SHIT, I muttered, and adjusted my ballsack. I’m pretty sure this woman will be the death of me, I thought.
She wouldn’t stop talking about her best friend, Karen, from Long Island with a PhD in biology. I vaguely remember her mentioning painting her nails this morning. Bright red. She flashed them in my face. I nodded.
The couple in the seats next to us had been making out for nearly 53 minutes.
I really have to…
She never listens to me, my mother. She says that I talk too much.
I can relate. At this point, I had forgotten her name. I was focused on the pain in my dick from holding it. Beth. Anna. Mary. Gladys. Gladys?
Truffles are her favorite. She said I should buy her some for Valentine’s Day. Yeah right.
Gladys?
Who’s Gladys?
Gladys Knight. I think that was one of her songs.
I love singing. I used to take voice lessons in 5th grade at a little church by my house. My instructor’s name was David. He was gay. I wonder what he’s up to now.
I couldn’t think of anything except the urinal in the movie theatre’s men’s bathroom. The little red urinal freshener thing they stuck in there. The hand soap that smelled like vanilla. The high velocity hand dryer that blows your cheeks back if you stick your head under there. The popcorn litter.
She had been talking about the year she loved the Spice Girls when the man next to us gave his lips a break.
Dude, your girl is whack. Tell her to shut it, he whispered in my ear before he went back to eating his girlfriend’s face.
They can’t keep their hands off of each other; can they? she said, Why don’t you kiss me like that?
She grabbed the back of my neck and forced me forward, her bright red nails became tangled with my hair. When she slipped her tongue in my mouth, I remembered that I had to take a piss.
I felt a tap on the back – my next-door seat neighbor’s approval. She pulled my hair. I wet the seat.
Next Valentine’s Day, I bought her truffles.
–Rebecca Ferlotti