The Three Kiss CLause

by Harlan, Christopher

  “Look, you can’t be like those Insta trolls I had to block. I do not hate men, I just. . . have some strong opinions on them. And those opinions are based on some real experiences. You know what I’m talking about.”

  “Of course I know what you’re talking about. I was there, remember?”

  She was there. There for the most painful experience of my life—the one that almost broke me. “Of course I remember,” I told her. “How could I forget? But I wasn’t talking about him, just experiences with men, in general. Look, I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t have a lot of experience to with guys, but that doesn’t mean I can’t speak with authority.”

  “Actually, Tor, that’s exactly what that means.’

  “ I mean, come on, Lord knows you have enough experience for the both of us. After some of the guys you’ve been with, you of all people should get how treacherous guys can be.”

  She raised an eyebrow and put her drink down. “Wait, hold on, before we even get into your lack of experience, I’m pretty sure you just called me a slut. Am I off on that?”

  I can’t help the smile that crossed my face. “I heard it as I was saying it. I didn’t think you’d catch it.”

  “So I’m an oblivious slut, huh? Look, I may not have gotten a 1575 on my SAT’s and been accepted to four Ivy League schools like some people, but I’m hardly an idiot.”

  I laughed so hard I almost spit out the drink I’d just stupidly taken a sip of. “You’re the furthest thing from an idiot. And it should have been five, by the way.”

  “Huh? Five what?”

  “Ivy’s. I should have been accepted to five. But, you know, Stanford and all that.”

  “I have no actual idea what you just said, but I think I just caught a whiff of something snobby. It smells a little funky.”

  “I think that might be your lunch you’re smelling.”

  Shosh was the queen of ordering too much food and eating almost none of it. “Oh yeah, look at that. That makes way more sense than what I said. But, still, with the snobbery.”

  “It’s not me being a snob, it’s true. That school has like a six percent acceptance rate.”

  “Let’s get back on track here, I’m bored with all the school talk.”

  “Oh, don’t do that,” I told her.

  “What?”

  “Play the dumb role. Not only does it offend every feminist sensibility I have, it’s also blatantly not true. We both know you’re way smarter than I am.”

  “I know no such thing. You’re the smart and pretty one. I’m just the one who can whip up witty Instagram stories and inventive hashtags.”

  Don’t let Shoshana fool you. Her false modesty is just that. She’s also beautiful, crazy smart, and if she put any thought into starting her own social media pages, I’d be in some trouble. She always tells me that she loves being the behind-the-scenes girl much more than she likes being on camera. I interviewed her on one of my early vlogs and it was one of the most awkward and funny things ever. It’s still one of my most watched videos.

  “You’re a lot more than just social media savvy, and you know it.”

  “Agree to disagree,” she told me. “But let’s get back to you. Talking about me is boring. I already know all about me.”

  “Let’s stay on you for one more minute. You think I’m crazy for my views on guys, but just look at your last four—that’s four—boyfriends.”

  “What about them?”

  “I think you’d agree that they were shitheads, one and all, and each one was worse than the last, if I’m keeping my douche bags in order.”

  “You’re not totally wrong. Oh, did I ever tell you that I kept all their numbers? I have them all in my phone as ‘Ex-Dicks #’s 1-4’.”

  “Really? Even Dillon?”

  “Even good-old Dillon.”

  Dillon was the absolute worst of the four—the last one in a long line of assholes Shoshana decided to give a chance to be with her. I didn’t like him from the second I met him. I never told Shosh, but when she first introduced me to Dillon he grabbed my ass when he hugged me hello. I knew he was a prick, but anytime I open my mouth about her choice in men she just writes it off as my ‘man-hating.’ Yet another example of what I always say about guys—their dicks have a gps to all the vaginas in the room. #slavestotheirdicks.

  “Why keep their numbers? And don’t tell me you’d ever call or text that creep again or I’m gonna flip out.”

  “No, never,” she said. “But I like to keep their numbers mementos.”

  “Mementos?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Like a little piece of my past mistakes to remind me of where I’ve been. But I won’t deny that I’ve had some bad luck with the XYs recently.”

  “Four bad guys in a row isn’t bad luck, Shoshana. It’s evidence of why women need this book I wrote. I didn’t even realize how many women had such bad experiences until I started to write down all my past podcast guests’ stories. It’s crazy.”

  “And you think that means that all men are like that?”

  “No, it doesn’t mean that at all, but it definitely means that there’s something to the points I make in my book. I’m not totally crazy.”

  “No one’s totally crazy, Tor. I mean, maybe like, Charles Manson or something, he was pretty batshit. But when it comes to someone like you, I’d say you’re only like. . . maybe sixty-five percent crazy. That’s not bad at all. The national average is probably higher.”

  “It’s not my fault that all my female guests want to talk about is how the men in their lives—brothers, friends, boyfriends, husbands, fathers and yes, wait for it, even grandfathers—are running around twenty-four seven trying to stick their little dicks into everything.”

  “Don’t say that, Tori. That’s not fair. Some of them may have pretty substantial dicks.”

  “I’m sure they do. I wouldn’t know.”

  “Wait, how big was. . . He-Who-Shall-Remain-Nameless’ dick? I never asked you. I know you didn’t measure it or anything. Unless you did, which would be some kinky shit for you—but forget that, just give me an approximation? Was it like a pencil—long and thin? Or was it more cucumber-ish?”

  “Shosh, stop it. . .”

  “Wait, don’t tell me he was packing a full eggplant down there?”

  “Shoshana!”

  “Sorry. Sorry. I got carried away with thoughts of. . .”

  “I don’t want to talk about him—ever, really, but especially not right now.”

  The him was my ex boyfriend from college—really the only boyfriend I’ve ever had. I’m not going to mention his name because I might speak his evil into existence. If I stood in front of a mirror and invoked his stupid name three times I’m sure he’d appear behind me with a full hard on, ready to stick it into the first willing woman he found.

  That whole experience changed my opinions on guys. It was a few years ago, and I’ve basically been as celibate as a Tibetan monk ever since. That’s by choice, mind you. If there’s a universal truth that every one of us XX’s knows, it’s that no matter who you are, what you look like, or where you live, there’s never a shortage of men willing to fuck you if you offer them the chance.

  After college, relationships and men were like that drink you order on your twenty-first birthday, have way too much of, and then can never smell again without vomiting on the floor.

  Instead, I chose to podcast, vlog, and now write about other women’s experiences with their own fuckboys (the title of my upcoming book, btw)—how they were hurt, what was expected of them, how they were treated.

  “I get it,” Shoshana said. “I know he hurt you bad, but still, you can’t blame all men. . .”

  “Shoshana, seriously, I really don’t want to talk about him.”

  “I know, just let me finish. I’m pulling the bestie card. That’s a thing. I know that whole thing back in school didn’t go the way you thought it would, but welcome to the club.”

  “You’re making my points for me.” />
  “No, I’m not. You’re missing my point. I’m not even talking about him. I’m talking about you and all of us. There are some things that bind us together as women—the two that pop into my mind are getting our periods and having shitty ex boyfriend horror stories to share with friends—it’s a female universal. Doesn’t mean we all have to become bitter at the ripe old age of twenty-eight!”

  “I’m not bitter, and like I’ve said a million times already, I don’t hate men. I just see them for what they are. There’s a difference.”

  “And what are they?”

  “Penises attached to arms, legs, and the occasional semi-functioning brain. They’re walking hard ons, Shoshana, and basically all of their behaviors are focused on one activity and one activity only—screwing as many women as they can before the sun sets, at which time they rest up, so that they can get their fuck energy back for the next day’s hunt. They’re like sexual nomads, wandering the vast plains of America looking for willing vaginas.”

  “Wow,” she said.

  “Wow, what?”

  “My best friend is profoundly messed up.”

  “I’m not messed up because I speak the truth.”

  “Before I respond, kudos to the expression ‘fuck energy’ right off the top of your head—that was a special moment right there. Now, even you have to admit that there XYs out there in Guyland who aren’t what you’re describing.” She was right, of course, and I know not ALL men are piggish fuckboys, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that most of them were—at least the ones I heard about every day.

  “Not all of them, no.”

  “Don’t get me wrong, I still want you to get that book deal—partially because I love you—like ninety-five percent that, but also because I really want to appear in the acknowledgments of a book sometime in my life. So yeah, good luck.”

  “Awww,” I said really sarcastically. “You’re so sweet.”

  “I have my moments. Just consider my point of view. I’m a woman too, you know? I have a vagina just like you, only mine is alive and well.”

  “No spiders in yours?”

  “My exes exterminated them for me. Now it’s like an oasis in there.” She sat up really straight at that point, like a lightbulb had just gone off in her crazy little head. “Wait, maybe that’s it! I never thought of it before.”

  “Thought of what?” I asked.

  “The reason why you have such an obsession with men’s sex lives.”

  “Edify me. I’d love to hear this.”

  “First, answer me something, for my own research purposes. What did you do with the vibrator I got you for your birthday last year?”

  “Jesus, Shoshana, lower your voice.”

  We were getting lunch at the time of this discussion—some vegan place that she found right after her conversion to all things non-living. She was flaky like that. I gave her veganism about as long as I gave her whenever she texted me to say that she’d met ‘the perfect guy’—usually at a Walmart, or some other location where no woman has ever met the right guy—about two to four weeks, max.

  Knowing how fickle she was, I assumed our next lunch date debate would probably be at a steakhouse, which was just fine with me.

  “What, now you’re embarrassed?” she asked, taking a bite of her sweet potato. . . something or other. “You didn’t care if anyone heard you declaring the inherent evil of the entire male species, but I mention touching yourself and you get all. . .”

  “Shhh.”

  “Oh, wow,” Shoshana said. It was judgmental. It was something I’d do. I did not appreciate it. I can’t take my own medicine. I can’t take just as good as I give. “I just figured you out. Like, a lightbulb just went off. Can you see it?”

  I look over her head and we both laugh. “Nope. Strangely, I can’t.”

  “Don’t worry, it’s there, whether you see it or not. It’s glowing just as bright, regardless. It’s like that thing, when a tree falls in the forest.”

  “And what is said lightbulb illuminating for you?”

  “Something I should have realized years ago,” she said. “It’s so simple that I never saw it. You’re afraid of sex.”

  “What? You’re nuts.”

  “Interesting that you bring up nuts, firstly. And secondly, I think I’m onto something here. Let’s examine the evidence, shall we?”

  “Oh, there’s evidence now?”

  “Hear me out. You’re obsessed with men having sex. Or, at least with them trying to have sex all the time, like it’s some global conspiracy to keep women down instead of a natural biological thing. You see men wanting sex as threatening, and you’re uncomfortable talking about masturbation or orgasms.”

  I hate that Shoshana has an undergrad degree in Psychology. You know what they say about having a little knowledge about something—well, that’s her when it comes to anything psychological. She remembers a few lectures from college and tries to use them to ‘diagnose’ me with whatever she thinks is wrong.

  “I don’t like talking about getting myself off in public with a. . . how would you even classify that thing?”

  “As a big fake black cock,” she blurted out. I almost turned right red. “Oh, wait, that’s not totally accurate. You have a big fake black cock that vibrates at five different speeds.”

  I lowered my voice to practically a whisper. “Right. Thanks for the reminder. But not wanting this whole restaurant to hear about my multi vibration black cock doesn’t make me a prude. It just makes me someone with standards.”

  “I have standards, too—I got you the largest size they had! The guy had to go into the back to get it, Ms. Unappreciative. But I figured, go big or go home. And also, don’t get all high and mighty on me, Tori, we’re just two girls talking. It’s not like I whipped out the little bean tickler right here at the table.”

  I started giggling. “Excuse me? The bean tickler?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “You know? The joystick. The pussy pleaser.”

  “Oh my God, how are we even friends?”

  “Wait, I wasn’t done. The hole pole, Happy Feelmore, BOB.”

  “Excuse me, BOB?”

  “Yeah, Battery-Operated-Boyfrind. BOB. We all know BOB—some of us know him a little better than others. BOB’s not a bad guy—he’s there to help bring us to a higher plane of existence. We love BOB. We need him in our lives.”

  I started cracking up then, and so did Shoshana. “Look, I’m not scared of sex, alright. Nor am I an old lady with a cobweb vagina.”

  “Actually, I said that you had spiders and cobwebs in your vagina, but whatever.”

  “Well, I’m not that. . . I’m just. . . guarded when it comes to that kind of stuff. He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Mentioned took care of that for me. Now I spend so much time giving men shit for their sex lives that I don’t really have much of a chance to have my own. I mean, what guy would even try to approach me? I scare them away, and I have really high standards. It would take a lot for me to even feel something like that towards a man.”

  “Look, all I’m saying is that it’s possible to separate the two,” she told me. “You can still be a woman without feeling guilty about it. It’s okay to like men, to want them, to have those feelings towards them. It is okay to enjoy a sexual relationship with a man. That doesn’t invalidate your book or your social media presence. What invalidates it, is that you don’t ever actually put yourself out there and try—you’re commentating from the bench. You need to get in the game.”

  When Shoshana speaks like she did at lunch yesterday, I always want to believe what she’s saying to me, but I can never seem to get there. It’s like I have this shield around me when it comes to guys. I know where that shield comes from, but I can’t get rid of it. On top of that, every time I talk to another woman about her experiences, all of my feelings on men come right back to the forefront of my mind.

  I look down at the worn advanced copy of my book and take an especially deep breath. It’s filled with colored post its and so ma
ny highlights that it looks like a coloring book. I’m not the nervous type, but I hope tomorrow goes well!

  I know this is my first rodeo, and I’m way more of a podcaster than I am an author, but I really think this book is going to set the publishing world on fire!

  Cormac

  The Following Afternoon

  Thank God this woman is hot, because this book of hers is total crap!

  That’s probably not the most appropriate thing for a partner in a huge publishing company to think while an author is pitching a book they’ve poured their heart and soul into, but I’ve seriously never read such crap in my entire life, and I read books for a living! I look back down at the text just in case I’m being unfair.

  Nope. No, I’m not. What do all these buzz words even mean? There’s just one after the other.

  Toxic masculinity?

  Manspreading?

  Mansplaining?

  The Patriarchy?

  Who made up all of these stupid terms? I look over and see one of my two partners, Elissa, smiling and nodding so hard that her neck must be getting sore. My other partner, Cynthia, approved of this drivel in absentia. She took some of that fuck-you money she has from being the founder of such a successful company and is currently touring Europe with her husband. She’s such a work horse that she’s reading samples somewhere in Amsterdam or Prague, or wherever.

  As for me? I have to sit in this uncomfortable chair, reading even more uncomfortable words as my other partner seems to have taken a few shots of Kool-Aid before this meeting even began. I’m in The Twilight Zone right now.

  “Excuse me? I interrupt.

  “Yes.”

  “I hate to be the ignorant one here, and I can’t believe that I’m about to say this to a woman I just met, but your title?”

  “Fuckboys?” She asks like it’s nothing. “What about it?”

  “What is that?”

  “A fuckboy?”

  “Yeah. It’s the title of this book but I don’t even know what that is. Can you explain for us unindoctrinated?”

  “Sure. I guess the simplest way to describe a fuckboy. . .sorry, does it bother you that I keep saying that word again and again?”