I just woke up. I’m naked. I’m here in my new apartment, which has absolutely no furniture. The only noticeable thing here is my microwave. And inside of it is a baby.
Standing in front of me is my friend Maxwell, a Jewish guy from Long Island with an enormous afro. He’s sweating. And about five feet away is my doctor. She’s sweating too.
As usual, I have no idea what to do. So now seems like a good time to stop and think about how all this started.
I guess it all began when I moved into this apartment. It must be cursed, because it’s been downhill since that day. I moved in with my girlfriend, and we were pretty excited. Even though we had no furniture, and almost all of our belongings were either in storage or at the home of Raina’s parents. Raina’s my girlfriend. My parents hate her, and they’ve sort of disowned me since we moved in. My dad was crying. How could you move in with her, you’re so young, you’re ruining your life. It was kind of funny.
Anyway. I’d just lost my job, and didn’t really have anything to my name. I just brought my laptop with me, since I wanted to go online to search for a new job and to check my e-mail. Raina didn’t really have anything either. And to tell you the truth, it was a pretty shitty apartment. I mean, the lock to the complex door didn’t work, and neither did the lock to our apartment door. So pretty much anyone could enter. Athough since we didn’t have much of value besides a microwave, a laptop, and our clothes, I guess it wasn’t that much of an issue. At least that’s what I told myself.
Anyway, the point is that Raina and me had each other. And cheesy as it may sound, it felt like that’s all we needed.
Raina dropped her bag full of clothes as soon as we walked in. She was beaming; we finally had our own place, our independence. As shitty as the place was, it was kind of a dream come true for us: we were starting something new here, and it was exciting.
Right after we first entered the apartment, she looked at me with that look. So I new what she was going to say before she said it. “Let’s christen this place.”
I, of course, was down with that idea. So we began our love-making session. It was a particularly intense one, since we had the emotion of having this new place factored in. Everything was going fine; clothes were flying, screams were being yelled, scratch marks were being made. God I love sex.
And then it happened.
I couldn’t get it up.
I’m fucking twenty-three years old, and I couldn’t get an erection. Perfect.
To tell you the truth, I wasn’t exactly surprised. I mean yeah, it definitely was the first time I couldn’t get a hard on while I was with Raina. But we hadn’t had sex in a while – about a month, I’d say. There was a lot of stress in my life, as I had barely any money and no job. But I really thought things would change with this new apartment. I thought things would go back to normal.
So at first I tried to cover it up. I mean, I know Raina, and her reaction to this sort of thing would be pretty emotional. She’d get angry, sad, depressed, frustrated. All that shit. So, being the peacekeeper I am, I tried as hard as I could to cover this up. But really, there’s no way you can. I extended foreplay as long as I could. I gave her my fingers and tongue. But I’m not a good liar in any shape or form, so she knew something was up. So she looked down. And saw nothing but limpness.
And with that, the passion was gone. We quietly came to an unclimactic stop. We just got up and put our clothes on.
And as I predicted, she was upset over it. Our communication kind of came to a screeching halt. We tried to have sex a few more times during the next few weeks, but nothing happened. I tried so hard. I even tried to make up for it; you know, I’d go down more often, I’d do all the things that I knew she really loved, even though I hated them. But in the end, I just couldn’t get it up. And I knew this was pissing her off.
“We have to talk.” She came over to me with two bowls of soup she had just made in my microwave. Soup in a microwave. That was her idea of cooking.
This wasn’t going to be pretty.
“Shoot.” I lit a cigarette to prepare for this conversation.
“I think you know what we have to talk about.” She blew on her soup and took a sip.
“Yeah.”
Silence.
She took a few more sips of her soup, and I continued smoking. She was downing her soup quickly, and slurping loudly.
“Well, do you have something to say?” What did she want me to say?
I quickly finished my cigarette before speaking to her. She continued slurping her soup. God I hate slurping. “Well, I mean, I don’t know what to say.”
Uh oh. I have to learn to stop being honest and just tell her what she wants to hear. She was getting frustrated. “Well are you even upset? Does it bother you at all? You’re acting like it’s no big deal, like I should just forget about it.”
“Fuck yeah it bothers me. I’m just hoping it’ll pass.”
She looked at me like I was dumber than that retard that used to have his own TV show. “And if it doesn’t?”
I wasn’t really looking at her during this conversation. I always do that when anything gets slightly confrontational. “It will.”
She took the last slurp of her soup, making it an extra loud one. She began walking to the sink to put her bowl away. “You’re hopeless, Shree, you know that? You really are.” She started washing her bowl, and made a lot of noise in the process. She didn’t really know how to wash dishes. I always had to wash them again when she was done.
After spending the next five minutes unsuccessfully washing just her bowl and spoon, she spoke: “Do you ever want kids?”
Not if they’re going to have any of your genes. “I guess so.”
“Well then don’t you think you’re going to have a little problem here?” She started walking quickly towards me and finally sat down besides me. She put her hand on my knee. “You see I really want kids. And I want them soon. I mean…I think we’re both committed to each other, and I think we’re ready for the next step.”
This coming from a woman who can’t wash dishes.
I really wanted to end this conversation, so I said the magic words, the words that get me out of every fight. “Well, what do you want me to do?”
Once again, she looked at me like I was a retard. For a woman whose ass is the size of Montana, she sure doesn’t mind giving condescending looks.
“How ‘bout you go to a doctor?”
Acquiesce, Shree. Acquiesce. That was my mantra.
“Okay.”
She wasn’t too pleased with my answer. “Whatever, Shree, whatever. I’m going to the store. The microwave’s dirty so I’m gonna buy some cleaning spray.” I couldn’t wait to see this. My Einstein-esque girl was going to start doing chores. And it was my microwave too. Even though she always acted like it was hers.
But apparently she was into getting out of the apartment, because she put on her shoes and left.
So now I’m in a real fucking bind. I mean, I love Raina. I really do. Yeah, she’s fat and stupid, and she’s not too good about shaving regularly. But I still love her. It’s just that with no money and no job, I’m not sure coughing up bills for Viagara or some shit like that just so we can pop out a few babies neither one of us is ready for is the best idea.
I guess I needed advice. So I pulled out my cell phone and called Maxwell.
Linear Mode
