Genital Grinder

drunk) and agreed, and was soon thinking less about Sherilyn and Sheryl, and more about asthma attacks.

I consented to the aforementioned atrocities, and accept full responsibility, but the crowning touch was beyond my control—a factor substantially worse than merely being here.

This blonde with a satisfying bra size but a slow metabolism is dead, and she’s still on top of me. I think it happened at 3:36 a.m., the time on her digital clock which I saw when I craned my head to the right. This is the extent of my mobility, that and being able to move my right arm. The left is pinned by . . . damn, I don’t remember her name. Did she even tell me? I probably wasn’t listening. Clubs and bars are loud. Great places to meet new people, but introductions are about as far as it goes. What they’re drinking and might they be out on the town for —or at least susceptible to—the ol’ “F-close,” that’s all that matters (I’ve read The Game . . . I know what’s up).

Whoever she is, she has my legs and torso welded to the mattress. I can’t turn my head to the left because her elbow finished between my ear and shoulder.

On a scale of one to ten this hits the upper echelons of embarrassment, a nine at least. To achieve a perfect ten, let me add my pathetic confession—I’m still hard. No one has to know about this, so I’m telling myself the frantic gyration beneath her is merely a desperate attempt to squirm away.

Only that and nothing more.

Sherilyn and Sheryl . . . Laura (or Madeline) and Audrey . . . the stoplight . . . Sherilyn dancing to Badalamenti’s score . . . a secret scene never shown, Laura and Audrey experimenting . . .

Mission accomplished. Coherent thought is once more possible.

The first thing to remember is not to kick myself in the ass too much for going home with . . . whatever her name is (was). I hit the bars too late, so all the eye candy had been taken—wept off their feet or clandestinely slipped that magnificent invention the date rape drug (the only true barometer of human progress, if you ask me . . . the rubber a close runner-up with the morning-after pill a not-so-distant cousin). All that was left when I saddled up to the bar were the bottom feeders, and knowing that anyone I went home with come sun-up would be as good for me as a flesh-eating virus, I started doing shots in a hurry. Ego abuse and a hangover are a bad combination, but at the time I thought it was better to go home with an undesirable than go home alone. When the nausea kicked in and driving home would probably mean killing an innocent family in a station wagon coming home late from Disney Land, I started doling out the pick-up lines. It took two before I struck gold—such as it was—with my big date. My face was stinging on both sides by that point because one proposition thought my line was too crude for just one slap. She had been wearing a shirt which said BUILT TO LAST, and I had inquired if that was a bedroom invitation for “alllllll night looooooong” in the same sentence where I introduced myself. Should’ve at least bought her a drink first, I suppose, but no big loss . . . figuratively speaking, anyway.

I’m not as desperate as I probably sound, so let me explain where I’m coming from. When I was fifteen I went sledding at the “End of the World,” a hill beyond the woods bordering our neighborhood where the path going up to it seemed to lead to oblivion, or at least a very long plunge. Everybody seems to have an “End of the World” near them. You would have been disappointed by what it actually was, but it was the best we had. Anyway, a neighbor’s dog kept leaping on my shoulders, apparently mistaking me for a willing mate. It didn’t matter that I no more resembled a dog than an emu, not to my persistent canine suitor. Reality would be ignored for gratification. I’m not trying to say I’m a dog (though I guess I am), only that it’s natural enough to overlook the big picture when it suits you and ignore reality—there isn’t a long plunge after all—for gratification.

As for what killed my “date” for the night, I’d say cardiac arrest or an aneurysm. It wasn’t me, I was just lying there waiting for the end, hoping sooner than later. I don’t see why she’d get that excited since a girl her size has likely been with a multitude of guys. The American ideal of beauty is technically some bone-rack little bitch with borderline anorexia, but let’s not forget men are opportunists. Many of the bigger girls have quite a self-esteem deficit, and they’re grateful for any attention. If sex is the only way to prolong the flattery, they’ll go the distance. They’ll go all the way.

I suppose I can rest easy knowing the risk of her getting pregnant vanished. That’s always the big worry, an “End of the World” that similarly wouldn’t be the end—see above about the “morning after pill”—but a lot worse than a dog trying to brick on your parka.

Right now my breathing is so shallow you’d think I’d been trapped in an elevator for hours. My . . . struggle . . . was more exertion than I can afford. It would almost be better to die than summon help, which if I’m to live seems to be my fate. It’s too dark in here to see just how much I have to circumvent, but I feel like Johnny Depp in A Nightmare on Elm Street when he melted through the mattress. I estimate three hundred pounds, at least. I recall setting a 350 pound maximum limit, and congratulated myself on finding someone well below that. She had a very small car, though, which quickly smote my satisfaction.

Either the dead weight is really just that impactful or I was wrong about her body mass index. Seems like I should be able to at least slide out from under her if not bench press her. I think there’s a dip in the mattress where the springs have collapsed. It might have happened when she started riding me, come to think of it.

I couldn’t tell you where she drove me in her ironically small car, not even if I’d been sober during the trip. Assuming there’s a phone I can strain for, I won’t even be able to tell the operator where to send the police. I guess they could trace the call, though maybe they only do that when they suspect a prank. Someone in dire need might well be ignored.

I’m not entirely convinced I want to be rescued. They’d have to deploy the jaws of life. It feels like my ribs are about to crack and crumble into bone dust. With my luck this will end up on an emergency rescue show, and everyone will think I’m loser who can’t get laid within my own weight division. Word would travel far and wide, and everywhere I went I’d be The Guy Who Almost Suffocated Under His Obese One Night Stand.

. . . Okay, what was that?

I heard something. I wasn’t expecting to, can’t tell if it happened somewhere off in the house or right underneath the bed. Maybe we’re in a bad part of town and someone broke in. Oh hell, what if she’s married? I can’t imagine a husband being offended to homicidal extremes by such a disposable woman spreading the wealth, but it’d still have to be deeply insulting. I could almost see myself blowing a guy’s brains out for that.

It’s quiet again. Everyone say it with me: Too quiet.

My heart is rapid firing, cardiac AK-47 action. If it is someone with malicious intent, he could carve on me for hours and I couldn’t do anything but bleed. My left arm has fallen asleep, and the discomfort of her elbow in my neck is taking its toll. I really should have exercised more, maybe joined a fitness program. I haven’t lifted weights since high school, and back then I was struggling to bench two hundred. You don’t have to have to a good physique when your parents buy you a Mustang, I quickly learned, and thus bid adieu to curls and presses. The game doesn’t change much when you get older, so I stuck to drinking and driving.

It’s strange to have her chest pressing on mine, but not feel her heartbeat. It was when I could no longer feel that trip-hammering that I knew she hadn’t just passed out. I never believed she was drunk to begin with, and that she had stayed sober so she could take advantage of a guy like me. The slut.

There it goes again, that noise. It definitely came from within this room. I’m reaching for the night stand now, hoping to find a phone. If the publicity gets too intense I’ll fake my own death, but I want out of here now. She dragged me in here without turning on the lights until we tripped over the bed. I don’t know what the room interior looks like. It will be daylight in a couple hours, and that will help because it’s hard to take initiative in the darkness. Even if I couldn’t reach a phone it’d help morale if I could see one. After all, a mother has to see her child trapped under that car before she gets the superhuman strength to lift it.

Wait. One. Damn. Second.

The noise again, but something else. I felt a kick. It wasn’t a heartbeat. The location of the kick was in her stomach.

Again.

Again.

Different places, but neither at her breastbone. I’m feeling them in my abdomen.

Is it just rigor mortis? Could that happen so soon, and would it feel anything like this? I don’t know anything about it; I’m not an old hand at this kind of thing.

Oh, there’s no way . . . No, I don’t buy it for a minute. If she’d been pregnant, the kid would have died with her, wouldn’t it? It wouldn’t be kicking me now like this was my fault. Besides, I’d have noticed her pregnancy was