In the Sack.

[Submitted for Poetry, Prose and Pints. Theme: "Nekkid Dreams."]

I knew two things: one, his name was Kevin. Or maybe Greg. Either way, it was one syllable. Or maybe two syllables. And two, I knew that he wasn’t wearing any pants.

Was I wearing pants? I wasn’t sure. I’d had three – count ‘em – three rum and cokes and my coordination was roughly on par with that of a stroke victim trying to dance the second act of Swan Lake. I looked down at my legs – they were bare – so I guess I wasn’t wearing pants. Oh, that’s right, I had put on a dress before I went out, a little black number from H&M that was long enough to be elegant but was low-cut enough to suggest that the possibility of a boob touch was imminent if you played your cards right. In this case, playing your cards right meant buying me a drink and telling me I had pretty hair, both of which Kevin or Greg – actually, his name might have been Phil – did, along with touching my hand a lot when he talked. While my friends stood at the stage bobbing their heads in unison to our favorite band, Midnight Jellybean Addiction and the Rutabaga Flux Capacitor, Kevin or Phil or Greg stood next to me at the bar, and shouted sweet-nothings in my ear like, “I saw your tits across the room and wanted to say hi,” and “If those aren’t real they must have cost you a fucking fortune.”

He bought me my first drink, then my second. I was feeling pretty loose, loose enough that when he asked how big my areolas were, I slurred that they were “roughly the size of salad plates,” an admission I wouldn’t have shared without a little social lubrication first. By the third drink, I was touching his legs, putting my hands in his pockets and laughing at everything he said, even when his jokes were obviously primarily an excuse to use the word “nutsack.”

Kevin-Phil-Greg asked if I wanted to go home with him. His breath smelled like spearmint and I figured, hey, a girl could do worse. I waved to my friends, who were all too busy listening to the band’s new soon-to-be-hit-single “Bears Attacking Grandmas” to notice that I was headed out the door with someone whose haircut resembled Tony Shalhoub’s.

So I guess that’s where we were, back at his place in his twin bed. He was on top of me, kissing me passionately as an open-mouthed bass, compressing me down into his Duck Tales sheets, which had presumably not been washed since Duck Tails was on television, the first Bush administration, I believe. He took handfuls of my various body parts and squeezed them as you would a stress ball, twisting them around, and with each new grip I cringed, my eyes popping out like a cartoon character’s.

Suddenly there came a moment of very clear, startling sobriety, a tiny voice hidden within who was wading through the river of rum and coke coursing through my veins. Oh, no, it was Sober Me. “Well,” Sober Me, “another night of disappointing sex, I see.”

“Shut up,” I slur. “Just shut up.”

“What’s with this guy’s hair?” Sober Me asks. “Must be enlisted. Navy, I bet.”

“You ruin everything,” I hiss.

“Oh, really?” Sober Me chides. “I ruin everything? Am I the one wearing boxers with dancing bananas on them? Because I think those belong to the guy you’re about to let pork you.”

“Go away!” I demand. “Just go the hell away! It’s too late to stop now!”

“Fine,” says Sober Me. “But make sure he bags it. Not that you’ll be feeling it one way or the other.”

Kevin-Phil-Greg is moaning, unaware of the conversation I’m engaged in, pinching my inner thigh so tightly with his rough fingers it makes my eyes water. I lie back. Sober Me was right. This is going to be disappointing. Not that I’m surprised. The man has a Rush Hour II poster. Twenty-eight-year-old men with Rush Hour II posters, as a general rule, do not make good lovers.

It occurs to me, though I’ve never been the prayin’ type, to turn to what little religion I had left. So while I lay on my back with my legs rotated at a 90-degree angle on either side of me, I have my own little conversation with God.

“Lord, I know I’m not a perfect woman,” I murmur as Kevin-Phil-Greg, drunk from lust and from nine bourbon shots, licks my inner ear, “and maybe we should have had this conversation earlier, but if there’s any way you could help me salvage this night, show me a reason to get my life back on track, I would really appreciate it. Also, thank you for making Jenny Pierce fat and for renewing True Blood for another season. Amen.”

Kevin-Phil-Greg’s strokes suddenly become softer, more supple and embracing. “You look amazing tonight,” he says, but it’s not the same voice that picked me up at Hoss’s Beer Barn. Yet, it sounds familiar. It’s a calm, silky baritone that I’ve heard before. It’s said something, it’s said something to me before. It was..it was.. I gave her my heart, she gave me a pen. It’s..oh, Jesus, it’s the voice of John Cusack.

Oh, my fucking God, I am about to fuck John Cusack.

I squint to make sure it’s really him, that I’m not just imagining Kevin-Phil-Greg as the star of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, but his face is unchanging, even in my drunken haze, and when I touch it, he looks at me with his soft chocolate eyes and whispers, “I’ve waited so long for this.”

“Oh, my God, so have I,” I answer.

He nuzzles my neck, pulls down my panties. “Tell me what I want to hear,” he whispers.

“I thought your performance in Must Love Dogs was highly underrated,” I moan.

“Yes,” he moans. “Yes.”

“And I can’t believe you didn’t get an Oscar for your work in Being John Malcovich,” I pant.

“Tell me more,” he says, thrusting.

“I took up smoking after I saw you in High Fedility!”

“Uh-huh, uh-huh!”

“I’ve never loved you more after I saw Hot Tub Time Machine!”

His eyes close and he delivers the final blow, and suddenly the mountains are moving and the seas are roaring and the stars are falling from the sky, shattering like glass onto the ground and my eyes are open wide, taking in his face: the sweat dripping down the bump on his nose, his soft hair falling on his forehead, the way his thin lips quiver as he releases a small whimper. He smells like sandalwood – wait, no! – like cedar. Or, no, he smells like..he smells like..

He smells like spearmint.

Oh, shit.

Kevin-Phil-Greg’s Tony Shalhoub haircut is hanging over me, and the sweat is pouring from his doughy white chest onto my neck. He rolls off of me, squishes my arm against the wall of the twin bed. “You came alive under me,” he says. “You were really something.”

I look to see if I can find John anywhere in his face, a hint of his sandalwood cologne, but I’m only met with the face of the doughy enlisted sailor, whose flaccid dick is hanging like a nightcrawler from his middle.

I say nothing. John is gone. My John is gone. I turn towards my fleshy partner, who gathers me up in his arms. He hugs me close to his panting chest. Over his shoulder, I see a familiar face.

It’s John. My John. He’s staring at me from a Grosse Point Blank poster over Kevin-Phil-Greg’s dresser.

“Cigarette?” Kevin-Phil-Greg asks, and I snap out of my trance.

“Sure,” I say, sliding one out of the pack. He hands me a lighter.

“How was it?” he asks. His face is earnest, his voice is soft.

“It was quite alright,” I say. My cigarette starts to glow a burning orange.

“Did you..?” he asks.

“I did more than that,” I reply.

“You came twice?” he asks.

“Honey,” I tell him, taking a long inhale from the Camel Lite. “I saw the face of God.”