by Tara Sivec
*
*
*
“Sorry, where were we? Oh yes, D.
“D is for dick.
“E is for… erotic. Yeah, erotic! All I could think of at first was egg, but that’s not dirty. Unless you’re talking about the birds and the bees, but yeah. Not dirty. Very clinical. Okay, moving on! This is so easy!
“F is for, well, fuck, obviously. Oh my God, I can’t believe I said that! Wow, that’s super fun to say! I’m just gonna say it again. Fuck! My, it’s fun to shout. Okay, what else? Well, fornicate. Fellatio, I know that one. But that’s more scientific, so I don’t know if it’s dirty or not. Let’s test it out. I would like to perform fellatio on you. Nope. Not feeling that one. Moving on.
“G is for…. Gosh, what would G be for? Grinding? Yeah, grinding.
“H is for… hop on my lap? No, that won’t do. My goodness, I take back what I said about this being easy. This is hard. Oh! Hard! Yep, that works. H is for hard.
“I is for… inside. As in, he buried himself deep inside me. Oh wow, that’s spicy!
“Okay, J is for juicy. Yeah, that’s good. I mean, J is also for… no. I’m not gonna say that. You know, the stuff that comes out of the guy’s… yeah. That’s not at all appealing to say.
“K is for kinky.
“L is for… laaabia? Is that sexy and dirty? Do women say, “Oooh touch my labia”? Probably not. How about lust? That’s better. L is for lust.
“M is for masturbate. Or mount. I saw that in a book once, so it must be dirty.
“N is for… nookie. No, that’s not dirty. Oh! Necrophilia! Wait, that’s too dirty. And illegal. N is for… narrow space between my legs.
“O is for orgasm. Or another one that goes with that would be O face. Like, what’s your O face when you orgasm. Oooh, O is for oral. Yeah, that’s nice. That’s a good one.
“P is for penis. But again, I don’t think that’s very dirty. P is for… pussy.
“Q is for quickie. Which, in my experience, wasn’t all that sexy. Or fun in any way. But I’ve read that if done right, it can be very satisfying. I will hold my judgment for now.
“R is for… um, riding? Riding.
“S is for schlong. S is also for… slit?
“T is for twat. T is also for tunnel. I’ve seen that one in books. And tongue. But I think it’s dirtier if you use it as a verb. Like… he tongued me. Oh, I hope my mother never listens to this.
“U is for… Uranus! No, I can’t say that. That’s not a good one. All I can think is uvula. But that’s like, at the back of the throat. Oh! Well, all right! That works when combined with O is for oral.
“V is for vagina, obviously. But I don’t think they use that in those books very often. Vulva, maybe. See? I keep coming up with doctor words. It needs to be dirty. What about voracious? She has a voracious vagina. Oh jeez! Now I can’t stop thinking about a vagina with teeth, eating everything in its path. Okay, I need to move on.
“W is for wet, and want.
“X is for X-rated.
“Y is for…. What would Y be for? Y could be for yes. You read that a lot in those books when things are happening. Like, yes, yes, yes!
“Z. I think Z is going to be a wash. No wait, Z is for zipper, which he pulled down to free his hard length from its denim prison. Darn, I’m getting good at this.
“So, okay! I said some dirty things, and it’s good practice. Maybe it will help me get a kiss on my next date with my neighbor.
“This has been Heidi’s Discount Erotica, signing off!”
Chapter 22
“Are we really arguing over this right now?”
The corner of Brent’s mouth is tipped up in amusement as I stand facing him, in front of the Ferris wheel at the Minnesota State Fair, with my arms crossed in front of me in a huff. Tons of people are pushing their way around us, and we’re causing a bit of a traffic jam just standing here in the middle of the midway not moving, but I don’t care. The midway is the section of a fair where all the rides and game attractions are located. It’s the most popular part of a fair, tied for first with the food area. When I say it’s flooded with people, it’s flooded with people.
Again, I don’t care. This is too serious of a discussion to have while walking in search of our next fair food item.
“Yes, we are most certainly arguing over this right now. We are in our first fight,” I inform him.
“On our second date,” Brent replies, the corner of his mouth twitching so hard that his infuriating dimple pops out.
He takes a step toward me until we’re toe-to-toe, and I have to tilt my head back to look up at him. His chest brushes against my folded arms, one of his hands reaching up and pressing gently against my hip.
Oh my. He’s so dreamy. No, no, no. I can do better than that. He’s so… fffucking dreamy. Wait! I’m mad at him. We are in a fight. He’s doing this on purpose to distract me. Oh no you don’t, mister!
“Well, it had to happen sooner or later,” I tell him, my voice rising as the loud buzzing and clanging bells sounding right next to us at a game booth announces its current winner. “Might as well nip it in the bud now.”
I try my hardest to keep a stern look on my face as I look up at Brent. He keeps his features schooled, and we are currently vying for first place in a serious staring contest. Which doesn’t last long at all. Both of us suddenly burst out laughing at the same time. My hands automatically unfold between us, and I press my palms against his chest.
Oh! He’s got a nice chest. I can’t believe I just put my hands here like it was no big deal! The power of the F-bomb is with me.
Brent shakes his head at me with a smile, neither one of us paying attention to all the people and noise around us.
“It’s called soda,” Brent informs me with mock-haughtiness.
“Brent Miller, for the last time, it’s pop! It’s only called soda if you live in the 1950s and you’re at the malt shop, drinking from a soda fountain. Do you really want to start our first fight all over again, when we were just about to have our first make-up?”
His hand on my hip slowly slides around my side and across my lower back, pulling me snuggly up against him.
My fingers curl in until I suddenly realize I’m gripping his T-shirt in my hands.
Just yank his face down to yours and kiss him! Who cares if you’re surrounded by hundreds of strangers? No one! Do it!
“Our first make-up, huh? What exactly did you have in mind?” he asks, the tips of his fingers starting to make these gentle swirling motions against my lower back.
I have kissing this man in mind. And in my heart. And in my stomach. And waaay down south, if you know what I mean.
“We could go down south!” I immediately quip, my mouth dropping open when I realize what I just blurted out. “I mean, not south as in Florida. That would just be crazy! And definitely not south as in the place where the ferns are. You know what? I’ll just stop talking now.”
Brent’s smile never leaves his face, and it’s not one of those smiles most people give me when I say something weird. The smile that is more fake than real, because they don’t want to hurt your feelings by making you think you’re weird, because that’s the Minnesota way. Brent’s smile is so genuine when he looks at me. I make him laugh with the things I say. But he’s not laughing at me. He’s laughing because of me. He’s not immediately heading for the hills every time more of my weirdness comes out. Dare I say, he might even be a little turned on by my weirdness?
Brent’s arm tightens around me, and we’re so smushed together I can feel every inch of him from his chest to his thighs.
Oh. Oh! Oh my. He’s turned on by my weirdness! He’s turned on by my weirdness! I. Can. Feel. Every. Inch. Of. Him. H IS FOR HARDNESS!
“Heidi Larson, stop making out on the midway!”
I jerk away from Brent’s body so fast I slam into someone walking by us, quickly apologizing before turning around to glare at the person who just… cock-blocked me.
I smile at my aunt, but I’m really hoping my eyes are conveying just how annoyed I am with her right now.
“Are you having a stroke? What’s wrong with your eyes?” Aunt Margie questions. “And who’s the hottie behind you I almost had to spray with a hose?”
Brent might be totally on board with my weirdness, but when you add my family to the mix, that could be his breaking point. I guess we might as well find out his true character right from the get-go, before I fall even harder for him. One dose of my aunt can break even the strongest of men.
Godspeed, good man.
Brent moves to stand next to me, sliding one arm around my waist and holding his free hand out toward my aunt.
“Brent Miller, ma’am. I live next door to your niece.”
Aunt Margie shakes his hand, clasping her other hand on top of his to hold it in place when he tries to pull away.
“So, this is the sexy neighbor you’ve been going on about. Oh, you betcha, I see the appeal!”
“I haven’t been going on about anything.” I laugh nervously, turning away from Brent’s amused smile to glare at my aunt. “I have no clue what you’re talking about.”
“You know, that tape recorder thingy you’re—”
“Oh hey there, Christie!” I shout, cutting off my aunt to lift my hand and wave at absolutely no one I know behind her.
I’m pretty sure I don’t even know anyone named Christie.
“Christie Nelson’s here? She just fractured her ankle on her mail route yesterday and isn’t supposed to be walking. Is she in a wheelchair? Where is she? Christie!” my aunt shouts as she drops Brent’s hand, turns, and looks all around.
Crap, I really stink at this. Maybe some F-bombs would work. Ffffuck. Fuck! Okay, much better.
“Looks like Christie’s already been swallowed up by all the people. We should probably get going. Brent’s got a lot of things left to eat that are on a stick and deep fried,” I tell my aunt.
I am in no way ready for Brent to know about my podcast. It’s too soon! He’ll think I’m a psycho. I know I should be all confident and own it, because it truly has helped me get where I am right now, but oh my God, the things I’ve said about him! All the dirty words I’ve said! Nope. Can’t tell him. Not right now, but I will. There’s no way I could keep something like that from him forever. I’ll tell him sometime in the very, very distant future. Like, say, our fiftieth wedding anniversary, when he’s old and frankly just too tired to leave me because it would be too much work to argue about who gets the leather sectional and who gets the tiny spoon collection from all the states we visited on all the vacations we took together.
“Oh sure!” Aunt Margie nods, immediately taking to my gentle suggestion that she needs to go away. “I have to get back to your Uncle Harold in the 4-H building. He got to talking with one of his poker friends, and I left them to it to go get my cheese curds.” She smiles over at Brent as she walks up to him and pats him on the shoulder. “It was nice to meet you, sexy neighbor. My niece is just the cutest. You two look great together. Don’t screw it up.”
With that, she walks away from us and disappears into the crowd.
“So, now you met my family. Obviously, you can see where I get all this normal from,” I tell Brent, using my hands to gesture from my head down.
He grabs one of my hands, pulling it up to his mouth and placing a soft kiss on top of it.
“Normal is overrated and boring,” he says, lacing our fingers together and turning us around to start walking with the flow of traffic. “We need to get a move on. I have to find those cheese curds your aunt mentioned.”
“All right, tell me what’s wrong,” Brent states, my hand pausing on the door handle of his truck after he parked and we both unbuckled.
“Nothing’s wrong. Why would you think anything is wrong?”
“You’ve been a little… off. Ever since right around the time we walked away from your aunt.”
I can’t believe he even noticed that. It’s not like I was pouting or frowning or anything after we walked away from her. I really did have an amazing rest of the day with him. One of the best days ever. Big City Brent was completely at home at the fair. He tried every strange food on a stick I gave him, pet every animal, rode every ride, and looked at everything in the exhibit barns, all while happily carrying around his free yardstick from a local gas company and fanning himself with his free flyswatter from a local homebuilder. He put his arm around my shoulders and I rested my head in the crook of his neck when we rode the Ferris wheel, and he carried all the stuffed animals he won me playing games. But no matter how amazing the day and evening was, and no matter how much I laughed, there was still something nagging at the back of my mind, and Brent noticed.
He rests his arm along the back of the seat and his other hand on the steering wheel as he turns his body to face me. I turn toward him as well, pulling my left leg up and resting the side of my knee on the seat so I can fully face him.
“My aunt called me cute,” I tell him.
He continues looking at me, the soft glow of the lights on either side of his garage door illuminating the inside of his truck enough that I can see the curious expression on his face.
“Okay. And that’s a bad thing?”
“All my life, I’ve been called cute. ‘Oh, you’re so cute!’ ‘Isn’t she cute?’ This guy named Pugsley and I were named cutest in our high school class. Not most likely to succeed, not most musically talented or most athletic, or best looking… cutest,” I explain with a sigh. “Now, I know it sounds ungrateful to complain about something that people usually mean in a nice way. I do have freckles in the summertime, which made my dad call me cute nose all the time. And I suppose being cute has gotten me out of detention and a traffic ticket or two, which is probably unfair, but hey, you use what you got, right?”
Brent laughs softly and nods. “I’m with you so far.”
We both lean in a little closer to each other as I continue.
“Just hear me out. When I’m in a group of people and I speak up to share an idea or add a story to the conversation and other people say, ‘Oh, isn’t she cute?’ it feels like I’m a puppy getting patted on the head. It’s like the Minnesota Nice version of shut up. That’s one of the only things I loved most about being a kindergarten teacher. To my kids, I was funny, nice, and also sometimes strict, in charge, someone they turned to because I knew things about the world. They never once called me cute, and you know what? Even when I thought they were cute, I would try to praise something else, something specific, something they could do, not just ‘being cute.’”
Brent slides closer to me on the bench seat until our knees are touching, leaning in even more until his face is only a few inches away from mine, not saying a word, just listening, and letting me get all of this out.
“And when I had crushes on guys and I found out through the grapevine that they thought I was cute? Kiss. Of. Death. Because I heard those same guys talk about other girls in our class, after the girls passed by in the hall, or finished a class presentation or a cheerleading routine. They’d say, ‘She’s so hot!’ doing anything they could to make that girl notice them,” I continue, talking faster and getting slightly more passionate—also known as loud and annoyed—with every word. “Like Kirsten Hanson, whose default expression was always like she’d just smelled a fart. Boys tripped over themselves to get her to acknowledge their existence. Is that what guys want? Some snobby girl who acts like she hates everybody? I didn’t know what to do with that information. I wasn’t a snobby girl. I was dorky and talked a lot, when I wasn’t being nervous and shy and awkward. I just don’t want to be treated like a puppy, you know? I’m more than that. I’m more than just cute.”
When I finally run out of steam, I realize Brent’s hand, which was resting on the back of the seat next to me, slid over my shoulder and up around to the back of my neck while I was talking. He’s looking at me so
seriously right now that it’s making me nervous.
“When I tell you you’re adorable, I hope to God you know I am not patting you on the head. It means you make me happy, you make me laugh, and you make me want to be a nicer person,” he tells me with conviction, his hand tightening slightly on the back of my neck, inching my face closer to his. “When I tell you you’re adorable, I’m telling you I notice you. From the minute I moved in next door, I noticed you. I know you’re more than cute. You’re beautiful, smart, funny, and sexy. You’re someone who knows what she wants and goes for it.”
He’s giving me a hint, right? This is a hint? Oh shit, hell, damn, dick! Please let this be a hint.
“I do know what I want,” I tell him firmly, my eyes trailing down to stare at his lips.
“What do you want?”
After a few seconds of staring at his mouth, my eyes move back up to his and I swallow thickly, pushing the nerves away.
“To kiss you,” I whisper.
He smiles.
“So, kiss me.”
Without giving it another thought or moment of worry, I grab onto the front of Brent’s T-shirt and pull him the rest of the way to me, tipping my chin up and pressing my lips to his.
Chapter 23
Heidi’s Discount Erotica, Episode 8
“Welcome to Heidi’s Discount Erotica, do-do-do! I’m so sorry it’s been a few weeks since my last podcast. I read all your comments on my website after my last one, and you guys are just so sweet checking in on me! Someone asked if I had an address they could send something to, and at first, I was just going to throw it out there, because this is Waconia and I know pretty much everyone. But oh jeez, there are a lot of you listening now! Last time I checked, I was up to four thousand listeners. This is just so crazy!
“Anyway, I’m pretty sure you’re not all from Waconia or I’d probably be banned from church on Sunday. Penelope suggested I get a post office box for listeners to send me things. So, I did it! And I already got my first piece of mail. Someone who didn’t leave their name on the envelope sent me a very nice, laminated card with a ton of different words for penis. It’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. Who knew there were so many words? I’m hoping if I read this thing for you guys out loud, it will give me some more magical powers of confidence.