Life Begins (8 page)

The fact is, Jack Allen Gynapsy,
that you make me [censored]. I get [censored]. And I would love for
you to take your [censored]. And [censored]. And [censored].
[Censored]. [Censored]. And to top it off, [censored].

I would just like for you to tell
me that I’m beautiful and not in a sweet way. How does my body
compare to other women’s? Am I better looking than she is? It’s not
enough that you love me and my body. I need to know that I am
better looking than every woman that you have ever seen.

~~~

Nice, Christine. Do you know that I just took
a page of erotic literature and censored it down to a
paragraph?

~~~

It doesn’t really surprise me.
Whenever I give you a hard copy of anything, you always make it
soft.

~~~

Do you have any idea how hard that is to do? I
get turned on by your smile, a wink of an eye, the raising of an
eyebrow. I get turned on by the mole on your left shoulder, the
scar on your right knee from when we were seven and riding our
bikes. That’s not talking about what some of your other body parts
do to me.

And if you want to talk about other women, you
ruined my first Playboy experience. Arthur found a copy that his
dad had hidden. It was supposed to be one of the greatest
experiences in my adolescent life, and I found it boring because
the women didn’t compare to you. I didn’t even enjoy the
articles.

So you can talk about me getting turned on by
your appendix, but I would make love to your appendix if I could
reach it. I am more than willing to try if you are.

And incidentally, it was your inner thighs
that you hated most. You thought they were flabby. And if you
remember correctly, I said, “[Censored]”. And you were like
[censored]. And I [censored]. Then you [censored]. And we
[censored].

So I don’t want to hear about me being sweet
and just telling you something that I thought you wanted to
hear.

What were we fighting about again?

~~~

I don’t know. I like it when you
are typing though. I get to hug you from behind. It’s like you are
a little teddy bear. I just get to hug you, and you can’t go
anywhere.

Did you forget to shave
today?

~~~

I overslept. I decided to skip shaving and eat
breakfast instead.

~~~

I bet you would be hot with a
little stubble. You should grow it. Then you could be like a sexy
handyman who comes to work on something with just a plain white T
and jeans. That would be really hot. I would totally do
you.

~~~

Would you like kissing me with
stubble?

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Sorry. Christine sat on the
keyboard.

She is now sitting on her stud of a
boyfriend’s lap as she begins to… Ow! Did you just hit my hand?
What did you just write about me getting abused?

It was a gentle tap. I did not abuse you. I
was just trying to get you to stop writing profane things in my
book.

So I had it coming?

Don’t joke about that, Christine. If anything
ever happened to you, I would… I would rather be in a prisoner of
war camp in an Islamic country and be tortured with fire and the
cruel removal of my body parts than to see you be hurt.

I bless every day that I have with you. I love
you more than anything else in this world.

Step away from the computer, Jack.

What are you going to do?

Do you trust me?

Not especially right now. I’ve seen what you
do to men.

You know, I have you in chair that
swivels.

Oh, big girl. What are you going to do? Spin
me around until I fall over? What would that accomplish?

Actually I thought we could
[censored].

Stop censoring me. You know you just erased
some of my best writing. I want people to know how I feel about
you.

I don’t care. You are writing very bad
things.

Try it before you condemn it. It’s not like I
wrote anything freaky, prude.

Get up.

Why?

I’m going to show you a prude.

Oh, are you? You haven’t been able to show me
one in all of the time that we have known each other.

Bring it!

Oh, it’s been brought.

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Sorry. I’m going to save this and close out of
it now. We’re not doing anything, though. I just hit a series of
wrong keys. Seriously, we’re

I was going to erase this, but I
thought that it captured our relationship. It was a lot like how
our IMs are. I do love that woman. She just does something to
me.

I would be lost without
her.

What did she get on my keyboard?
Seriously, that woman.

I think I covered everything the
best that I could in terms of that part of our life. There has been
an effort made to make this book as truthful as possible without
exposing a lot of dirty family secrets.

The abuse incident was not an area
that I wanted to revisit. I just felt like it needed a slightly
more narrative clarification. We didn’t get together at that point
because of complicated reasons.

Chapter Five

Check Mate

After my father's death, Christine and I were
not the greatest couple. Had my father not died, I think we would
have actually been a couple. We had gotten over our childhood
romances and failures as we were going through her parents'
divorce. My father's death presented new challenges.

I admit that I felt a bit isolated from
Christine that night. She was not there for me emotionally. I was
there for her that night. I wonder why that is now. I would have
rather have had her hold me that night. But somehow holding her
brings me comfort. I don’t know why she wants to hold
me.

We flirted heavily during the next couple of
years. It was a game of chess. Neither one of us was going to be
the first to admit that we loved the other. That was a sign of
defeat. So we didn't get together and made it our goal in life to
make the other miserable. We only ended up hurting ourselves,
though.

Christine hurt me usually by dating other
boys. She would then come to me as a friend and tell me all about
her dates. I don't think she ever knew how much this really hurt
me. I have always felt like I did not deserve her and that I did
not match up to other guys. It made me feel completely worthless. I
listened to her as she went on about other men and how great they
were. I listened and was a good friend. On the inside, I was
comparing myself to them and seeing what they had that I didn't. It
is hard enough going through puberty. It is even harder to be in
love and to realize that you will never stack up.

~~~

I never meant to hurt Jack. He
became emotionally distant after his father's death. I couldn't
exactly wait around for a guy who would not make a move. The boy
saw me naked for Christ's sake. What does he want from me? He
undressed me, kissed me, and caressed me. He then was afraid to
touch me as anything other than a friend. He can talk about puberty
and feeling a certain way, but it is the same thing for a
girl.

I know that I have always been
considered the most popular girl in school. I know that I am one of
the prettiest girls in the school. I still feel ugly at times. I
feel fat some days. I know that I'm not obese. I still feel fat.
Does he expect me to not go out with other boys when they made me
feel like I was worth something to them? They made me feel good
about myself.

And it's not like Jack ever made
me feel ugly. I just wanted him to touch him like he had before.
The man is good with his hands. Hell, the man is good with his
entire body. He got me off one time just with the anticipation of
what he was going to be doing. So I don't want to hear him talk
about me being a tease.

And I don't want to hear him talk
about me going out with other boys. I didn't start going out with
other guys until he had started his little tryst with
Melinda.

Oh, yeah. While I was away at
Catholic school, he was back here at home writing me letters
telling me how much he missed me. He was also becoming friends with
Melinda. They were actually planning on getting married. Don't
believe his innocent victim act.

~~~

Melinda and I were never an item. I was
planning on marrying her because I didn't think Christine and I
were ever going to be anything. If I couldn't be with the person I
truly loved, I thought I might as well marry somebody that I am
friends with.

I have always found it funny that Christine
has been jealous of Melinda. They are nothing alike. Melinda is
very plain looking. She's not ugly. She's just average. I don't
think I would pass her on the street and even take a second look at
her. I don't even think I would notice her in the first
place.

Melinda has a brilliant mind. She is one of
the greatest comedic minds and talents that there is. Truth be
told, she is probably greater than I am. That was what kept me
hanging out with her. She is a comedian's comedian. She thinks
funny.

Christine never understood that
her real competition came from comedy and not from another woman.
She missed me finding my goal in life while she was away at the
Catholic school. I had walked into the local video store. I was
just wandering around. I saw a couple of Marx Brothers’ movies.
Something inside of me told me to watch it. I watched
At the Circus
, and it
changed my life. I started to write comedy. This is amazing. And if
anybody has seen
At the
Circus
, you will just how amazing this is.
This is not one of the best of the Marx Brothers’ films.

From that moment on, I studied comedy. I
watched everything that I could. It started with the Marx Brothers.
It expanded to Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd, Jack Benny, George Burns,
Bob Hope, Lucy, Mae West, and others. It has been said that I
didn’t just watch the films. I studied them. I don’t think I
laughed. I was absorbing technique.

Melinda was somebody that I could watch this
stuff with. Christine never would. So while Christine would have
dates on Valentine’s Day, I was having a Jack Benny marathon in
honor of his birthday. Comedy was something that I could share with
Melinda. I could share my love of something with her.

For the record, I never kissed her, held her
hand, or did anything romantic with her. She was just a woman that
I could talk to. I was never physically attracted to her or loved
her as anything more than a friend.

And seriously the marriage was just because
she was a safe bet. I figured that marriage was something that I
would have to do to keep people from thinking that I was gay. Since
I probably couldn't marry Christine, Melinda satisfied the public
role.

I don't know how to explain it. I am only
turned on by Christine. Nobody else does anything for me. When I
was telling Melinda this one night, she eventually sold me out to
Christine. I was talking about marrying her, and she asked me what
our marriage would be like. I told her that we might have sex after
we had been married awhile, but I didn't see it being a big part of
our marriage. We would adopt kids. I figured people would want to
see me have kids. I was going to be a famous director/star. I would
have the money to support a family. I might as well help kids who
are already here.

I think I told Arthur and Leopold that I would
need Viagra to have sex with anybody besides Christine. It's true.
Nobody does anything for me, except Christine.

Melinda and I just always kind of had that
understanding. Our marriage would have been a marriage of
convenience. We would just be friends who were getting married. It
was not going to be one of the great romances of the
world.

~~~

Jack is the love of my life, but
he is so stupid when it comes to love. Melinda was in love with
that boy. She hung around him just with the hope that someday he
would learn to love her.

I can't blame her for loving him.
And I have to give her credit. She was the only woman to ever get
close to him. And I have to thank her for being the reason that
Jack and I eventually did get together. If she wouldn't have given
him up, he would still be holding out.

I do feel bad about hating her for
so many years. She was the competition, though. And I never knew
what Jack saw in her until after she handed him over. There is a
beauty to her. It's not a stunning beauty. It's a quiet beauty. And
there is a smartness to her. She puts you at ease when you talk to
her.