by Chad Kultgen
“Carlos invited me.”
“Yeah, but he told you we all suck each other off at the end of the night, right?”
I’m thrown into a catatonic state by the impact of the guy’s statement. Then he squeezes my arm and says, “Just kidding,” followed by a gay laugh.
He says, “We fuck each other in the ass…just kidding again. But he did tell you this was like an all-gay party, right?”
“No.”
“That little shit.”
Carlos comes back from wherever he was. He says, “Tedward, you better not be trying to suck my friend’s dick. He’s straight.”
Tedward says, “I know, that’s what he said. Why’d you bring him here?”
Carlos says, “He told me he didn’t have anything to do tonight. His girlfriend dumped him because he got his ex-girlfriend pregnant.”
Tedward says, “I’m so glad I’m a fag. I couldn’t handle some whore telling me she was pregnant and not really knowing the truth.”
It has never really occurred to me that Casey could be lying. I say, “What do you mean not knowing the truth?”
Tedward says, “Women lie constantly to get their way. They can be seriously bitter cunts. At least with a guy you always know they want to fuck and you always know they’re not pregnant.”
Carlos says, “He’s right. I fucking hate deceitful bitches. You know you should find out if Casey really is pregnant before you go throwing your life away and marry her or some stupid shit.”
I say, “How do I do that?”
Carlos says, “Get one of those home pregnancy kits and make her pee in it.”
I say, “She’s not going to agree to take a home pregnancy test.”
Carlos says, “You’ll figure out some way to do it if you really think she might be lying.”
Tedward says, “As enthralling as this conversation about cunts is, I must conclude my participation in it. It was nice to meet you”—he shakes my hand—“but I’m off to find a cock to suck.” Then he moves off into the crowd.
Carlos says, “He’s an even bigger slut than I am, and that’s saying something.”
I say, “Do you really think she could be lying?”
Carlos says, “Does a cunt smell like rotten fish?”
There is something comforting about the possible hope this suspicion has created in me. I don’t want to talk about it anymore for fear I might change my mind and accept her declaration of pregnancy as fact when I now know some doubt exists. I want the doubt.
I say, “So why didn’t you tell me this was an all-gay party?”
“If I did, would you have come?”
“No.”
“Exactly. But now that you are here, drink your drink and be my wingman.”
“You want me to help you pick up gay guys?”
“Of course. Why do you think I invited you? Fags are attracted to straight guys like moths to flame. All you have to do is just stand here and get hit on, then when you tell them you’re straight they’ll have to talk to me.”
“Jesus Christ.” I’m gay bait.
“Just shut up and do it, here comes our first victim.”
A gay guy comes up to me and says, “I’m Jim. You’ve got a great ass.”
I can’t even begin small talk. I just say, “I’m straight.”
Jim says, “Hey, man, I wasn’t hitting on you, I was just saying you’ve got a great ass.”
Carlos jumps in, “How is that not hitting on somebody? And what about my ass?”
Jim says, “Are you straight, too?”
Carlos says, “Nope.”
Jim looks at Carlos’s ass and says, “Eh, your straight friend’s ass is better.”
Carlos says, “Fuck you. How dare you.”
Jim ignores Carlos and says to me, “So you’re straight, huh?”
I say, “Yeah.”
Jim says, “You ever wonder what it’d be like to have your cock sucked by a guy?”
I say, “Nope, sorry.”
Carlos jumps back in, “Oh, and you’re a fucking bottom?”
Jim says, “Yeah, so?”
Carlos says, “So get the fuck out of here.”
Jim says, “Fine,” and walks off back into the party.
The same scenario plays itself out at least a dozen times, with Carlos getting a couple of phone numbers and ultimately blowing some guy in a back bedroom while I deflect gay advances for twenty minutes. When he comes out of the bedroom with the guy he just blew, he says, “I told you it would work.”
After the party I go back to my apartment with a new sense of the possible future—one in which Casey does not have my seed growing in her womb, one in which Alyna and I are together, one in which I still have no idea how to secretly administer a home pregnancy test to Casey.
As I close my eyes and reflexively start going through a mental list of things that I hate about Casey, I stop on one item—she never flushes the toilet after she takes a piss.
some chapter
Finger in the Two-Hole
Todd and I are at Barney’s Beanery after work. He’s been staring at the same bitch for the past thirty minutes, assuring me that as soon as she notices him looking at her, she’ll come over and talk to him. She’s looked directly at him multiple times and has made no movement in this direction.
I say, “It might help if you weren’t leering at her.”
He says, “Dude, you gotta let ’em know what you want. I don’t want her coming over here asking me for my phone number. I want her coming over here asking me to suck my dick. And P.S., dude, I don’t really need advice on picking up women from the guy who fucking locked himself into eighteen years of prison with a bitch he doesn’t even like.”
“It’s not my choice at this point.”
He says, “Whatever, dude. Okay, fuck this shit.”
He walks over to the girl and her two friends and somehow gets them to come over and sit at our table.
I don’t remember any of their names even as they say them, and nothing any of them says holds even the most remote amount of interest for me, until one of the girls who is moderately attractive and not too fat launches into the following story:
“I work for this catering company that does big events for famous people and movie openings and things like that. And this one time we were doing a private party at Joel Silver’s house. And I was walking around serving drinks and everything. And Bruce Willis and Mel Gibson and all of these crazy famous people were there. And it was completely surreal. And so I’m handing a drink to Keanu when I hear this weird voice behind me go, ‘Come here, I want to show you something.’ And I turn around and it’s this huge ’80s movie star. And he’s going, ‘Come back here, I want to show you something amazing.’ And he takes me by the arm and kind of starts pulling me back toward the pool house. And so I go, ‘I have to work. I can’t really leave.’ And he goes, ‘It’s okay, you’re with me.’ And his wife is completely watching the whole thing go down, but he’s still pulling on my arm, going, ‘Just come with me for a few seconds.’ And so I finally just go, ‘I really can’t, I’ll lose my job.’ And he goes, ‘Okay, then just go into the bathroom, stick your finger up your asshole, and then come out here and let me smell it.’ And I couldn’t believe it.”
She keeps talking, but I think I got the only important information in what turns out to be a story that lasts for ten more minutes about how many crab cakes Chris Rock ate. I wonder if her story is true.
I wonder what the storyteller’s asshole smells like. I wonder if it smells as good as Alyna’s.
chapter forty-one
The Test
I have done more preparation for this night than possibly any other in my life. I have purchased a home pregnancy kit. I have agreed to meet Casey and her mother for dinner but insisted on picking them up at her apartment before we leave, knowing that I’ll be invited in for a few minutes and Casey will piss before we leave, as is her habit, and that she will not flush the toilet, as is also her habit. I have
invited Alyna to meet me at the bar of the restaurant in which I will be dining with Casey and her mother. She doesn’t know that Casey and her mother will be there and assumes that I just wanted to have dinner with her to talk about how things ended. I am hoping to surprise her by publicly unveiling the possible truth about my pending fatherhood. I have rehearsed the “I know you’re not pregnant and here’s the proof” speech, making slight dramatic alterations to increase the amount of emotional duress I can cause both Casey and her mother without making Alyna think I’m a psychotic monster. I have done all of this as I pull up to Casey’s apartment with the home pregnancy kit tucked away inside my jacket.
I knock on her door, which is opened by her mother, who offers me a hug unprompted. I do not hug her back. As she presses her small and shriveled tits against me, she says, “Casey explained everything. You were just confused. I understand this is a big decision and it’s better that you came back to it after having doubts. It only makes your bond that much stronger. Luckily we can salvage some of the initial wedding planning we did.”
I offer nothing in response. As she lets go of me I hope more than I’ve ever hoped for anything that in a few hours I’ll be able to crush her soul one more time.
Casey comes out of her bedroom with a giant smile on her face, oblivious to the sledgehammer I hope to deliver to her psyche tonight.
She says, “Well, are we ready to get going?” and it seems completely possible that she’s going to walk out the door without peeing.
I’m about to ask her if she needs to pee when she says, “Just let me use the ladies’ room and then I’ll be ready.”
As Casey pisses, I can almost feel the home pregnancy kit getting warmer in my jacket pocket. Her mom says, “You should probably wait to apologize to me until we’re at dinner, you know, so it can be just right and so Casey can hear it, too. I think she’d like that.”
I say, “Okay.” I can hear Casey washing her hands in the bathroom as I stare at her mom, imagining myself waving the negative pregnancy test result in her face, telling her to fuck off and walking out with Alyna.
When she comes out I say, “I think I need to use the restroom, too. I’ll be right back.”
Casey says, “Hurry, the reservations are in twenty minutes,” as I shut the bathroom door behind me.
I walk to the toilet bowl and lift the lid. There below me in all its golden glory is a bowl full of Casey’s just-squirted piss. I pull out the home pregnancy kit. The directions require the possibly pregnant woman to hold the end of the strip in her urine stream for three to five seconds.
I dip the strip in the toilet for three to five seconds. The directions further require you to wait for seven minutes while the chemical effect takes place, producing either a blue or a pink result. Over the course of the next seven minutes, I’m sure Casey will knock on the bathroom door to ask me what’s taking so long. Instead I hear her ask her mom the same question and her mom actually cuts me some slack by saying, “Leave him alone. He’s probably nervous about this whole thing and he’s having some bowel trouble.”
At the end of seven minutes, the strip is neither pink nor blue, but instead the same tan color it was when I pulled it out of the box. Further examination of the directions reveals the following line:
Grip the strip firmly while urinating. If the strip is accidentally dropped into the toilet bowl, the test’s results should be considered invalid as water will dilute the necessary chemical reaction.
Fuck.
Realizing there’s no place I can safely dispose of the strip or the box in Casey’s bathroom without leaving a clue to my clandestine pregnancy test, I wash the strip off, put it back in the box, and put the box back in my jacket pocket, hoping that I don’t smell like piss. Then again, if I do smell like piss, maybe it will make the night even worse for Casey and her mom.
I leave the bathroom and we all get in my car to drive to the restaurant, where Alyna is going to meet me at the bar and my plan is going to fall apart miserably.
We walk into the restaurant, Lala’s, one of Casey’s favorites, and I don’t see Alyna at the bar, which is small enough for me to conclude that she is not here yet. We take our seats at a table near the bar. We get bread and water, and Casey’s mom starts in immediately.
She says, “So, now that we’re all here and sitting down to a nice dinner and everything is happening like it was supposed to…do you have something to say?”
I’m on the verge of sweating visibly as I think about how Alyna is going to react to this whole thing and about whether Casey is actually pregnant. I don’t say anything. Casey nudges me.
I say, “Uh, yeah. I, uh, I’m sorry for everything that happened last time you were out here.”
Her mom says, “Well, that wasn’t very heartfelt.”
My heart is about to jump out my fucking throat. All I can picture is Alyna crying when she sees me with Casey and her mom and I can offer no explanation for inviting her here to meet me.
I apologize for the apology. “Sorry.”
Her mom says, “Listen, it took a lot for me to accept the idea that you were getting back together. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I like the idea of Casey getting married a lot more than I like the idea of her having to spend another year looking for another husband, but you seem a little ungrateful for my forgiveness.”
I’m momentarily jarred out of my paranoia by a quick shot of hate. I want to tell her mom to fuck off, but it’s not part of the plan, even though the plan doesn’t exist anymore. Every time someone walks through the front door, I know it’s one person closer to being Alyna and one second closer to being the last time I ever see her again.
I apologize again. “I’m sorry.” It’s all I can say.
Her mom says, “That’s fine, I guess.”
Casey says, “Good. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk about the wedding. We should have it in a few months, I think—just like we had planned.”
Her mom says, “I agree. No sense in letting the planning we’ve already done go to waste.”
I can’t sit at the table anymore. I have to leave. I have to think, somehow salvage my plan.
I say, “’Scuse me. I have to go to the bathroom,” then leave the table without bothering to look at their reaction.
In the bathroom I pull out the pregnancy test, hoping against all hope that it has changed to some discernible color. No luck, still fucking tan. A guy is taking a massive shit in one of the stalls. Still, the smell of his deuce is preferable to the company of Casey and her mom.
I wash my hands and think about a few ways out of this:
1. Climb out the window.
2. Fake a stroke.
3. Force myself to shit my pants so we all have to leave before Alyna gets here, which should be any second.
4. Throw myself in front of a bus.
And then it hits me—I can just go on with my plan. I may not have the concrete evidence to back up a nonpregnancy accusation, but I might not need it. The accusation alone might be enough to bring out the truth. I’ll have to sell it, and once I go down that road I won’t be able to turn back. But I really have no other choice. Worst-case scenario—I’m still the father of Casey’s unborn child and her mom still hates me. Nothing lost, really.
I rinse my hands off, splash a little water on my face, and prepare to initiate a public scene.
As I walk out of the bathroom, I see Alyna sitting at the bar. She says, “Hi,” with sadness.
I say, “Hi. Watch this and no matter what happens, don’t leave.”
I don’t give her a chance to respond before I walk up to Casey and her mom, pull out the pregnancy test, and say loudly enough for most of the tables in the place to hear, “Casey, I know you’re not pregnant.”
I’ve never seen someone’s face when their heart explodes, but I’m pretty sure that’s what I’m looking at as Casey’s mom falls out of her chair and her mouth and eyes get big enough to make her look like a cartoon.
I kee
p going, “When you pissed at your house, I did a little test and it came back negative.”
Casey’s mom looks at Casey and says, “Pregnant?” in a way that makes me realize Casey never told her, which gives more weight to my current paper-thin argument.
The whole place is stunned into silence. No waiters or managers are telling us to shut up. No one is saying shit. They’re all just watching us.
Casey says, “Mom, I was going to tell you after we were married,” which takes my argument back down a notch.
Nonetheless, my course of action is set. I continue on with, “Casey, you’re not pregnant, I have the results right here.”
Casey looks at her mom lying on the ground, panting and heaving like someone shot her, then she looks back at me, like she’s deciding something. Then she says, “I am pregnant. Your test must be wrong.”
There’s no turning back. I say, “These things are ninety-nine-point-nine percent accurate,” having no real idea how accurate they are. “Do you think you’re the point-one percent that the test failed on? Not likely.”
From the ground her mom says, “I can’t believe you had premarital sex. Oh my god. Your father is going to be so disappointed in you.”
The line about her dad does something visible to Casey, who starts to cry. It physically hits her, changing the look on her face from wrongly accused innocent pregnant girl to Daddy’s biggest disappointment.
Casey says, “Fine. I’m not pregnant.”
Holy motherfucking shit. With those three words, Casey releases me from a prison that never existed in the first place. I’m washed over with an immediate and palpable sense of euphoria, like I just woke up with a hard-on after having a nightmare that my dick got cut off.
As Casey admits her lie, I look across the room at Alyna for the first time. She has a weird look on her face. I can’t tell if she’s happy or horrified. I turn back to Casey, who is now helping her mom back up to her feet, and toss the pregnancy test at her. I want to say something really cool or really mean to drive a nail into her coffin, but instead I say, “Here,” and walk over to the bar where Alyna’s sitting, grab her hand, and walk out the door.