Chapter 2

“I returned it. Made me itch.”

He smiled. “Figures.”

“Uh huh, figures.”

He sat at the kitchen table and tapped his index finger against the aluminum can. I sat down next to him. Monroe was my age, blond to my brunette, short to my tall, blue-eyed to my muddy brown, pudgy to my, well, we’ll call it svelte, on a good day. He was the yin, as it were, to my yang. We’d been best friends since just after college. He knew me better than anyone else, perhaps even better than I knew myself. He was also happily married to his lover, Paul, which meant that, at that moment, though we were indeed best friends, I hated him with a simmering passion as he sat there tapping on that fucking can. Call me shallow, but it’s much easier standing at that end of the pool than treading in the deep end.

“He was a dick,” he said, the rest of the can promptly finished off. Monroe loved his Coke. Monroe loved all things sugary and sweet. Monroe was ten pounds overweight, hence the pudgy, and didn’t care since he was already married and didn’t have to worry. Those were his words, by the way, not mine. Me, I was perpetually dieting and had good reason to worry: thirty-five, single, yada, yada, yada.

“To be fair, the dick part was his best attribute,” I made note.

“I was referring to the adjective, not the noun,” he replied. “And just to be clear, how attributed are we talking here?”

Monroe had been together with Paul for well over a decade now, so when it came to sex, he lived vicariously through me. Which was ironic because I didn’t even live vicariously through me, and I was, you know, me. Guess the grass is always greener over someone else’s, um, dick, so to speak.

“You mean like is he a grower or a shower?” He nodded, eagerly. “Both,” I said, with a heavy sigh.

“Fucker.”

I shrugged. “Like I said, best attribute. In any case, I’m once again single. Me, the college professor with the paid-for condo and thirty-inch waist.” Give or take an inch. Mostly take.

“You have rather nice teeth, too.”

I nodded. “Yeah, I’ll let my dentist know you sent your regards. Still, none of those things is doing me any good. I want what you and Paul have.”

“Male pattern baldness and belly rolls?”

My sigh returned. “You know what I mean.”

He hopped up and got a second can. I always kept a large supply, even though I only drank water. Or vodka. Or tequila. Basically, anything white. I called it my mean drunk diet. “I know what you mean, and it’ll happen, Jack. It’ll happen. I promise,” he said, crossing his heart―or maybe it was his pancreas. “You’re a catch.”

I grimaced. “Sounds like herpes.”

He reached over and patted my shoulder. “You’re feeling sorry for yourself. You just need to get back on the horse.” He grinned. “Greg that big, by the way? Like Seabiscuit big? He ever fuck you over a bale of hay?”

I socked him one in the arm. “Must you?”

He nodded, sagely. “I must. Really.”

I took out my cell phone. I showed him a recent photo taken during one of our more amorous evenings together. “There.”

He gulped. “It’s like a kickstand. How is there enough blood left in his head to keep him from fainting?”

“He managed.” And then some. My prick throbbed at the memory. My heart throbbed as well. Poor, lonely heart. “But a good fuck is not the same thing as a good relationship.” It helps, to be sure, but it’s not the same.

He shrugged. “Better than no fuck at all. A fuck in the hand is worth two in the bush.” He looked at the photo again. “Nice bush, too. Expertly trimmed. You sure you should’ve broken up with him. He’s, you know, growing on me, all of a sudden.”

“He broke up with me,” I reminded him.

“You could always beg him to take you back.”

“Please, Monroe.”

Again he nodded, eagerly. “Like that, but with more earnestness. Please! Like you mean it.”

“But I don’t.” He pointed at my ex’s massive schlong in reply. “Mostly,” I added, knowing that I would indeed miss that part of him. “Now what do I do?”

“Grindr? Craigslist? The bars?”

I shuddered. I was desperate, okay, but not that desperate. I mean, those were fine for that fuck I mentioned, but not for what I was looking for. “Any other ideas? Anyone at work you could set me up with?” Monroe did something dot.com techie that I could never quite make head nor tail of.

“You ever meet my coworkers, Jack?”

I had. My shudder returned. “Plan B?” Though by then I was at Q and fast approaching the dreaded Z.

He finished his second Coke. “Maybe we first need to fix the problem before we find the solution.” He jumped up. He found my photo albums in the living room. I’d always taken pictures, back since I was a kid. He flung the evidence of this onto the table. “Let’s go through them and see what went wrong.”

“Oh joy,” I quipped. “A walk down Ex-Boyfriend Memory Lane. This should be scads of fun.”