I guess we moved fast. That’s how it happens though, right? Apparently, there are couples out there who started off as friends and then grew together, realized it was something more, something permanent, long-lasting, but I’ve never met them. Still, it must be pretty common. We’re not pandas after all, are we? Stick us together in a cage long enough and we’ll either fuck each other or kill each other. Or worse.
That’s not how it happened with us. We fell in love . . . I want to say “at first sight” but in the last 108 days we’ve discovered photos of us together before we met. Drunken photo booth group shots at my ex-wife’s company Christmas party, with me grasping two beers in one hand and with the other hand pointing a finger at some guy with a harelip holding up a fake mini-mustache on a stick. She wore oversized sparkle-framed sunglasses, laughing at her ex-fiancé off camera.
Her ex-fiancé was the type of guy her coworkers reminded her — as a single mother — she was lucky to have. He’s not the type of guy you would forget about after a while. He’s the type of guy you would forget about right away. After just speaking to him. I did. His beady, browless eyes and cawing breathless laugh . . . a sort of human blank, an unhatched fetus with a ginger neck beard dressed in a tweed vest like a 19th century bicycle repairman. The only reason I remember his stupid, formless face right now is because I’ve stolen her phone, locked myself in the bathroom, and I’m scrutinizing her photos, messages, and missed calls. Missed calls tell you everything. Why does she keep photos of her ex?
My ex-wife is a beautiful, smart, and independent woman. We were never in love. Using one another as placeholders in our respective lives, we resented each other for not being more, but I can’t really remember what place she was holding or what more I wanted from her. She wasn’t Gwen.
Gwen, a single mother with a series of ephemeral fiancés, perfect collarbones, and a body that dresses are flattered to drape over and hem against. Gwen wasn’t in oversized sparkle-framed sunglasses when we fell in love. No, no, that was later. The love part. Let’s see if she has any photos in her phone from around that time.
I remember she was in a black sundress printed with white and yellow flowers and a deep-cut collar framing her clavicles with slightly puffed shoulders and short frilly sleeves. She drank French wheat ale and pulled on a Wrangler denim jacket when she got cold. She sat in what felt like the center of the bar, engulfed by men clamoring for attention. Her glances skipped across the room and she began refilling their mugs from her pitcher, giving each man his share before moving on to the next. The man next to her had gray, thinning hair and was overdressed in a fur-lined coat. He looked like a sailor or someone from LA visiting Chicago. He complained that he was served less than everyone else and she began topping him up from her own mug when he burped beer up on himself. Without breaking her sympathetic gaze with him, she snapped three napkins in succession from the dispenser and wiped the beer from his beard and neck before dabbing the corners of his mouth. Gwen folded the three napkins three ways before stuffing them in the outside sleeve of her purse. Her eyes rose into mine.
She got up No I walked over No we just stared at each other and locked eyes Yes and I gestured towards the door and Yes we left together and her hands were warm and we ran No skipped No flew down the street and around the corner to the taxi line and Yes there was a lone cab in the rain waiting for us Yes we kissed No we tongued Yes like a mother bird feeding me Yes my body squeaking against the wet vinyl seats Yes a nest made of arms and legs
“That’s thirteen please,” the driver, blindly but progressively, handed her the POS between the front seats while staring at his speedometer. Or maybe I should have paid?
My ex-wife’s apartment looked like any apartment you might find in Toronto or Edinburgh, a late-’70s brick facade with an old front door and up-to-date windows. We had split up on fairly bad terms verbally, but she agreed to give me a week or two to find a new place and seeing as she had only left for Lisbon about five days before, I must have figured Gwen and I would have the place to ourselves, but I don’t remember giving the taxi driver my address.
“I want more children,” Gwen said to the wall while removing her shoes in the entrance way, placing each kitten-heeled pump on the rack next to my ex-wife’s cross trainers.
“I’ll give you five children,” I responded, surprisingly.
I wasn’t lying either. No one had ever suggested breeding with me so casually before. There were always considerations, concerns, careers . . . first this, then this . . . and the final decision had always been: not now. Which was probably good, right? I was always relieved when the conclusion to terminate the pregnancy was reached. I never pushed for it, though. I’d watched enough TV shows to know the only acceptable response to an unplanned pregnancy is to say “What do you want to do? I’ll support whatever you decide,” while reaching an arm around her to pull her close and kiss the top of her head before pulling her even closer with the other arm, now tightly embraced, preferably on a bench or in the sand, both staring off into the twin possibilities of our futures and the infinite spectral shards of the horizon dissolving the setting sun.
“Six kids is a lot,” she said through her dress as I pulled it over her head and off, revealing her giant smile. Then I turned the dress right-side-out before laying it on the chair next to the bed.
“I’ve always wanted a big family for my son,” she scanned the room.
“You have a son? That’s nice. How old is he?” Another line I’ve learned off of television.
“He’s thirteen, but he’s incredibly grown up for his age. Always has been. I knew he was trouble right away . . . he used to go on little dates with our neighbors’ girl. I’d set out a little blanket and a bowl of popcorn for them to sit together in the hallway.” She scooted back on the bed and rested her foot on my shoulder, halting my descent.
“It’s . . . a bit bright in here, clinical. Could you turn off the overhead light and I’ll switch on one of the reading lamps?”
I stood back up from the end of the bed pushing myself up with my arms, hands sunk into the memory foam. I was a bit drunk, but the invitation to start a family was steadying me. I was desirable. Not only me, but my code! She looked at me and had to make more of me. I felt MANLY . . . no, more than that . . . more than some archetypal gender expression . . . I felt ALIVE, biological . . . I felt the call of Mother Nature, her warm bosom beckoning me.
“Are you alright?” She had picked up a book from my ex-wife’s nightstand and was examining it. I must have been glitching out. I do that sometimes. Not only when I am waking up in the morning but anytime really. I retreat into the internal monologue of my mind and get enraptured in my own imagination. “My Brilliant Friend! I love it so much!” she flipped through the pages, pretending to speed read.
“Yeah?” I asked. I had no idea what she was talking about.
“Elena, Elena Ferrante . . . I’m on the fourth book of the Napoli series. It’s incredible. I need to visit Naples. Have you been to Naples?” She finally made eye contact with me.
“Italy?”
“Yes . . . ” She turned the book around and I noticed the front cover.
It was a book my ex-wife was reading or had read. It was about two friends, both women, who grew up in Italy and one was really smart and the other was even smarter than that. It was a hard time for them as women but they made it even harder for each other sometimes because of their competitiveness. “It was a series of novels only a woman could write,” my ex-wife had told me in that same bed. “A bestseller and loved by women all over the world. It’s Hillary Clinton’s ghostwriter’s favourite author.” I was glitching out again.
“The Margherita pizza was invented in Naples,” I said, truthfully.
“Have you read this? My Brilliant Friend? It’s the first book in the Neapolitan series. I also loved her novel, Days of Abandonment. I’m excited to read The Lying Life of Adults.”
“Yes,” I lied. “I think the whole point of fiction is gaining access to other people’s lives, other perspectives. I love the dynamic between the two friends. The smarter one is really impressive, but they’re both smart and impressive.”
“I’ve always felt like Lenu, but my friends probably see me a bit like Lila. Guys don’t get it. The competitiveness of women and the ways we bond.”
“Yeah, definitely.”
“I read the story of Don Achille to my son. He loves it. He’s even watched the first season of the TV show with me.”
“Wasn’t that made into a movie with Brad Pitt?”
“No. Just the HBO series My Brilliant Friend. It’s shot in Italy and everyone speaks Italian. . . . ” She looks at me, still impressed enough. “Turn off the light.”
Her feet and legs had gotten cold since she first stopped me from going down on her and asked me to get up and turn off the overhead light. I placed my hand on top of her feet to warm them up. I read an article that women find it difficult to orgasm if their feet are cold. With her knees bent and feet flat on the bed, I tried to kiss the inside of her left thigh as I pressed down towards the only tuft of hair on her body. She had gotten ready to go out tonight. I turned my head away from her thigh towards her vulva, wafted with a mix of sweat and self-tanning oil, before coming to a stop, squished between the middle of her thighs. Letting go of her feet, I placed the back of my hands on either side of my face and wedged them in, hoping to spread her legs apart enough for my head to sink down and my tongue to reach her. She squeezed harder, moaning. Was this a game? I pushed down a little more with my head and the friction of her thigh stretched the skin around my eyes into a squint until my right contact lens popped out.
“Be gentle. Do it lightly,” she said, feeling my frustration and loosening the vise of her thighs. The tip of my tongue felt the hood of her clitoris and I traced my middle finger along the groove of her labia until dipping it inside her. “Just your tongue,” she whispered to the ceiling and I slowly curled my finger back and out, noticing a translucent pearl resting on the distal fold of my fingernail. It was my contact lens. I used my tongue to unfurl the lens onto the pad of my moist middle finger and reached the finger towards my eye, pushing down with my head, still clamped on both sides by her thighs and my arm squished beneath my jaw. Without blinking, the distance shrank between my finger and my eye until I could feel the edge of the lens glooping on. “You lie down now,” she said and by releasing her thigh’s grip on my head, my finger plunged into my eye.
“OWW . . . shit . . . fuck.” I quickly lowered my voice to hide my pain.
“Are you alright?”
“Yep, I’m fine,” I lied. I stood up beside the bed, took my shirt off, and unbuttoned my jeans, pulling them down around my ankles. My shoes were still on. I slipped off each one and pushed them under the bed before turning around to sit down and take my jeans and socks off. Gwen had retreated into the fetal position against the headboard.
“I’m just cold. Come here,” she told me as I laid down next to her and peeled off my underwear, kicking them off the bed. “What’s wrong with your eye?”
“It’s my contacts. I’ll be fine.” I leaned over and kissed her. She swung her hips on top of me, grasping the headboard, and coaxed me inside her. She tucked her cold feet under my thighs and draped her hair down onto my chest before arching her back and pressed hard and slow against me.
“Don’t move. I do this.” She pulled her feet from under my thighs and planted them flat on the bed, squatting up and down, balanced with her left hand on the headboard, and masturbating with her right. KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK. “Shhhh,” she placed her right hand to her mouth, slobbered on her fingertips, and kept masturbating. KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK. “What are you doing in there?” Gwen said from behind the door. KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK.
“Are you alright?” Gwen says on the other side of the bathroom door. There are too many things open on her phone and I swipe furiously to close everything. She keeps knocking. The door handle turns slowly before stopping. It’s locked. I jam the phone in my mouth, attempting to swallow it whole, but it begins to vibrate and I can hear the Stargaze ringtone echoing in my skull. The handle’s lock disengages. I clamber at the door, pinning my foot against it to block her entry. The door opens a few inches but I manage to stop it from swinging further ajar. She squeezes her head between the door and the jamb, pulling her hair back, her eyes squinted. “What are you doing in here?” She sounds too joyful. I pull my shirt over my head and spit out her phone under my shirt, pop back up out the top, and slap my stomach to stop the phone from hitting the floor. “Is my phone in here?”
“Yeah! I have it! Sorry!” I slip it from under my shirt and pretend to snatch it from my front pocket. “I must have picked it up by accident.” I say this so innocently I almost believe it myself.
“Why is it wet?” She tilts her head.
“Why you all wet, baby?” I say this doing my best DiCaprio impression, twitching and blinking, but she just stares at me blankly. Once again, completely forgetting the movie we watched together the night before. She probably fell asleep. “Oh . . . and you have my phone, I see . . . ” My eyes widen and blink flirtatiously.
“Mitchell . . . we talked about this. I’m pregnant and insecure and I can’t trust you. How does it look with you hearting selfies? With a pregnant girlfriend at home? I feel like I need to go through your activity and unlike everything you do . . . it’s embarrassing,” her voice lilting and sympathetic.
“But you post selfies, sweetheart. Lots of guys like them, heart bomb your Instagram stories, and you’ve been posting pictures from last summer for the last three months. I doubt any of these dudes even know you’re pregnant.” I squint and flex my jaw muscles, establishing indignation. I know I won’t win this, but it’s important to stand up for yourself from time to time. Once a week I choose a classic film, usually a Kubrick or Tarkovsky or Fellini or Cassavetes, and post links to reviews on my Facebook timeline, tagging Gwen: “Ready for tonight, Gwen?” or “Date night with the wifey!” My friends comment “Buckle up!” or “Look at you two!” or “Fellini’s 8 ½ is a masterpiece. A true auteur! Have you seen All That Jazz? Bob Fosse!” After turning 30 most of my guy friends had become cinephiles too. It’s that or Joe Rogan and I’m too tall to pull off being a UFC fan.
“I feel like you’re losing interest in me,” Gwen exhales and drops her jaw. “You used to take photos of me all the time and you haven’t taken any in weeks. Then you go around liking every photo your ex’s friends post. Are you sending them a message? You’re a social media slut.”
“YOU TOLD me not to!” I catch myself raising my voice. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I’m clueless. I just scroll and like and never think about it, but I can see how this could hurt you. I’m sorry. . . . Hey! We never finished watching the last season of The Americans. We love that couple, right? Why don’t you lie down on the couch and I’ll get the coconut oil and give you a foot massage?”
“She’s so skinny. She’s perfect.” Gwen says while letting me lead her to the couch. “Did you eat onions? I smell onions. You have to stay on the floor, remember?”
“We both eat the same thing . . . everyday. . . . I don’t sneak into the kitchen to eat onions. We haven’t bought onions in months. . . . ”
“Just love me! Why can’t you be supportive? Just once?” Gwen shifts and groans settling into her couch groove and I toss the oversized throw cushion on the floor. “I need that between my knees for my pelvis.” She blows out hard and clamps the pillow with her thighs. “One episode, then I have to go to the ultrasound.”
I can’t go with her to the ultrasound. Her choice. We find out the sex today. I hope it’s a girl. I don’t understand boys. Her 13-year-old son quit talking to me a few weeks ago, but occasionally breaks his silence to accuse me of leaving the toilet seat up.
“Mama! Mitch left the toilet seat up again,” he barked in the middle of the night a couple days ago. “None of the other stepdads did this.”
“Are you awake?” Gwen thumped her arm on me. “You know we don’t leave the seat up.”
I was awake, of course, the 13-year-old had stumbled to the bathroom at 3 a.m. with his phone blasting a TikTok discussing whether a uterus would bounce if dropped on the floor.
“I didn’t leave the seat up. I don’t even pee standing up,” I said sleepily, attempting to stop the inquiry, eyes remaining shut. I had stopped standing up when I pee to avoid such accusations.
“GROSS!!! He pissed all over the place!” the 13-year-old shuffled into our room, switching on the overhead light. Gwen leaves the door open so he doesn’t feel abandoned in the night. He has a condition, enuresis. He wets the bed. If he starts moving around she rushes over to his room and tries to wake him, but it’s usually too late. He wears night pants to bed which are never to be called diapers.
“Are you awake? Did you piss all over the place? Can you go clean it up?” Gwen shook and slapped my shoulder.
“Does he even use a toilet?” I sneered, peeling myself off the mattress.
“STOP!” He turned and boomed flatfooted out of our room and down the hall with his phone TikToking instructions on how to color your eyebrows using lemon juice. Gwen shot after him and I lumbered to the bathroom. The toilet was spotless, but the lid was up — not the seat. There were little puddles of dirty water in front of the sink forming a trail to the bathtub. The shower curtain flapped, bulging out towards me. The small window where we keep the shampoo and unscented body wash was open and when I drew the shower curtain aside my face was plastered with leaves. The bathtub was full of sticks and feathers and covered in acrid slime. I reached down and my arm sank in deep, swallowing me. It was warm and quiet as I floated further and further down into the gooey branches, lulled asleep by the rhythm of the wind.
“Are you alright?” Gwen sat up, smiling at me. Both of my hands glisten with coconut oil, palms up on either side of her feet, which rest on my lap. The 13-year-old shuffles from his bedroom cloaked in his duvet and stops at the entrance to the living room.
“Good morning!” I say with biting stepdad delivery.
“Stop. Mama?” He beams her to him and whispers in her ear. His eyes lock on me. Gwen kisses his head and shrinks down to the floor, crawling towards me. She swings her hip around and places her right foot on my left thigh. The 13-year-old flashes his duvet open. He’s only in night pants and sits next to Gwen, offering me his left foot. I shudder, but Gwen nods encouragingly and I begin massaging their feet. His foot is the same size as hers, but he hasn’t clipped his toenails, and there are clumps of navy-blue sock lint between his toes. I tease the lint from between his toes onto the top of his foot and brush it away. They have the same knees, I notice, and both of them flex and tense as I dig my thumb into the middle of the arch that connects to their kidneys — according to a TikTok I overheard — causing them to hold their breath.
“Ok, I need to go,” Gwen says, claiming her foot back from me. I stop massaging the 13-year-old too. He grunts, lifting his foot up, and slams it down into my thigh.
“Ow . . . shit . . . fuck,” lowering my voice quickly to avoid offence.
“Now Mitch . . . I don’t want you to disappear into our room or hide in the bathroom, okay? I’m going to lock the doors. We’ve talked about this.” She stands up and walks to our bedroom, locking the door, and then steps into the bathroom and comes out with a towel bunched in her hand. “You need to stay in here with him until I get home.”
“What are you talking about? Are we in Palestine?”
“Why do you always bring up places your ex-wife traveled to? It makes me uncomfortable. It’s like you don’t want to be here.” Gwen bows her head, resting her hands on the baby bump.
“She was in East Palestine. Near Lisbon.”
“Portugal?”
“No . . . Ohio . . . ” I try not to shake my head. “What if I have to go to the bathroom? You want me to piss in the kitchen sink?” Gwen looks at the 13-year-old and then back at me and tosses the towel onto my lap, revealing a pair of night pants underneath.
“I want you to wear these,” she extends her arm towards me.
“I’M NOT WEARING A FUCKING DIAPER!”
I’ve gone too far. The 13-year-old jumps to his feet, pulling his blanket up and flipping it behind him. The blanket stretches and bunches as he flaps his arms and stomps his feet. “STOP! STOP! STOP! STAAAWWWWWPP!!! STAAAAWWWPPP!” Gwen draws him to her bosom, shushing him. He twitches around, dragging his chin across her chest before diving under the blanket to hide.
“We don’t say things like that in this family,” Gwen growls at me, rocking the 13-year-old cradled in her arms. “Shush, baby . . . shhhh.”
I stand up and pull my shirt off. I unbutton my jeans and let them drop to my ankles, but my shoes are still on so I slip them off and kick them under the couch. I almost sit down on the couch but remember that makes the cushions uncomfortable for Gwen so I drop to the floor on my ass and pull off my pants and socks before standing up again. I raise my arms above my head and Gwen nods at me, eyeing my underwear. I peel down the boxer-briefs and pick them off my ankles with my feet and reach out to grab the night pants. I slide one leg in and hop on one foot to slip the other leg through. I stomp and pull and twist the night pants over my hips, adjusting the paper wings out from my crotch.
“There! See! See!” I circle Gwen and the 13-year-old, presenting myself. “I’m in. I’m in. I’m in.” The 13-year-old peeks out of the duvet to look at me. Eventually, he slips completely out, Gwen holding the duvet, and hugs me. I feel his naked chest on my pale belly and our night pants rustle against each other. Gwen sets the duvet out in the middle of the living room and the 13-year-old and I collapse playfully on top of it.
“You can watch videos on his phone while I am gone, okay? I still can’t trust you. You might embarrass me.” Gwen tip-toes to the door and slips on the 13-year-old’s Adidas Superstars without socks on. “I’ll be right back, boys.”
The 13-year-old and I roll on to our stomachs and kick our feet playfully in the air. We watch a TikTok where Jordan Peterson tells us that going to school makes boys girly. We watch a TikTok where a famous actress plays chess with her goldfish. We watch a TikTok that explains why cashew farming is a war crime. We watch a TikTok where a young woman jumps rope while listening to Queen’s “Fat Bottomed Girls” and I try to reach over and like the video but the 13-year-old slaps my hand and shakes his head disapprovingly. After a series of TikToks explaining why cardio is for cucks and creatine cures undiagnosed dyslexia, I roll on my back and stare up at the ceiling. The sun cuts through the window warming my shins and as time goes by the beam of light slides onto my night pants, tickling the skin around my waist as it moves closer and closer to my belly button. My head flops lazily to the side and I make eye contact with the 13-year-old. He begins to squint and I squint back, mirroring him. My crotch glows warm and I exhale with a sense of relief.
He mouths the words “I love you.”
“Are you guys alright?” Gwen says as she opens the front door. “Aww . . . look at you two.” She shrinks down to the floor and crawls towards us. “Oh my! It looks like you two had a little accident, didn’t you?” Gwen pulls the night pants off the 13-year-old, tossing them aside, and blows a raspberry on his belly as he giggles playfully, kicking his legs in the air. “And I haven’t forgotten about you!” Gwen pulls the night pants off me and places them behind her. “I have a surprise,” Gwen says through her shirt as she pulls it over her head, revealing a big smile. “Do you want to meet Daddy?” She reaches behind her back, unclipping her bra. Her breasts fall and bounce, green milk drips out from her swollen nipples. The 13-year-old and I sit up from our backs and clamber up her legs, grasping at each tit. He seals his lips around her left nipple and sucks, coughing with green milk dribbling out the corner of his mouth. I latch onto her right tit. It’s warm and sweet with a slight note of onion. I guzzle too fast and choke, burping up the green milk. “You’re alright. You’re alright.” She picks up the corner of the duvet and wipes my chin and neck before dabbing the corners of my mouth. The 13-year-old and I keep drinking and coughing. “Daddy will be home soon. He’s coming. He’s coming,” she coos. I look into the 13-year-old’s eyes and he smiles back at me. I lift my moist green lips from her chest.
I mouth to him, “I love you too.”
At night now, when I’m put to bed, Mama walks with the baby around the apartment, rocking him gently. They fell in love at first sight. They moved fast. That’s how it happens though, right? Sometimes Mama holds my phone over me as I fall asleep. As unknowable and vacant as photographs taken before you’re born. I can see all the notifications for missed calls: friends, coworkers, my gym — but they don’t mean anything to me. Not now . . .
“Shhh . . . ”
York Underwood is a writer and comedian living in Reykjavik, Iceland. He enjoys the tap water there and plays padel on Wednesdays with the guys from the office where he rents his desk. Padel is like European pickleball. He recently tried to buy a Barney Greengrass t-shirt from their website but they have a delivery zone radius based on zip code and he lives in the sub-Arctic . . . so fuck him, right?
Credit to Markús Hjaltason for producing the audio for this piece.
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Incredible. One of the most exact, Updike-esque sex scenes I've read in a long time, and I appreciated the tasteful lyricism, sly humor, and controlled stream of consciousness.
This story pulled me in. It has a real voice.