?
Gordon dumped me and slept with Stephanie Miller. “Thank God I didn’t sleep with him,” I said, crying into the purple bedspread of my then best friend, Jennifer (while wishing I had slept with him and that he still loved me).
You’d think I would have done it at least once over the next four years, but I haven’t had a boyfriend since Gordon. I’ve dated, of course, and I’ve fooled around a lot (everything but), but I feel gross about losing my virginity on a one-night stand. I don’t have to marry the guy, but I should be dating him for at least three months. Is an entire season too prudish? Maybe six weeks. Reality TV shows take place in under six weeks and look how complex those relationships become.
Okay, how about four weeks? I can accept that. I don’t think it’s crazy to plan on being with someone for four measly weeks. A lot can happen in four weeks. For example, you get your period at least once. Most people, anyway. For some inexplicable reason, I’m on the “Surprise! It’ll come whenever you’re wearing white pants!” cycle, which is sometimes every four months, sometimes every two weeks. But at least it comes. (Not that I’ve ever had to agonize about it not coming. Nope, I’ve never been in that particular predicament.) By the time I got it for the first time, I was already geriatric enough for my parents, my brother, my friends, my teachers and even the grocery deliveryman to be repeatedly harassing me with “So? Are you a woman yet? What’s taking so long?” type comments.
Apparently I’m a late bloomer.
In college, I would have slept with Ronald. Yes, I admit it. I dated a guy named Ronald, although I always tried to call him Ron. (“I prefer Ronald, thanks.” Why, why, why? Why would anyone except for the nerd-turned-cool-guy in Can’t Buy Me Love prefer Ronald?) We dated for two weeks in junior year, and one night, when we were fooling around, I told him “the truth.” Big mistake. Huge. (That’s a line from Pretty Woman—you know, when she walks into the snobby store that wouldn’t let her shop there before, to show them how much she spent in the other store? I love that movie. I’ve seen it forty-six times. Maybe I shouldn’t be admitting that, either.)
Somehow I had always been under the impression that when I finally did offer my virginity to a guy (Would you like some tea with this virginity, sir? Or would you prefer it to go?), it would be something he’d want. Apparently this is not the case. It FREAKS guys out. His you-know-what turned as soft as a decaying banana. And then Ronald left, saying he had an eight o’clock class in the morning. (Funny, his eight o’clock class was the last thing on his mind five minutes ago, when his banana wasn’t overripe.) He ignored me for the next week in the cafeteria, and when I saw him at a dorm party that weekend, he drunkenly admitted that he felt there would be too much commitment involved if we were to get intimate.
Who wants to have sex with a guy whose name is Ronald, anyway?
Who wants to have sex with a guy who uses the word intimate?
Is it possible I haven’t had sex with anyone because I’ve been subconsciously saving myself for Clint? No…maybe…but what if it never happens? Will I stay a virgin forever?
The clock on the VCR, which even when it was connected to a TV refused to play videos, says 6:10, which actually means that it’s 7:10, because it’s still on eastern standard time. In a few months it will be right again.
Fifty minutes till Clint-time. It has to happen.
Time to prepare the body and make it sexable.
Tonight’s shower requires many props. Got the loofah. Got the razor. Got the pear body wash. Got the citrus face wash. Got the watermelon-fortified shampoo. Got the avocado leave-in conditioner that was stuck through the mailbox and because it’s just me picking up the mail, it’s mine, all mine! (The girls and I used to rock-paper-scissors for these mini treasures.)
I place my glasses on the sink. I know I should put them into their case, because if I don’t, I’ll never remember where they are and spend a minimum of twenty-five minutes frantically searching for them tomorrow morning. But I don’t know where the case is.
Fab! So much hot water! No one flushing the toilet while I’m trying to cleanse myself! The apartment has two bathrooms. One has a shower and toilet, and the other one has just a toilet. I’m in the one with the shower and toilet, obviously. The other bathroom is off the smallest bedroom, soon to be Emma’s room, once Rebecca’s room. Isn’t that weird? Why build an apartment like that, where the master bedroom, mine, has no bathroom, and the smallest one does? It must be built for students—to make it fair. If a family moved in here, the kid would have its own bathroom and the parents would have to share!
I’d need my own bathroom if I lived with a boy. When I’m with Clint, I leave the water running when I pee so he doesn’t realize what I’m doing in there.
Melissa let me use her bathroom if someone was using the shower in the main bathroom. I hope that Emma won’t mind the same rule.
That felt great. Why don’t I ever remember to keep my towel next to the shower? Thirty minutes until he’s here. The skin around my thumbnail is bleeding. I reach over to the toilet paper roll and rip off a few squares, and bandage my injured finger and apply pressure. Why do I do that? And when did I do that? Why don’t I even notice when I’m biting anymore?
Post-shower is really prime biting time. The skin gets all pruned. There are so many little pieces and layers for teeth to grab on to. That sounded disgusting. That’s it. It’s over. I’m stopping. No more biting. How can I make ecstatic nail marks on Clint’s back if I have no nails?
“What are you doing?” he asked me earlier today. When I realized it was him on the phone, I got into my Phone Concentration position. This is basically lying down on my unmade bed in a right-angle position, my feet up against the wall above my pillow. I love my bed. I have a yellow daisy-covered duvet cover and six soft throw pillows in varying shades of yellow. I love my bed most when it’s made. Which only happens on sheet-changing day or when a guy comes over, the latter not being too often. The former being less often than I should admit. What can I say? I hate doing laundry.
“Not much,” I answered. “You?”
“Maybe I’ll come by later to watch Korpics.” Korpics is that new let’s-hang-out-at-the-water-cooler-to-talk-about-lives-that-aren’t-ours detective show. The fact that it’s only available on the Extra channel—Canada’s version of HBO—only increases its water-cooler coolness factor since only select people are capable of chiming into the conversation.
Luckily, I’m part of the select few.
