“Oh, no, that’s not the problem. The ambiguously gay, love hater on the couch only brought the goods. That over there, is the problem,” she informs me.
I look in the direction of the big window on the side of the room where Aunt Bobbie is pointing, but I don’t see anything that would cause any kind of problem aside from the horrible curtains my mother still has from before I was born. I start to ask her to just spit it out and stop being so vague, when I hear a low moan coming from behind the curtains that hang from the rod above the window, all the way down to the floor.
Scheva and Jamie laugh and Aunt Bobbie shoots them an annoyed look.
“I tried to stop her, but she just wouldn’t listen. You know how your mother gets,” Aunt Bobbie tells me as I quickly move across the room.
I squat down in front of the curtains that have now started to rustle and the moaning gets louder. Grabbing onto a corner of the fabric, I yank it aside and find my mother sitting against the wall with her legs pulled up to her chest.
“I’M DYING! CALL AN AMBULANCE!” my mother shouts as soon as she sees me.
“You’re not dying, Beverly, for God’s sake,” Aunt Bobbie sighs from behind me.
My mother leans forward and grabs onto the front of my shirt with her fists, yanking my face right up to hers until our noses are touching.
“Tell Sam I love him and I did this for him,” she whispers, her body swaying away from me in a circular pattern until I have to grab onto her arms to hold her steady.
“What are you talking about? What did you do for Sam? Will someone please tell me what is wrong with my mother?” I ask, looking over my shoulder at the women behind me.
Aunt Bobbie looks away guiltily, while Scheva and Jamie have turned themselves around on the couch and are now resting their arms on the back of it, staring at my mother while continuing to snort and giggle.
“She had a few too many Rice Krispy treats,” Jamie informs me as Scheva reaches over and starts petting her hair. “It’s fine. She’ll be good soon, no worries.”
I take a minute to look around the room and notice a few things I missed when I first got in here. Mainly, the seven cereal boxes and five empty potato chip bags on the coffee table, three empty and tipped-over boxes of Pop Tarts on the love seat, assorted, half-eaten bags of Twizzlers, Gummy Bears and miniature Reese’s Cups on the floor, and a gallon of strawberry ice cream on the fireplace hearth, tipped on its side with four spoons sticking out of it as it melts all over the stone.
“I’M DYING! CALL AN AMBULANCE!” my mother shouts again.
Adding all of the food paraphernalia littering the coffee table, to the fact my mother thinks she’s dying, and my best friend grabbing onto a clump of her long blonde hair, has shoved it into her mouth and is now chewing on it, and I’ve got my answer.
“You didn’t. Please tell me you didn’t do what I think you did?” I ask, looking from Scheva, to Jamie and ending with Aunt Bobbie.
“We told her to just eat half of one, but she wouldn’t listen,” Aunt Bobbie tries to explain.
“Nummy, nummy, nummy, Rice Krispy treats are nummy,” my mother chants.
I turn away from Aunt Bobbie to lower my head and try to meet my mother’s eyes as they dart all around the room.
“Mom, how many Rice Krispy treats did you eat?” I ask, speaking to her slowly like I’m talking to a toddler.
“I stopped counting when she got to four,” Scheva pipes up from behind me. “Four, four, four. Four is a funny word. Why is four such a funny word? My hair tastes like pizza.”
“Ooooh, I could totally go for some pizza right now,” Jamie adds.
I turn away from my mother again, just long enough to give both of them a dirty look.
“I cannot believe you gave my mother pot Rice Krispy treats. Are you insane? Scheva, stop eating your hair. Aunt Bobbie, go make some coffee. How in the hell are you not stoned?” I ask her.
“I’m not about to eat high fructose corn syrup. I have to fit into an Aunt of the Bride dress next week,” she scoffs.
I shake my head at her and nod in the direction of the doorway. “Go. Kitchen. Coffee. NOW.”
Aunt Bobbie hustles out of the room and my mother shouts after her.
“BOBBIE! I’M DYING! CALL AN AMBULANCE!”
I sigh and shake my head at her. “Pot Rice Krispy treats, really, mom?”
With her hands still clutched onto the front of my shirt, she yanks my face back to hers.
“I saw this show on television the other night called Weediquette,” she whispers. “It was very enlightening. Did you know weed can cure anxiety and make everything calm and pretty and nice? I thought to myself, ‘Bev, that’s exactly what Sam needs so he doesn’t have to clean Mister Ed’s stall anymore.’ I told Scheva, and she told me about her nice friend Jamie and they came over tonight with some samples. I figured I should test it out first before giving it to Sam. He already killed Turd Ferguson, I don’t want him killing Mister Ed.”
She finishes with her rambling explanation and I don’t know whether to shake her or thank her for worrying about Sam and wanting to help him. I probably should have clued her in on the fact that it’s no longer necessary that we do everything we can to make sure he remains calm and explained to her about his blood pressure and the penis problem. I kind of thought the cat zombie apocalypse would have been pretty self-explanatory that we were wasting our time trying to keep anyone calm, but obviously not.
“I hate Mister Ed,” Jamie announces from the couch. “Unless he can bring me a pizza, extra cheese.”
Scheva laughs around a mouthful of hair. “I have to tell you a secret. Mister Ed isn’t really a horse. I mean, he was a horse, but he’s not a horse now. Like, he was a horse back when TV shows were in black and white, but now he’s a penis that can’t spray hose water at a garden party on top of a mountain after a race. Or something like that. We should go outside and plant a garden. I want some cumquats. Can you grow cumquats in a garden? CUM-QUATS. That’s a funny word too.”
I shoot Scheva another dirty look. I’m still a little pissed at her that she blurted out the whole Mister Ed thing to Sam a few weeks ago before I could tell him. He wasn’t too happy that my entire family and Scheva knew about his problem and that all the Mister Ed comments had been about him and his penis. It took a lot of blow-job promises for after the wedding to get him to calm down. Right when I was starting to give in and forgive Scheva, she goes and feeds my mother pot Rice Krispy treats.
“Love sucks,” Jamie says with a nod. “Penis plus love equals misery, and it all sucks.”
“Wow, you’re like, really smart,” Scheva sighs.
“I’M DYING! CALL AN AMBULANCE!” my mother screams again, bringing my focus back to her and away from the two idiots on the couch.
“Mom, you’re not dying, your just really, really high. Aunt Bobbie is going to make you some coffee, you’re going to drink it, and then we’re just going to wait until this is over,” I reassure her, unclasping her fists from my shirt and putting her hands in her lap.
Aunt Bobbie comes back into the room with a mug of black coffee and squats down next to me to hold it out to my mother.
She takes one look at it and then starts shaking her head back and forth.
“No! I’m dying! Noel, call an ambulance. They can make it stop. CALL THEM RIGHT NOW AND TELL THEM TO MAKE IT STOP!” she yells.
“Mom, I can’t call an ambulance. You ate Rice Krispy treats with illegal drugs in them. Do you want to get arrested a week before my wedding?” I ask her, trying to remain calm when she won’t stop freaking out.
“WHY DO YOU HATE ME SO MUCH? EVERYONE HATES ME AND WANTS ME TO DIE!”
Just wanting her to stop yelling at this point, I quickly pull my phone out of my pocket and start pressing buttons without unlocking the screen.
“WHY IS MY VOICE SO LOUD? IS THIS WHAT HAPPENS RIGHT BEFORE YOU DIE?” she screams.
“Look! I’m calling an ambulance right now,” I tell her,
pointing to my phone I now have held up against my ear. “Just calm down and everything will be okay.”
She stares wide-eyed at my phone while I start pretending like the call went through.
“Hi, yes, I need an ambulance for my mother. No, she’s absolutely NOT dying, she’s just a little high and needs some assistance to make it stop,” I speak to my still-locked phone, angling the bottom away from my mouth to smile at my mother. “See? I’m on the phone with an ambulance right now and they’re going to make everything better.”
Before I barely finish my reassuring statement, she smacks the phone out of my hand and it flies across the room. I can see the shattered screen from here and I curse under my breath.
“I just replaced that thing after Scheva burned my old one!” I grumble.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING? YOU CAN’T CALL AN AMBULANCE! THEY’LL CALL THE COPS AND THEN I’LL GO TO JAIL!” she wails. “I can’t go to jail. I’m too pretty to go to jail.”
Just then, a loud scream comes from outside the house and we all turn toward the doorway when the front door opens and slams shut. Sam runs into the room, panting heavily, looking over his shoulder and not paying attention to where he’s going until he bangs his leg into the coffee table.
“Son of a bitch!” he curses, leaning down to rub his knee. “That fucking cat attacked me again.”
“Is he here to kill me like he did Furd Terguson? Terg Furduson?” my mother asks, unable to get the name right.
“Is she okay? Why is she making that face?” Sam asks, looking at my mother who is making duck lips and looking down her nose to try and see them.
“What are you doing here? I thought you were working late?” I ask him as he limps over to me and bends down to give me a quick kiss on the cheek.
“I got a text from Scheva a half hour ago that just said, ‘Emergency. Come quick. Bev is trying to light the curtains on fire. Bring more Pop Tarts,’” he tells me.
“I love you so much,” I reply softly.
“Hey, are you Mister Ed?” Jamie asks, looking Sam up and down. “You’re too hot to have a problem with your sprinklers.”
Sam groans and covers his eyes with his hand.
Scheva smacks Jamie on the arm before I can give her a look of warning to shut the hell up already about Mister Ed before Sam changes his mind and refuses to take the blow job vouchers.
“Shhhhhh! We don’t talk about the problem with the sprinklers, Jamie,” Scheva tells her in a loud whisper. “Everyone is very sensitive about Noel not being able to use the slip-and-slide. Ix-nay on the Mister Ed-day. Ha ha, Mister Ed Day, that’s funny. It’s like a national holiday where no one can water their garden. But now I’ll never get my cumquats. CUM-QUATS.”
Sam looks away from Scheva and raises his eyebrow at me.
“So, I guess Scheva told Jamie about Mister Ed. Sorry about that. Also, it’s probably pretty obvious that everyone in this room is high right now,” I inform him. “Except for me.”
“And me!” Aunt Bobbie shouts with a raise of her hand.
“You put your arm down and stop smiling, or I’ll make you wear a pink taffeta dress with poufy sleeves and giant bow on your ass next week!” I threaten her.
She gasps, pressing her hands over her heart. “You wouldn’t!”
“I’M DYING! SOMEONE CALL AN AMBULANCE!” my mother screams again.
My father walks into the room with a Bic lighter in one hand and a fistful of bottle rockets in the other. He takes a minute to survey the room before shaking his head, turning around, and walking right back out.
“If anyone needs me, I’ll be upstairs with the explosives. If you hear me swear really loudly, grab Snoop Dog over there behind the curtains and make a run for it,” he shouts back to us over his shoulder.
“Snoopy’s here? Where’s Snoopy? And Woodstock, and Charlie Brown and that little snot-nosed twit, Lucy?” my mother asks, perking up and crawling across the carpet on all fours to look under the couch for cartoons.
Really, it’s probably for the best that Sam and I are waiting until the wedding night to have sex. Regardless of whether or not everything is in working order, if we even attempted it right now with the non-stop crazy going on, we’d still probably both wind up in tears.
13
Dial That Phone, Bitch!
Sam
My hands are sweating and shaking as I scroll through the text messages Noel has sent me the last three nights we’ve been apart. Instead of the typical one night apart for the bride and groom before the wedding, Reggie decided we needed four, “To pay for your sins and appease the dairy gods. And by dairy gods, I mean me. I will send you straight to hell without a dick if you so much as sniff my daughter’s Snack Pack before the wedding.”
Noel has been staying at her parents’ house and I’ve been staying in our house, alone. She’s been torturing me by texting photos of herself trying on the shit ton of lingerie her boss at Seduction and Snacks gave her as an early wedding present, and I’ve tried my hardest not to jerk-off to each photo she’s sent. I almost lost the battle last night when she messaged me a picture of herself in the full-length mirror behind the bedroom door, completely naked, asking if I liked that “outfit” the best. I was like one of those men in olden days who bit down on a leather strap to muffle their screams when they needed a medical procedure before the invention of anesthesia. I shoved my pillow in my mouth and screamed at the top of my lungs, the pain from not grabbing my junk and cranking one out so acute that I feared my dick would shoot out of my pants like a firework, crash through the window and explode in the night sky.
“How’s it hanging, assholes?” Nicholas, Noel’s brother, asks as he walks into the kitchen and grabs a beer from the fridge.
“Sam here is two seconds away from whipping his dick out onto the kitchen table and jerking one out to pictures of Noel,” Alex informs him.
“Eeeew, too much information,” Nicholas groans, twisting the top off the bottle and chugging half of it to erase the image from his mind that Alex just gave him.
“What? You don’t think Noel is hot? I kind of enjoyed the sexy little blue number she had on in photo number seven.”
Nicholas and I both stare at him in disgust and irritation until Alex finally looks up from his own phone and shrugs.
“You left your phone unlocked when you went to take a piss. I forwarded a few of the good ones to my phone for safe keeping.”
“First, Noel is my sister, dick cheese. Second, you’re an asshole. Also, SHE’S MY SISTER!” Nicholas shouts, saying everything I couldn’t voice because now I’m thinking about Noel in the blue lace bra with red stars covering her nipples, with a matching blue lace thong and another red star covering my favorite place in all the world.
“Ahhhh, I can see where that would be confusing,” Alex nods. “Well, it was a great photo. Excellent light composition and I particularly liked how she tilted the phone a little to give it a skewed angle.”
Once again, we both stare at Alex in silent annoyance until he laughs.
“Just kidding! Her tits looked amazing, that’s what made it a great photo.”
Nicholas steps over to the table and punches Alex in the arm, and I quickly lock my phone and shove it into my front pocket, reminding myself that tomorrow is the big day. I only have one more night without sleeping next to Noel before we’re married and we can finally have sex again.
“Don’t be jealous because I got to see your sister half-naked and Sam made me the best man,” Alex growls, rubbing the spot on his arm where Nicholas hit him.
“Again, SHE’S MY SISTER! And why would I be jealous when I get to perform the ceremony, fuck nose?”
The two of them go back and forth, trading insults and punches to the arm. Ever since I made Alex my best man and Nicholas decided to get ordained online so he could perform the ceremony, the two of them have been arguing about which job is more important. I try to ignore them like I have for the last few months, when my phone suddenly vibrates in my
front pocket.
My jaw goes slack, my eyes glaze over, and I have to clutch onto the edge of the table to stop myself from falling out of my chair. I finally understand what all the rage is with women and vibrators. Even with the two jack asses trading verbal insults right next to me, I can’t stop my dick from coming to life in my cargo shorts when another quick burst of vibration rumbles right against the side of my shaft.
Would it be wrong if I excused myself and went into the bathroom to jerk off? If Noel asks, I could just tell her it was research for our wedding night. You know, making sure my dick is in tip-top shape and will be able to perform the duties at hand.
Not only did we vow to not have sex until the wedding, we both decided there would be no masturbating allowed either. I stupidly agreed to this when I was pre-occupied, looking out of our bedroom window for any signs of Turd Ferguson in our yard, clutching a small gardening shovel in my hand after I’d heard a noise out on the lawn. No sex with Noel and no masturbating has made Sam a very horny man.
“Quick, someone call my phone,” I whisper, staring wide-eyed at the red, white and blue floral centerpiece in the middle of the table, wondering how good the fake, silk flowers would feel if I grabbed them and rubbed them against my dick.
“Did you lose it or something? Hold on, let me try,” Alex states, grabbing his phone from the table and pressing a few buttons.
My phone immediately starts vibrating against my dick again and my whole body jerks, making me slap my palms on top of the table and let out a low moan.
“It’s ringing, but I don’t hear anything,” Alex notes, oblivious to the silent pleasure happening in my pants right now.
I don’t realize how bad this situation is and I don’t even care if I’m two seconds away from coming in my pants right in front of Noel’s brother and my best friend, in my future in-law’s kitchen. It’s been too long since I had an orgasm and…holy shit I’m so glad I switched the number of rings on my phone from five to ten.
“Yeah, that’s the good stuff,” I mumble, my ass rocking back and forth on the wooden chair seat.