S-L-U-T-T-Y

by A.E. Storm in The Climacteric | 0 comments

By 4 p.m. I was feeling as frazzled as Jasmine, Charlie’s seven-year-old niece. We were at her birthday party. Even before they cut the cake, Jasmine’s mother, Charlie’s sister, chastised her for dirtying her green princess dress, made her apologize to one girl for pushing her down (what she didn’t see was the girl had first pulled Jasmine’s hair), didn’t believe her when she said the other girl had pulled her hair, then made her walk the girl home.

During all that I was being bullied by Charlie’s mother, Lovey, who ironically is anything but that. Lovey (her father’s pet name for her and of which she made her legal first name after he had died several years ago) and her husband had adopted Charlie and his sister Megan when they found out Mr. Lovey’s fish were lazy swimmers. Then after five years of marriage, Lovey divorced Mr. Lovey when she finally realized his whole being was just lazy.

“Men shouldn’t be lazy,” she said to me, hopefully ending her tirade about her ex.

“Sure. I agree.” I finished off a beer and went to pull another from the cooler.

“Charlie tells me you’re not working.” Her voice accusatory.

“Temporarily,” I answered.
“Ah.”

Lovey sat back down across from me with yet another Mojito in hand, and where a serious game of Scrabble was being played on a rectangular, glass-top patio table. She was winning, of course, Charlie warned me of her competitive side. Not that she need worry, my expansive vocabulary reaches my teeth. H-U-S-S-Y, Lovey spelled on her turn — triple-word score. My turn: T-A-R, three lousy points. I glance at the girls who are combing their dolls’ hair under a shady oak tree — I want to go plays with the dolls.

“So Charlie tells me you’re forty-two years old,” Lovey said, driving a nail in my coffin.

“Umm, actually forty-one,” I corrected.

Charlie placed five tiles on the board. S-O-R-R-Y.

“Ah.” She said it as if the difference didn’t matter. It matters to gay men.

“Don’t you think he’s too young for you,” she asked rhetorically and snippy.

“I don’t think so, and that’s what really matters,” Charlie jumped in. What a stud.

Charlie’s paternal grandmother, a seventy-five year-old retired florist, played S-N-O-T. She covertly winked at me.

“And you’re renting an apartment,” Lovey continued to belittle me. She spelled out on her turn. D-E-P-R-A-V-E.

“I’m leasing a loft with the option to buy in three years.” I said.

“Ah.” For a word-junkie, she’s not very well-spoken.

On my last turn I spelled N-O-O-S-E. Fitting.

However, Lovey, the lovely lady, out-Scrabbled us. “Another game,” she said, patronizing me, I could tell behind her fake smile.

Charlie, sensing my growing unease, politely declined. Phew!

“Oh, fine,” Lovey said, hurriedly boxing the game. “So, Tommy, how many boyfriends have you had?” Shit!

“Mom, please!” Charlie protected me by putting his arm around me. “She’s just messing with you,” he directed to me.

“Actually, honey, I am veridically interested.” She smiles at me.  Ah! There’s the word-junkie.

“Maybe you should cut back on the Mojitos,” Charlie said with a hint of anger. My knight in shining armor!

“It’s okay Charlie, really.” I said. I may not know a lot of fandansical words, but I can hold my own.

“Well, Lovey!” The gates banged open. “There was Geoff, not my first, but the one I believed I was going to marry. It didn’t work out, though. But, we’re still very good friends. Now, my first, the one who popped my gay-cherry … see, I lost my actual virginity to a girl, who I think is raising our bastard child … anyway, my first was Daniel, but that only lasted a couple of months … freshly out-of-the-closet homos are kind of slutty.” I paused to finish my fourth, or fifth, beer, noticing Charlie’s grandmother smirking.

“Let’s see, the most recent was Billy, he slept with another friend of mine, Jesse, while I was out of town … I found them in my bed. Before Billy it was Montgomery, a proclaimed bisexual … I called him Mr. Fag Stag, Montgomery is just too gay of a name. And, oh yeah, there was Vance who has an unusual obsession with his cock …”

“I’ve heard enough!” Lovey cut me off. How rude.

“Charlie, may I have a word with you in the house.”

“Sure.” He looked at me as he stood from the table. It was piercingly apparent he was not amused.

When Charlie slid closed the patio door to the kitchen, his grandmother, who was smirking a few seconds before, burst into laughter so hard that I could have sworn her teeth shifted position.

Nearly ten minutes later, Charlie and I were back in his Acura; he was speeding and obviously furious, which became more obvious when he said, “You know Tommy for someone your age that was pretty immature with my mother.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I could have handled it better.”

“Yeah, well, I think it’ll be quite a while before we go visit her again,” he stated. Bummer!

A few silent minutes passed before he spoke again, “By the way, that Vance guy you were talking about with the penis obsession …” He looked over at me.

“Umm, yeah.”

“I dated him too, about a year ago.”

Great! Even decades-long out-of-the-closet homos are kind of slutty.