Jessica

17

The sun rose and everything fell.
Well not everything, just the one thing that seemed like everything. It sounds better as everything because: "the sun rose and my thing fell." sounds like a low budget sixties monster movie. To be fair, he had been drinking, which would attribute to his dismal bedroom performance. To be frank, he had been drinking pepto bismol in a margarita cup and telling everyone it was a pink daiquiri. And after all, why would he be anything other than frank since that's who he was--Frank.
The woman in bed with him, who for purely for the sake of anonymity and preserving her good name, will be called Trashy Last Call Hoe Who Looks Better In A Dark Room. From what he remembered, she was going to be an actress and her most prestigious resume was marked by grand theatrics such as Background Slut in the music video Get 'dat Booty Poppin Like it's First Name is Mary and a short stint in "nature" documentary about lumberjacks called The Night Of Endless Wood: the Hunt for Bigfoot (bigfoot is an innuendo). Frank looked it up later and the title really did contain prosthesis, as it turned out, the colon was also intentional.
But the problem laid not with Trashy Last Call Hoe Who Looks Better In a Dark room but with Frank. He was immediately reminded of the life alert tag line: help, I've fallen and I can't get up. Frank would have bought life alert if the help he received was in the form of Viagra. But at the crack of dawn with his little general a fallen soldier and Trashy Last Call Hoe Who Looks Better In A Dark Room falling asleep, Frank doubted any help was coming.
To be honest, a part of him had expected this to happen. Being around women made him nervous and nauseous, hence the pink stomach relaxant. It wasn't that he didn't like women, most of his friends were female. But sitting on the edge of a crummy motel bed watching the rising sun, Frank had came to a realization:
He was never getting laid outside of actually lying down.
The world was a cruel. No, the world was a cruel sadist with twisted tastes. No, the world was a cruel sadist who enjoyed watching the part of the lion king where Mufasa died and liked it when Jack dies in the Titanic! How could Frank possibly hope to overcome such a world?
It was time to face the facts:
Fact #1: He hadn't engaged in the carnal act of fornication in over three years.
Fact #2: He had to stop calling it the carnal act of fornications.
Fact #3: It was actually five years, fact #1 wasn't a fact but a lying bastard.
Fact #4: It was time to see professional help, i.e., see a prostitute.
Fact #5: The word fact starts too look funny after a while: fact, fact, fact, fact, fact, fact, fact, fact, fact, fact, fact and said out loud repeatedly, it sounded inappropriate, fact, fact, fact, fact, fact
Frank emerged from the motel room that Saturday morning with the all the determination a thirty year old, pale, slightly anemic, white male with a suspicious mole on his back could emerge with. As it turned out, that amounted to little determination and Frank didn't so much emerge as he did teeter off to his car and quietly shut the door so not to disturb anyone, only to remember he forgot his keys, and shuffle politely back to retrieve them. And then, with the engines roaring (more like mewling) and dawn approaching, Frank set off on his daring mission to obtain that which man has sought after since the dawn of humanity: physical gratification.
Actually, he went to work. Even though it was Saturday and he normally had a free weekend, Frank had volunteered for the shift because he was saving up for a Vespa. Originally the plan had been motorcycle but Vespas had better insurance coverage and safety records. Plus they came in more colors.
But after work! When Frank was slightly drowsy, had just taken some DayQuil, and was one step closer to his Vespa, Frank set off to prove that he was capable of one of the things that classified him as being alive: the ability to reproduce. Frank was going to break the law. He was going to hire a hooker. He was going to go all the way. He was going to shed his five year dry spell and emerge from his cocoon of porn and vaseline a new man. He was going to drink more pepto bismol because he was feeling nauseous again. He was also going to get his anti-anxiety prescription refilled at RiteAid...if there was still time!
Not knowing where hookers dwelled, Frank went to the shadiest place he knew--the dumpster behind IHOP where fabled ten dollar BJs awaited. There were none. Only a homeless man drinking strawberry syrup.
Frank then ventured further into the heart of downtown and stopped at a sufficiently suspicious alley between a string of bars. There he wandered across the elusive hooker.
"Hey, feeling lonely?" The escort asked. Or to be politically correct--the horizontal (and vertical, kneeling, and diagonal) physical relations specialist asked.
"Err..." Said Frank with all the confidence that a math teacher had when asked: "When have you ever used logarithmic algorithms real life? When? Just tell me when?"
"You shy? This your first time paying for it? I'll give you a special discount--it's fifty for anything oral and a hundred for a single romp. The backside doesn't cost any extra but I will need prep time and I did have Taco Bell for dinner."
"Err..."
"There is no shame in it. I get all sorts, even rich and handsome fellas are looking for some unattached fun."
"Err..."
"Look, just nod yes or no." The nausea was returning with a vengeance.
"Err..."
"What is it? Am I not your type?" His stomach churned. "You okay?"
Frank vomited on the pavement.
"The third time this night!!" Frank would have been even more depressed as he watched the woman storm off if he didn't remind himself that blowing people off was in the job description.
Frank went to his car and sat with his head on the wheel and sent a prayer to heaven:
Dear lord,
I know I haven't talked to you in a while and I don't know what I did to make you hate me and damn me to a life of solo nights giving myself handshakes but I'd like to apologize. Perhaps I angered you when the bathrooms were closed for cleaning but I had just drank two large sodas so I relieved myself in Janice's ficus. To be fair, Janice is a malicious, jagbag, she-demon who always comes unarmed to a battle of wits. Or perhaps it was when I got fed up with my gay neighbor Gary's shitsu using my lawn as a toilet and I proved that I gave a shi--sorry God--a solid bodily waste by stuffing his mailbox full of Sargent Paws crap. I'll admit, it wasn't just because of Sargent Paws defecation but also the fact that Gary never invited me to his rave garden parties. Anyways, please forgive me and allow me to end my drought.
Amen.
There was a knock at Frank's window. He looked up from the steering wheel and immediately fell back down when he saw it was a man in a hat and the car let out one continuously long honk.
"Excuse me," the man said.
Hooooooonnnnnnnnnkkkkkk
"Um, sir?" Frank lifted his head. "This is a no--" Frank banged his head back down.
Hooooooooooonnnnnnnnkkkkkk
"Sorry to bother--"
Honk!
"Hi, um--"
Honk! Honk!
"I hate to bring this up but--"
Honk! Honk! Honk! Hoooooooooooonnnnnnnnkkkkkk!
"You're blocking the bar entrance! This is a no parking zone."
Frank's head shot up.
"What entrance?"
"To the bar--Devil's Piss." Frank looked up and sure enough there was a bar called Devil's Piss.
"Does it contain women of low self esteem and promiscuous natures?"
"No, it's for gay men under forty."
"Huh," Frank said. "I'm thirty."
"I'm Pete. You look like you had a rough night--"
"Yup."
"So I'll tell you what, you move your car and I'll buy you a drink." Frank got out his phone and shined it on Pete's face.
"Oh good, you're attractive in light as well."
"Um, thanks?" Frank moved his car to across the street and Pete was still there when he came back.
"You didn't leave," Frank said.
"Well don't make me think I should have. Come on, my sister is the owner so I can get you a drink on the house."
"I only drink virgin daiquiris." Frank tried the door but it was locked and had a sign that said: Please use the back.
"It's a crude joke," Pete explained. "You also get a free beer if you have a six pack."
"Ah, backdoor to a gay bar, makes sense."
There was one last fact that Frank had to face. He became nauseous when confronted with intercouse with a woman. Most of his friends were female. He wanted a Vespa and not just for the higher safety record, gas mileage, better insurance, and eco friendly reasons, but because you could get them in colors like xanadu and smaragdine and motorcycles only come in black, red, and silver. Black, red, and silver were not fun, pretty colors!
Fact #6: he was gay. Or perpetually contracted the stomach flu around woman. Most likely gay though.
It was no surprise really, unlike finding that mole on his back had been. He only wished he had had the realizations around say, fifteen years earlier maybe somewhere other than an alley that smelled like sour vomit and cat urine.
"I didn't catch your name."
"Frank."
"Nice to meet you Frank." Frank glanced through the door window and froze--Gary was there.
"Oh, my neighbor is here. I shoved dog crap in his mailbox last week. He wasn't happy." Pete took off his hat and put it on Frank.
"Tonight lets pretend that you're...Alex. What do you say?"
Fact #7: Pete was highly attractive.
"Okay."
Alex stared at the door handle and slowly turned the knob.