Chapter 24 Frankie
FRANKIE
So this is what it’s like to not be cloaked in regret or disappointment after having intercourse with someone. After having totally pleasurable, relatively sober, emotionally significant, somewhat acrobatic coitus. Three times in a row.
I wonder if I can write a song about this that’s still funny.
What rhymes with multiple orgasms?…
Erotic muscle spasms.
Lovable sarcasm.
Combustible enthusiasm.
These are all phrases that are totally applicable to our relationship.
“Are you writing jokes in your head?” Owen returns from the bathroom in his black boxer briefs, with his skin that’s exfoliated and moisturized from head to toe, and that I told you I was good at sex expression on his face that doesn’t even make me mad.
“You don’t know me!” I reach for my phone and email those words that rhyme with multiple orgasms to myself so I don’t forget them. “Yeah. Sort of.”
He reunites with me under the covers, and it just feels so right, wearing Snoopy pajamas and being in the same bed with him. “You emailing yourself?”
“Yes. Do you do that?”
“Yeah. I always wake up in the middle of the night and email myself, and then when I read my messages in the morning, I usually email myself back and I’m like, the fuck were you thinking, idiot?”
I put the phone back onto the side table and flip around to face him. We’re both propped up on an elbow, gazing at each other. If I didn’t like us so much right now, I’d puke because we’re so cute it’s gross. “Do you ever worry you’ll stop thinking like a comedian if you’re really happy?”
“Like right now, you mean?” He grins at me.
My insides turn to mush. My skin is all prickly. I can’t look at him when he’s all sex-hair and satisfaction and making googly eyes at me. Who even is this guy?
Shit, I can’t even think in proper English anymore.
He touches my chin, turning my head back to face him. “Don’t you look away from me, missy. I am really happy right now. So are you. But we can go back to talking shit with each other for a while if that would make you feel better.”
I sit up and clasp my hands in front of my heart. “Could we really?! I would like that very much.”
“Course you would. You’re an asshole.”
“Right back atcha, asshole. This feels better. Good idea, asshole.”
“You want to go out and grab a bite, asshole?”
“Now? It’s after midnight!”
“Yeah. We’re in the city that never sleeps, you lame-ass, ancient asshole.”
“Oh man, I can’t wait to be old so people will stop asking me if I want to go out. Can’t we just have something from the minibar?”
“Yes, Grandma Hogan. We shall dine on the finest Pringles and Toblerone.”
“Stop talking dirty to me.”
“I can’t help it if everything I say turns you on.”
He’s right, dammit, and he knows it.
I am so turned on just from watching him remove items from the minibar in his boxer briefs. This is the kind of porn I would want to watch. Hot guys in their underpants fetching sweet-and-salty snacks post-coitally while being witty.
I need to change the subject, fast.
“I think I’ll be a really terrific old person.”
“Don’t underestimate yourself. I think you’re pretty great at it now.”
I toss a pillow at him. “I’m four years younger than you.”
“Yes, but I take better care of my skin, and who uses the word terrific unironically if they’re under seventy?”
“Oh my God, I wish I was seventy. I can’t wait to complain about my sciatica and make strangers uncomfortable by telling them about my urinary incontinence and what a peach I was in my day.”
He shuts the minifridge door with his foot and carries an armful of treats over to the bed. I flatten the covers so he can spread it all out for us. If he suggests ordering a pizza, I might ask him to marry me.
“Oh, you’re doing a bit. It’s cute. What’s your lead-in? Just the ‘I think I’ll be a really terrific old person’ thing?”
I grab the bag of peanut M&Ms when he goes back for bottled waters.
“Do you really want to know?”
“I don’t ask questions that I don’t want to know the answers to.”
“Wow. What’s it like to be a next-level grownup?”
“Sucks. What’s it like to be a sarcastic asshole all the time?”
“It’s fucking amazing. I don’t know why everyone isn’t like this.”
He places two bottled waters on the bedside table, climbs under the covers with me, and it feels so right I want to weep.
“Just tell me the bit.”
“Well, I was going to open with: How’s it going for you guys? Are you winning at life? Because I’ve been thinking lately that I peaked in day care. I was so good at taking naps when I was told to and eating pieces of fruit and sniffing glue in the bathroom…”
He considers this for a moment before declaring, “That is not good.”
“Yeah. I know. Which part—all of it?”
“The first two lines are cute, and then it nosedives. I mean I like the shape of it.”
“Stop saying my stuff is cute.”
“Being cute is part of your act.”
“No. It’s not.”
“Yeah.” He pats my leg. “It is.”
“That’s so condescending.”
“I’m not being condescending. You’re just reacting to what I’m saying by being insulted. That’s not my fault.”
I huff. I huff around him a lot. He probably thinks it’s cute.
“Being cute is part of Seinfeld’s act too. It’s not just a girl thing.”
“You aren’t seriously comparing me to Jerry Seinfeld right now, are you?”
“No, I’m not comparing you to him—he’s a legendary comedian whose act is widely-appreciated and pretty timeless. You’re a super-hot and very talented fledgling comedian. That’s a fact. I’m saying part of his act is sharing his cute thoughts. Part of your act is being cute.”
He’s right. I hate that he’s right. But he is right. “I guess.”
“You know what, I guess that bit’s not so bad. Keep going with it.”
“No, it’s lame. I’m not doing stand-up anymore anyway.”
“Yeah, that’s not a thing. Quitting stand-up isn’t a thing.”
“Yeah. I know.”
“It sucks.”
“Yeah. It does.”
“But we persevere. Because we’re lucky we know what we want.” He looks at me meaningfully. I hope I know what he’s thinking because I’m thinking something so corny right now. Thank God we don’t have to say it out loud.
I want you. Do you still want me too?
“You want to watch a movie or something, Golden Girl?” He gets the TV remote. “Or are you going to fall asleep soon?”
“Yeah. Let’s watch a movie or something. Maybe a sitcom so I don’t have to commit to staying awake.”
I sample all of the snacks while he scrolls through the hotel’s onscreen offerings.
“Oooh! Seinfeld!” I blurt out. “Since we were just speaking of him. You ever watch it with the sound off and make up your own filthy dialogue? I do that with my roommate when we’re hungover. It’s really fun.”
“I am definitely down for that. Which episode?”
“Doesn’t matter. Click on anything.”
He selects an episode, hits the Mute button, swipes the Pringle container from me, and sits back against the headboard. “You leave any for me?”
“Uh-huh.” I somehow manage to tear my gaze away from the general area between Owen Brodie’s lower abdominal region and his upper thighs so I can watch Jerry Seinfeld talk into a microphone.
Jerry is wearing a brown suit and tie. There is something wrong with my priorities, but there is also something incredibly satisfying about putting dirty words into the smiling mouth of the cleanest comedian.
“Welcome to the Thunderdome,” I say in my best Seinfeld impression.
“I have a giant erection in my pants, and you’re all dirty sluts. Who wants a piece of me?”
I think this is the bit where Seinfeld is talking about bumper car rides, which is great because he’s miming driving a little bumper car and waving his arm around yelling at someone.
“You know when you’re drilling a chick from behind in the bathroom stall at a bus station, and all of a sudden you can’t remember if you turned off the stove when you left home?” Owen’s Seinfeld impression might be better than mine, and that actually pisses me off a little bit.
Not to be outdone, I add, “And you have to ramp things up but she just won’t squontch, and you’re like, Come onnnnnnn!”
“Come on my big, hard cock so I can call my housekeeper and ask her to go to my mansion and check the stove, you smexy ho muffin!”
“What is the deal with women who take forever to drop a load on your fuck truck?”
Jerry keeps waving his hand around, shaking his head and smiling while he talks.
“This is why you should never bang hos you meet in bus stations!” Owen declares.
“Or why you should always check the stove before leaving the house to bang hos in bus stations.”
Seinfeld starts turning around in circles while miming holding a bumper car wheel.
Owen is laughing too hard to speak anymore, so I yell out, “Finally, she starts spinning around on your bonedaddy like a Cirque du Soleil acrobat, and you’re like, ‘Attention passengers, the Red Line to Jizzville will be arriving at the station in three…two…onnnnnneuhhhhhhh.’
And that’s the end of the opening credits sequence.
Owen is laughing so hard he can’t make a sound or move. His hands are resting on his totally flat belly. He’s probably growing two more abs right now because he’s just hovering there mid-crunch.
The gang is in a booth at the coffee shop, and Kramer is yammering, so I just keep going. “Okay, you can take the F Train to Poundtown and then transfer to the Number 69 at Porkington Crossroads, but make sure you don’t get off until your dick diva’s reached the end of the line.”
Owen grabs me and pulls me to him for a kiss. “Stop. I can’t take it anymore.”
“I win!”
“I didn’t know it was a competition, but sure. You win. You have a filthy, magnificent mouth.”
“Thank you.”
His sapphire-blue eyes are all glossy and glittery, and I actually feel like I’m winning at life for once.
“Hey.” He strokes my arm with his fingertip, and it sends shivers down my everything, everywhere. “Are you still hungry? Should we order a pizza?”
Shit.
I am so deliriously happy right now.
Yes.
I want to eat pizza with this man and his son for the rest of my life, I think.
“Why do you look like you’re gonna cry? We don’t have to order pizza. It was just a suggestion.”
I attach my mouth to his because the thing that I want to say to him is no joke and I’ve been on a roll and I’m just not willing to risk bombing at the high point of the night.