4. Close Encounters With The Johnson
Close Encounters With The Johnson
Josephine
This Corinthian of a man—for I cannot possibly call him a gentleman—is as naked as the day he was born. He’s both freezing to the touch, but also somehow feverishly hot. Beneath my fingers, his hairy chest rises and falls rapidly. All that cold, heated nakedness sprawls underneath me.
To make matters worse, my ancient and pious grandmother stands over us, her wrinkled jaw hanging as though the shock of what she just witnessed broke it from the rest of her face. The astonishment soon contorts into a scandalously pleased grin accompanied by a tsk, tsk.
I want to stand. Where is the nearest rosary so I can stab myself in the chest with it? I must explain to my grandmother that I am not wasting my virtue on the man laughing nervously beneath me. But before I can do anything to make the situation better, he opens his mouth and makes it worse.
“Alright, one of two things is happening right now—”
I try to rise, but giant hands clamp indecently around my waist
“—No, you stay where you are. You’re warm, and that big ass dress of yours is the only thing keeping Gertude there from getting another eyeful of my Johnson.”
Wondering who he is calling ‘Gertrude’, I attempt to roll away, but his hot fingers grasp harder and jar me back down on…what I can only assume is his Johnson.
He continues, “Either this just turned into some Ghost of Christmas Past bullshit and I’m fucked, or we’re still playing out the Downton Abbey thing and now we’re gonna have to do something cliche like get married. Meaning we’re both fucked.”
It’s my turn to be left red in the face with my jaw hanging. Shocked, I act before I think and am stunned as my palm comes in contact with his cheek. My skin stings. Oddly enough, he doesn’t seem phased and instead, blinks.
Once, twice, three times, and then laughs.
“Oh my god, I am alive! I was worried because I have a gorgeous woman sitting on me and for whatever reason the trusty ol’ boy downstairs isn’t responding.
Thought for sure that meant death. But my face hurts like a bitch. Nice swing, by the way. I’m alive!”
He won’t shut up. Somehow, this strange, loud, annoying man cannot comprehend how very serious this predicament is, and as he continues to exclaim that he is alive, my grandmother’s hysterical wheezing becomes audible words, and I am certain I have died.
“Josephine Dashwood! While I must confess, I am a connoisseur of appropriately timed indecency, of all the indecent things I could have pictured you doing in your life—”
The cockeyed man beneath me flashes my grandmother an impertinent smirk and interrupts, “What indecent things have you done?”
“This!” Grandmother snaps a response, her wide eyes like daggers in our direction.
“This is undoubtedly the worst! Come, off to your father. And you…” Her long, bony finger wags at the naked man who still has not stopped talking.
“You, sir, will make this right!” As she turns to leave, her skirts ruffling like an offended chicken, she peeks over her shoulder and I swear I see a grin creeping across her old face.
My heart sinks.
Making it right can have only two meanings.
Marriage or a bullet. Probably my brother Stanley’s bullet, lodged precisely in this man’s heart.
Although I know it’s his fault, I feel bad for him.
I look down at the poor, slightly overweight, freckled man who, for the first time since rescuing himself from drowning in a literal puddle, has closed his mouth.
The comical, confused expression he has worn for the last thirty minutes fades into something more understandable: fear.