Vagina
A very lonely man orders an imitation vagina from a catalogue. He sits down on the couch and waits for it. A couple hours later, he hears a sound from the porch. Opening his front door, he sees someone has left a large box for him—it’s roughly as large as he is. He drags the box inside and hastily tears it open. Instead of his fake vagina, he finds a woman curled up in the box, sleeping. At first he thinks maybe it’s just some kind of lifelike sex doll but he can see it breathing. Bending down, he shakes her shoulder.
“Uh, Miss?” he says.
Startled, she rolls over and looks at him. “Oh, I’m so sorry,” she says.
She is dressed enticingly in a very short skirt and clinging t-shirt.
“Well, I guess you know why I’m here,” she says.
“Actually, I’m a little confused. I think maybe they screwed up my order.”
He checks the box for an invoice but doesn’t see one. His address isn’t even on the box. Curious, he thinks.
“I guess you can spend your time thinking about it or we can go upstairs and you can put me to use.”
“I would definitely like that,” the man says. He can’t believe his good fortune. He wonders if the girl is planning on staying, if she really is his.
They go upstairs and, after a few moments, the man gasps in frustrated confusion. He kneels between the girl’s legs, staring down at the complete absence of sex. Like a doll, she is entirely hairless and smooth. He looks up at the girl to meet her embarrassed stare.
“I’m so sorry,” she says. “It was there a few days ago, I promise.”
“Unlikely,” the man says.
“There are other things I can do,” she says.
“It’s not the same,” the man dresses and retreats downstairs, pouting.
The girl comes downstairs moments later, fully dressed. “I guess I should go, huh?”
The man, angry, wants to tell her to get out but, after thinking about it, realizes he is very lonely and, indeed, there are other things the girl can do. Things that would have to be better than using an imitation vagina. “Why don’t you stick around,” he says.
So the girl sticks around for a few days and they perform every sexual act possible. The man is happy and exhausted but, alas, he has to go back to work.
Coming home from work one day, he discovers the mailman delivering the mail. One of the parcels he crams in the mailbox is the vagina. It is without an envelope and looks slightly used. The mailman, unable to meet the man’s gaze, looks at the ground and quickly walks to the next house. The man takes the vagina into the house and gives it a thorough washing. Then he puts it in a box and wraps it. That night, with the girl waiting in bed, waiting for their marathon non-vaginal sex to begin, the man presents her with his present.
“For me?” she asks.
“Of course,” the man says, eager to see her look of surprise when she opens the box.
Once opened, a look of horror crosses the girl’s face.
“I guess you want me to put this on,” she says.
“Then you’ll be complete.”
The girl crosses to the bathroom and comes out with the vagina attached. It is slightly ill-fitting but the man doesn’t really mind.
After that night’s sex, the man rolls off the girl and lights a cigarette. “Fantastic,” he says.
The girl pretends to fall asleep.
The next morning the man wakes up and discovers that he is alone with the vagina. He looks all around the house but he can’t find the girl. He even calls the catalogue company and asks about her but they treat him like he’s nuts. He looks at the vagina and finds it sad and lonely. He places it on the front porch hoping the girl will return to claim it.
Laser
I fall asleep in the yard and wake up with laser beams for eyes. I do not discover this until I tug on my earlobe (a nervous habit I developed in preschool) and the lasers involuntarily shoot out and vaporize a squirrel. Somewhat scared of my newfound powers I make my way into the house. A group of elderly triplets is busy rearranging everything. The house is unnaturally warm. So warm, in fact, that the triplets have all removed their shirts and wear only old-fashioned shorts and flip-flops. They seem, at first, startled to see me, and then continue with their vigorous rearranging. The couch is turned over on its side. The loveseat is half out the door. The television is smashed. The carpet is torn up. Plants are overturned. One of them is in the process of feeding my now destroyed coffee table into the roaring fireplace. That is why it is so hot.
“Stop! Stop!” I shout.
They sweatily proceed going about their business, fiendishly, as if driven by something even greater than destruction. I look at the one in the middle, the one hanging from the ceiling fan, trying to loose it from its moorings. My thumb and index finger clasp my right earlobe and, unhesitatingly, I give it a tug. Twin laser beams shoot out and vaporize the man, leaving the fan at an odd angle.
The other two (twins now, I guess) finally stop their destruction and stare at the empty space where the third one was. The one on the right puts his left hand on his hip and gestures into the air with his right. He says something that sounds like, “Jub,” but maybe it’s just a foreign language.
The one on my left throws up his arms and says, “Jub!”
Maybe the missing triplet’s name was Jub? I didn’t know. The twins proceed to get into an argument in that strange foreign language, anger flashing in their eyes.
The one on the right punches the other one in the ear. He holds his ear, wanders over to the couch and sits down on the section remaining in the house. He sticks out his lower lip, tears streaming down his face.
“You didn’t have to hit him,” I say to the one on the right. “Why are you here anyway?”
He looks at me and says, “I... I don’t understand.”
“Do you think you guys can put everything back?”
“I... I don’t understand.”
Jesus, I think. These people are thick.
Now he sticks his finger into his bellybutton and jiggles it around a bit, looking up at the ceiling as if thinking of something. Then he shakes his head as if whatever he was thinking is wrong. Suddenly, he lurches across the room, throwing himself onto his brother, savagely beating him around the shoulders. Grasping my earlobe, I fire off another laser and he disappears as well. The remaining triplet continues to blubber. I don’t like the sound. I realize I don’t have to put up with the sound and, besides, what is a lone triplet, anyway? I vaporize him. Then I make some coffee and spend the rest of the day putting the house back in order.
That night, I dream the triplets are in bed with me, all shirtless and slippery. They argue in their dumb language and proceed to take apart my dreams—shattering them, rearranging them, shoving them into a fire. When I wake up, I no longer have laser beams for eyes.
Angst
One day, my parents come into my room and tell me exactly what I’ve been waiting all my life to hear—that my real parents were rock stars who died of a double drug suicide when I was two and a half years old.
I tell them to fuck off and go back to constructing my bodily substance mural on the bedroom wall.
Black Leather Jacket
I got a bonus for a year’s work down at the paper factory. It was a big bonus. I wanted to buy something for myself with this money. I went to a department store and bought myself a black leather jacket. First I tried it on and looked at myself in the display mirror. It made me look dangerous and warm. I had to have this black leather jacket. After buying the jacket I still had over a hundred dollars left from my big bonus. I wanted people to see me in my new jacket so I decided that I would go out and have a drink. I went to the G Club. I especially wanted a pretty woman to see me in my black leather jacket and be attracted to my new sense of dangerous warmth. I sat at the bar and ordered a drink. I drank the drink and looked around. A small woman sat in the smoky back corner. She was wearing a thin emerald green dress. I could not see up the d
ress. She looked neither dangerous nor warm. She looked seductive and cold. I walked over to her, drawing myself down into my new jacket. I asked her if I could buy her a drink. She said that she would rather do something else. I said that we could go back to my place. She said that sounded good. But I’m with my mother, she said. Girls’ night out. She can wait downstairs, I said. I have a couch and television and a dog named Seamus to keep her company. Yes, she said, that sounds good. So we all went back to my house. Me and the girl, whose name was Tracy, went upstairs to my bedroom. She went to the bathroom to insert her diaphragm. She told me, I’m going to go into the bathroom and insert my diaphragm. I said okay. I took off my leather jacket and the rest of my clothes. Then I put the jacket back on. She came out and she was naked. She lay down on the bed. I took off my jacket and hung it on the footpost, hoping I’d used just the right amount of extravagance. I crawled into bed and rolled over between her legs. I’m pretty sure she didn’t come. I rolled off her and lit a cigarette. She said, Well, Mom’s waiting, I better go. I said okay. On the way out she took the leather jacket. When I finished my cigarette I went downstairs to feed the dog and watch television but the dog and the television set were gone. So were the stereo and the silverware. There wasn’t much left in my house. It felt like even the heat was gone. I could have used that black leather jacket.
Delayed Reaction
It’s a good thing Virgil doesn’t react to the knock on the door and squeeze the trigger. Because, well, because his head would be on the kitchen wall. Virgil has to admire the irony. He is sitting in the kitchen with a fully loaded gun resting on his bottom teeth. It isn’t a series of events that has brought him to this. It is a series of nothing. Not even really a series. More like a wave. A giant wave of static nothingness slowly devouring his sanity.
No friends. No conversation. No laughter. No visitors.
This knock on the door is the first knock he’s heard since moving into his apartment two years ago. Roughly. Somewhat bemused, he puts the gun in the refrigerator and walks to the door. Opening it, he is stunned. There are five girls backed out into the hall.
“Hello,” he stammers.
“Hi,” a blond girl in the front says. She looks to be at least seventeen or eighteen. The rest look younger. They all look delicious. “We’re from the Springdale chapter of the Daughters in Christ Brigade. Mind if we come in?”
“No. Not at all. Please do.”
Virgil steps aside and motions them over to the beaten couch. They all sit down in a militant line, their skirts riding up as they cross their legs.
“You ladies care for a drink?”
“No thanks,” they all reply in unison.
“Well, then, I’m just gonna go get myself a drink.”
He walks into the kitchen and stands frozen for a few minutes. He can hear them talking in the other room.
“It’s so bare and... and run down.”
“Isn’t he ugly?”
“My goodness, he smells.”
“What do you think he uses in his hair?”
“Did you see his shirt?”
Virgil looks at his shirt. A few holes here and there. A grease spot or two. Damn, he’s buttoned it up all wrong.
He puts some ice in a cup and runs some water from the tap, walks into the family room and sits in the chair across from the couch. The chair looks like rats have tried to eat it.
The oldest blond who answered the door starts talking but he’s long since lost himself in the blue of her eyes. They sparkle with complete emptiness. Then he looks at her legs. From where she has recrossed them he can see a lingering red spot on one of her calves.
The time flies by and he tunes in to hear her say: “All we need you to do is sign right here and we’ll be by later in the week to drop off some of our literature.”
“Oh, sure,” he says, shaky hands reaching out for the pen and paper.
“Thank you, Mr... Bentley?” She tries to read his signature from the paper.
“Bunting.”
“Thank you, Mr. Bunting,” she says and leads them out the door. The apartment is still filled with their collective scent. It’s light and beautiful. He hasn’t smelled anything like that in a very long time.
Good, he thinks, they'll be back.
Virgil goes out the next day and buys an entire used suit. He is careful to make sure there aren’t any stains or tears in it. He shaves, clips all of his nails, tears the hair from his nose and takes four showers a day.
For the next three days, he sits around in his suit, graying hair combed, and waits for the girls to return.
On the evening of the third day, he hears a knock on the door.
It has to be them. Virgil doesn’t even know anyone else. He eagerly crosses the room and opens the door. There are only three of them this time, but the older one is still there. All of them carry pamphlets and register a look of surprise at the new Virgil.
“Have a seat,” he invites them.
They do so, sitting in the same semi-militant formation.
“Lemonade?”
“Sure,” they say.
Already, Virgil can sense that they feel more comfortable around him.
He enters the kitchen and pours the lemonade, sporting a semi-erection.
As he begins walking toward the living room, he stops, holds his head, and then bursts into flame, the lemonade in the glasses lighting to a boil before the glasses fall to the floor, nothing left to hold them. From his torso up, he has exploded, the rest of him burnt down to a charred stalk.
After their intitial surprise, the girls walk over to his remains.
“Oooooh, are those pieces of his brain on the wall?”
“My goodness, he’s all black!”
“Oh, can you smell the stink?”
A Sandwich in the Park
It is a very nice day, unseasonably warm. Link decides to take his sandwich to the park and eat it.
He finds a row of swings with only one little boy at them and sits down on one of the swings. Link takes his sandwich out of its wrapper and begins eating it.
A glob of oil runs out of the sandwich and splashes onto his shirt. He grabs his black tie and tries to absorb the stain, but the tie only helps to smear it around and make it larger. Link’s face and cheeks redden. A beautiful day has been ruined. It will be hard for him to go back to work with the embarrassing stain. The boy down the row from Link lets himself fly off the swing. He begins walking and, as he passes by Link, the boy glances mischievously at him. The boy notices the freshly blossomed stain on Link’s shirt. The stain has the boy so enrapt that he moves a little closer to Link. He holds out a finger, pointing, and laughs. It’s as though the child can’t stop laughing. He laughs and laughs and laughs, pauses to cough, and laughs some more.
Link draws his hand back, feeling the satisfying weight of the greasy sandwich. He throws the sandwich as hard as he can and hits the boy in the face. A piece of lettuce sticks to the boy’s forehead, grease drips from his nose.
The boy stops laughing and immediately begins crying.
“Damn that sandwich,” Link says, unbuttoning his rather expensive shirt. He throws this at the boy as well, telling him to wipe his greasy little face with it.
Link decides not to go back to work.
Ted the Salesman
Ted the Salesman bends over his papers, greedily stuffing them back into his giant briefcase. He seems incapable of shutting his mouth and his dry lips frame teeth so large and white I almost think they’re fake except for the spaces in between each one of them. His papers are on the floor because I emptied his briefcase when he went to the bathroom. A bathroom that will be sterilized as soon as he leaves.
“Been on the road a long time, eh, Ted?”
“Yes. Indeed. I shur have an ya know whut?”
“I know very little, Ted.”
“People are getting meaner n ruder all the time.”
“People are bastards, Ted. Hey Ted, guess what?”
&nbs
p; “Whut?”
“I knocked your briefcase onto the floor. Dug right in there and pulled out all those papers. I had myself a pretty big time.”
“Now why’d you go n do that for?”
“Oh, I knew you wouldn’t say anything.”
“Why’d you figger I wouldn’t say nothing?”
“Because you’re trying to sell me something.”
“Logical, I guess.”
“But guess what else, Ted.”
“Whut?”
“I lied to you. I don’t even own this house. I’m not even supposed to be here.”
“It’s people like you that waste my time.”
“Yeah. But I sure did have fun. If you could have seen me in here, rolling around in all those papers.”
“I woulda whupped yer ass.”
“You know why I did that, Ted?”
“Why?”
“Because I’m one of the dirty bastard people.”
“Figgers.”
Ted finishes gathering up his things and storms out the front door. I watch him speed away, a trail of dust rising up behind his battered car.
2/3 Soul
Fitzwater ties the cat to his ankle and goes out to the curb to get the mail.
“Damn lot of mail,” he says, opening the box.
He pulls out three packages labeled: “1 of 3,” “2 of 3,” and “3 of 3.”
He walks back into his house, unties the cat, and sets the packages down on the table.
Rummaging through the cupboards he finds a stale box of cereal, pours it into a bowl, and waits. There is a knock at his door.
He bounds to open it. Reggie the Milkman stands outside, smiling and holding a liter of milk. The smell of crack still clings to his clothes.
The Overwhelming Urge Page 4