Out of Whack

by Jeff Strand

  “Shut up, Travis.” Laura had a natural talent for saying that, but I had to admit she was getting even better with practice.

  Travis gathered his script pages. “If you’re vetoing the handshake idea, I figure we can head back to home, fetid home.”

  “I’ll see you later, Travis,” said Laura. “Seth and I need to talk, but I’ll make certain he gets back to you safely.”

  Okay, I should have known that last night wouldn’t get buried quite so easily. I’d kind of hoped that we could both feign amnesia and live our merry little lives without ever mentioning it again, but apparently that wasn’t going to be the case. Great. I almost wished she hadn’t promised to get me back safely, since having her beat the crap out of me seemed easier than discussing my behavior.

  Travis shot me a look that said how much pleasure he derived from the fact that he hadn’t been born Seth Trexler, then said his good-byes (his good-bye to me was more solemn than I was comfortable with), and left, shutting the door behind him.

  Laura turned to me. “Tell the truth. Aren’t you glad now that Out of Whack is still going?”

  “I’m very glad,” I said. “I was a jerk last night, and I promise it will never happen again.”

  “As a male, there’s no way you can promise that,” Laura told me. “But I need to take some of the blame, too. I should have been a little more...how should I say this?... understanding last night. No offense, but I assume you don’t have much experience with women, and I’m guessing that it took a lot more courage to tell me that you loved me than I gave you credit for. Am I right?”

  “Yeah, you’re right.” It wasn’t like I could convince her that my alias was Ramrod, King of the Stud Muffins.

  “So I should have been gentler, maybe. I mean, you don’t need Mommy to take you by the hand anymore, but it’s not like you’ve been through this before.”

  Now I was getting confused. I checked my forehead for a sign reading “No Love Experience.” I didn’t find one, but a thought occurred to me. “Did Travis say anything to you during my bathroom break?”

  “Nothing much.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said you were sorry about last night.”

  “Uh-huh. Get to the good part of the nothing much.”

  “It wasn’t anything major. He just said that you had very little experience with members of the opposite sex, that’s all.”

  Yep, Travis was getting an anvil dropped on his head. I was demonstrating my own inexperience well enough on my own without him blabbing it to people.

  “That was very nice of him,” I said, gnashing my teeth. “Oh, I can’t wait to get back to the dorm and show him exactly how nice I think it was.”

  “Don’t make a big deal out of it,” Laura said. “He was just trying to help smooth things over.”

  “His head will be very smooth the next time you see him.”

  “Look, Seth, you don’t exactly exude waves of confidence. How many girls have you kissed in your life?”

  I assumed Barbie didn’t count, and wasn’t going to share that brief indiscretion from my childhood anyway. “I don’t remember.”

  “Come on, you can tell me.” Laura sat down on her bed and patted the area next to her. “I’m curious.”

  “Thank you, but I don’t care to express what a loser I am in such concrete terms.” I did, however, want to sit next to her on the bed.

  “It’s called opening up to your friends,” said Laura. “I promise I won’t make fun of you. Sit down.”

  I sat down. Our bodies didn’t touch, but that didn’t keep my legs from trembling. The traitorous appendages were determined to show off how nervous I was.

  “How many?” she repeated. “Three?”

  “I’m not getting into this.”

  “Two?”

  “I’m not talking about it.”

  “One?”

  “None,” I said. “Not a single one. Have I quenched your thirst for knowledge?”

  “You haven’t had your first kiss yet?”

  “No, I haven’t. I am so deeply lame that I have yet to kiss a girl.”

  “So you’re a virgin?”

  “Yes, I’m a virgin! Would you care to add anything else to the insecurity list?”

  Laura considered that for a moment. “You’re eighteen, right? That’s not so unusual. The kiss thing is, I think, but not the virginity.”

  “You’re loving every second of this conversation, aren’t you?”

  “There’s nothing wrong with not having kissed anyone,” said Laura in a tender voice. “It makes you special.”

  “It does not. It makes me a female-phobic wimp.”

  “Have you ever asked a girl if you could kiss her?”

  “Laura, I’ve had one date in my life, and that was four years ago, and it ended with a six car pile-up on the freeway! The emergency room didn’t seem like quite the place to ask for some face sucking, and I haven’t gone out with anybody since.”

  “Wow.”

  “You’re not doing much to make this conversation more comfortable,” I pointed out.

  “Do you want to hear the story of my first kiss?” she asked.

  “Sure.”

  “I was fourteen, and I was going on a date with a guy I had this incredible crush on. I must have brushed my teeth twenty times before we went out. We went to a movie, had a great time, and he walked me back to my house. I knew I was going to let him kiss me, so I was chewing three pieces of mint gum to keep my breath from knocking him out. And I was so nervous that I forgot to spit it out when he leaned forward for the kiss! The smooch itself wasn’t anything great, since he hadn’t learned the difference between passion and slobber, but then my gum got stuck all over both our faces! When we tried to pull apart, big blobs of gum stretched between us, and then he started to gag, and the gum got all over my new sweater, and my mother looked out the window and started to absolutely freak out because she thought we were foaming at the mouth, and the whole night ended as a disaster.”

  “Gee, now I can’t wait for my first kiss,” I remarked.

  Laura looked me in the eye. “Would you like to have it? Now?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I could help you get it over with, so you won’t have to worry about it any more. I’ve never given anybody their first kiss—I think it would be a wonderful experience.”

  “What about us just being friends?”

  “Friends are allowed to kiss. I’m not trying to pressure you, Seth—whatever you want is fine. But I’d make a good teacher.”

  Let the school bells ring!

  “Would you like to kiss me?” she asked, gently.

  OOOOOHHHHH YES YES YES YES YESSSSSSS!!! OH, GOD, YES!!! I WANT TO KISS YOU SO BADLY I CAN’T STAND IT!!!

  “Yeah,” I replied.

  She put her arms around me. “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah,” I repeated, my voice suddenly rising an octave.

  And then we slowly leaned toward each other. She closed her eyes. I closed my own eyes, re-opened them for a second to make sure I was still moving in the right direction, and closed them again.

  Our lips met.

  Ka-boom!

  These weren’t just fireworks, this was a nuclear warhead capable of spraying enough radiation to wipe out the population of Europe! I thought my feet were going to curl up like the Wicked Witch of the East after Dorothy’s house dropped on her.

  And I was kissing well! I mean, my lips were where they were supposed to be, they weren’t engulfing her nose or sliding off her chin or anything. I didn’t appear to be forming any unsightly spit bubbles, and I hadn’t accidentally knocked my teeth into hers.

  So, we had her physical appearance, that “thingie,” her personality, and now her kiss causing me to be madly in love with her. This was getting serious.

  We broke the kiss.

  For about a quarter of a second, and that was just to snatch a quick breath. We locked our mouths again and wiped out the entire
southern hemisphere.

  Her tongue slid over my lower lip. I didn’t let myself get too excited. Maybe she kissed all of her friends that way. She moaned softly, which could also have been typical behavior.

  Kiss, kiss, kiss.

  We’d been at it for at least a minute, and now I had it on reasonably good authority that this was no longer a kiss between friends. As I put my arms around her waist, she slipped her tongue all the way into my mouth. I’m sure her tongue had to be connected to her own body somewhere, but for a moment I was almost fooled.

  Our kissing grew more passionate.

  Then a horrible vision ripped through my mind. Six little girls, standing in formation, chanting “Seth and Laura, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G.” I don’t know where this thought came from, but I couldn’t get rid of it, no matter how well Laura’s tongue probed. It was incredibly distracting.

  Kiss, kiss, kiss.

  “First comes love, second comes marriage, third comes the baby in a baby carriage.”

  Damn it, where was this coming from? Why couldn’t I have a normal brain like anyone else?

  Kiss, kiss, kiss.

  And then my mental situation grew worse as fast food jingles started sounding in my head. I tried kissing Laura harder to get rid of them, but they remained, taunting me.

  Laura pulled away, panting.

  “That was incredible!” she gasped. “If that whole first kiss thing was just a ruse to get my defenses down, I’m going to kick your ass!”

  “So, I did all right?” I asked. I knew I had, but you’ve gotta hunt down those ego strokes wherever you can.

  “Seth Trexler, you don’t need lessons from anyone! God, I feel like I’m glowing!”

  Maybe the radiation thing wasn’t just a metaphor.

  “I’m glad you enjoyed it,” I said, trying to sound all masculine, even though my dangerously rapid heartbeat probably made me sound like one of the Chipmunks.

  “Was it as good for you as it was for me?” Laura asked, smiling.

  “Ooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh yeah,” I said.

  “I’m not going to lie to you. I’ve kissed a lot of guys. And you...you were in the top third, believe me.”

  I started to chuckle, but then I realized that she wasn’t joking. Okay, well, top third was darn good for my first attempt. Maybe once I got my gums involved my ranking would go up.

  “I need to ask you something,” I said. “Where does this leave us?”

  “It leaves me wanting to kiss you some more. Is that okay?”

  Yeah, it was.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “I’m Feelin’ GOOD!”

  Cue happy music.

  No, no, the really happy music!

  Oh, yeah, that’s it! Got a bounce in my step, got a beat in my heart, got a tingle in my tummy, gonna dance my way home!

  Do do do da, ba do do do!

  Yeah!

  Hey, little birdies, are you singin’ for me? Are you chirpin’ and a-cheepin’ and a-callin’ for me? Are you singin’ of love, are you singin’ of glee? Hey, little birdies, are you singin’ for me?

  Ba da da da da, and a la la la!

  Hey, little squirrel, why you lookin’ sad? Hey, little squirrel, you should be lookin’ glad! ‘Cause in this world, ain’t nothin’ bad. It’s all good good good, so be glad glad glad!

  Yeah!

  * * *

  I walked through the bright, glorious, sunshine-filled evening, each step a testament to all that is right with life. Everything was wonderful! Flowers were wonderful! Dew was wonderful! Lung cancer was wonderful! Oh, God, thank you for making lung cancer, because everything is wonderful!

  I could still feel Laura’s sweet kisses on my lips. If a mirror were nearby, I could probably still see the imprint her mouth had left upon mine.

  I was going to give all my worldly possessions to charity!

  Oh, what a beautiful evening! I’d kissed the woman of my dreams for fifteen minutes, until her roommate walked in with her shocked parents. And Laura said she’d call me tomorrow, after her classes were over.

  I was in…

  LOVE!!!

  Like never before!

  “Hi,” I said to a total stranger walking by. “Isn’t the sun beautiful today?”

  “It’s dark out,” said the stranger. “Give me some of whatever you’re on and I won’t beat the shit out of you for bugging me.”

  “I’m on one-hundred percent pure and uncut love! And have all you want—it’s free and out there for the taking!”

  “No, really,” said the stranger. “Share some of the stuff you’re on. I must be getting the cheap stuff.”

  I looked at my watch. “Gotta go! Need to get some sleep, so I can dream of the woman that fills my heart with joy!”

  I hurried back to my dorm. My feet may have touched the ground once or twice.

  “Hi, Travis, ol’ buddy, ol’ pal,” I sang upon entering our room. “I love this room! You know, we’ve got a palace here and we don’t even know it.”

  “Oh my God! You got laid!”

  “No, no, my friend, but we kissed with a passion reserved for the angels in heaven.”

  Travis frowned. “One doesn’t generally associate angels with the act of passionate kissing.”

  “Well, you get the idea. We kissed, Travis! Lots!” I sat down and began chair dancing.

  “That’s great! Did you have to use restraints?”

  “No restraints. No handcuffs, no rope, no whack on the head with a club, just my lips and hers tangled in a grip of love! Finally we’re getting along like peas and carrots, instead of filet mignon and week-old grits that the dog slept on!”

  “I’m thrilled, buddy! So what happened to her concerns about Out of Whack?”

  I puckered up my lips at him. “The love tools changed her mind. One kiss from the suction king and the women lose contact with their priorities.”

  “Wow, and I thought she was going to beat you up tonight. So, Out of Whack is going well, you and Laura are in love, my rash is clearing up...everything’s perfect!”

  My chair collapsed, dropping me on the floor. This jolt knocked the light bulb out of the socket, and the room was cast into darkness.

  “It’s close, anyway,” said Travis.

  * * *

  I dreamt of fluffy clouds and rainbows.

  * * *

  I woke up with an awful toothache. I didn’t know what it was from—Laura’s tongue bashing it around, perhaps?—but the pain was unbearable and I called the nearest dentist at nine in the morning for an appointment.

  “If you come right in, we can see you,” the receptionist told me.

  I came right in and sat happily in the waiting room for an hour and a half. I hummed a merry tune as I read the six year-old fashion magazines. I smiled knowingly as I listened to the dentist speaking to a young boy: “Listen, Charlie, I’m not going to ask you again to open your mouth. See this drill? This drill goes through teeth. That means your cheeks won’t put up much resistance, if you understand what I’m saying.”

  When the dentist finally called me in, I skipped cheerfully into the room and had a seat on the chair.

  The dentist tapped my cheek. “Does this hurt?”

  I nodded with a smile.

  “Say ahhh.”

  I said “ahhh,” putting all the love I could into that word.

  The dentist poked around for a while. “You’ve got a huge cavity,” he informed me. “I’m going to have to drill.”

  “That’ll be swell!” I grinned.

  He ended up filling three cavities, and the Novocain wore off before he was finished, but hey, life was wonderful!

  * * *

  I smiled and said “Hi” to the other customers as I waited in the twelve-person line at the convenience store. I managed to whistle five of my favorite songs before I got to the point where only one person was in front of me, an old lady purchasing some soap, eggs, toilet paper, paper sacks, and a lighter.

  “That’ll be s
ix dollars and ninety-seven cents,” the clerk told her.

  The old lady slowly dug through her purse. About two minutes later she finally located a ten-dollar bill and set it on the table. “Hold on a moment...I think I’ve got the ninety seven cents...”

  I drummed my fingers along the counter to the pitter-patter of my loving heart.

  “Five...six...seven... eight... nine... ten... fifteen... twenty... twenty-one... twenty-two.. twenty-three... no, wait, I miscounted... five... six... seven... eight... ummm... five...”

  Life just doesn’t get better than this.

  * * *

  “Will you please quit humming?” snarled Travis. “I let you hum at the top of your lungs for the first half hour because you’re in love, and for the second half hour because we’re best friends, but now I want you to shut the hell up!”

  “Oh, now, you don’t really mean that, ol’ buddy, ol’ pal.”

  “Do you think Laura will want to kiss you again if you’ve got a pencil sticking out of your forehead?” asked Travis, waving his pencil at me in a threatening manner.

  “You’re such a little kidder.”

  Travis broke the pencil in half. “Do me a huge favor and go migrate somewhere.”

  “I think we’re going to be friends forever and ever. What do you think?”

  The phone rang.

  “IT’S FOR ME!!! I’LL GET IT!!!” I shouted, diving for the phone. Travis rolled his eyes and went back to his homework.

  “Hello?”

  “Seth?”

  “Hi, Laura. How were your classes?”

  “I should have studied more for my math quiz. There were a couple I’m not sure I got right.”

  That reminded me of a certain 25%-of-my-final-grade exam in the American History class I’d neglected to attend today. Oh well. It wasn’t like I needed to know anything about history to keep my love alive.

  “What’d you get, a B+?”

  “Of course not. I know I got an A, but there’s no excuse to miss any questions in something like math. In classes where the teacher’s personal taste is an issue, well, you aren’t going to give the answer they want all the time, but in math you can’t miss.”