Monkey Business

kimmy has a boyfriend

11:38 p.m.

I’m sitting next to Jamie along the bar. “What do you call a four-hundred-pound stripper?”

“What?

“Broke.” I laugh, waiting for him to join in. Instead, he sits with a dump-truck-just-ran-over-my-puppy look on his face. “You okay?”

My adorable boyfriend and Nick are playing darts and doing tequila shots, and Layla is on her cell phone, talking to Brad. I love my boyfriend. I started taking my pills again so my boyfriend and I can start having sex without a condom.

“Fine,” Jamie says. “What about you? You’ve hardly touched your beer, and we’ve been here two hours. You feeling okay?”

“Ha-ha, funny man. I can tell you’re masking your pain with jokes. Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?”

“Glenda,” he says to the waitress, “can I have a beer?”

“What?” I say. “You’re drinking? You don’t drink.”

“I do now,” he says, staring at Layla.

Huh? “Do you…do you like Layla?”

He shrugs.

What? Since when? What about me? “But she’s seeing someone.”

“Thanks, Sherlock.”

“So that’s why you’re upset,” I say, and take a sip.

“You are quick.”

I could do without the attitude. “Stop being such an ass, Jamie. I’m trying to help.”

He shrugs. “What can I do? It’s not like someone like her would ever go for someone like me. I’m not quite her handsome knight in shining Armani, am I?”

Not quite. “You never know.”

He’s gazing at her with big cartoon puppy eyes, and it’s making me jealous.

Why is this making me jealous? I thought Jamie had a thing for me. When did he start having a thing for Layla? What does Layla have that I don’t? Besides blond hair and a smaller ass?

“What does Bradley III have that I don’t?” Jamie asks. “He must be hung like a donkey.”

I should hope so. Those vibrators were pretty well endowed. “She hasn’t told me.”

“You think she’s slept with him already?”

Um…yeah. “I don’t know, Jamie.”

My boyfriend gets a bull’s-eye and then does a little dance. Can’t he stay still for one second? He’s always moving. I thought that now that the cheating was over, I wouldn’t have to share him, but he’s still always running from club to club, basketball to real estate, friend to friend, me to the dartboard. Why can’t he stay still?

Jamie pings me on the leg. “Is he tall?”

“Who?”

“Is Prince Bradley tall?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never met him. Why?”

“Because tall men are usually well hung.”

I burst out laughing. “Are we still talking about Brad’s penis?”

“Yes,” Jamie says. “I can’t help but worry.”

“Why?”

“Because how am I going to compete with a man with a huge shlong? You know what I’m talking about. I look as if my last girlfriend was Lorena Bobbitt.”

Beer snorts from my nose, I’m laughing so hard. I thought all men think they’re Goliath. “You’re not that small,” I lie.

He dismisses me with his hand. “Yes, I am. I don’t care. There’s a lot of magic in that wand. Occasionally Cinderella’s coach turns back to a pumpkin before midnight, but normally she can party all night, you know?”

At this point, I’m screaming with laughter, and my boyfriend appears protectively by my side. “What’s so funny here?” he asks.

Jamie points his finger at Russ’s crotch. “We’re discussing shlongs. Care to join in?”

I weave my arm around Russ. “You can’t discuss shlongs with my boyfriend.” I monitor his facial reaction to my use of the word boyfriend. Neither his lips nor his eyebrows flinch. That’s a good sign, isn’t it? I’ll assume we’re officially dating unless advised otherwise.

Russ squeezes me back. He reeks of beer. “Why can’t he?” he asks.

I’m not sure he knows what a shlong is. “You want to discuss your genitals, go ahead.”

“That’s the problem with coed bathrooms,” Jamie says. “In the days of urinals I could check out the competition. Now I’m forced to battle blindly.”

“Do you pee blindly, too?” I ask. “Someone keeps hitting the floor in the third stall.”

Jamie shakes his head. “Not me, I have perfect aim.”

Russ nods. “So do I. I just kicked Nick’s ass in darts.”

Jamie wags a finger at me. “Maybe it’s you, Kimmy.”

“Me? Woman can’t have bad aim.”

“You leave the toothpaste all over the sink,” Jamie says.

“No, I don’t!”

“Yes, you do,” Jamie says. “I’ve used the sink after you do, and it’s no pretty sight.”

Great. Now Russ thinks I’m a slob who pees on the floor. “Jamie, do I make fun of you?”

“Yes,” he says. “All the time. We just spent the last twenty minutes making fun of my shmekel.”

Layla finally turns off her cell and joins us. “What are you guys talking about?”

“My shmekel,” Jamie says, looking desolate.

“Isn’t that the Yiddish word for a small shmuck?” Layla says.

Jamie obviously needs my help winning over the opposite sex. Maybe I should write a book; I’ve certainly had a lot of success recently. First tactic: do not bring up one’s small penis in front of one’s object of affection (unless, of course, you’re actually bringing it up, ha-ha).

Layla smiles. “Small isn’t always bad. It’s all about the shape. Sometimes big is too big.”

Then why are all her vibrators twice the size of a normal man? The guys look surprised. They obviously haven’t seen what’s inside her pleasure drawer, or listened to one of her masturbation lectures.

Jamie leans forward, eagerly. “You prefer small?”

Could he be more obvious?

Layla scratches the side of her face in thought. “I find when it’s smaller, you can have sex more often, and you don’t get sore.”

Nick’s eyes are popping out of his head. “How often do you like to have sex?”

She appears thoughtful. “When I’m in a relationship, you mean?”

“Or not,” Jamie adds.

“Once or twice a day, I suppose.”

I spit the beer I was drinking back into the bottle. “Oh, please.” Give me a break. She’s batting her big blue eyes at her adoring fans. “You do not have sex twice a day.”

“I don’t?”

“Come on!” What, she needs everyone’s attention? It’s not enough that she has the perfect boyfriend, but she has to steal Jamie and now Russ?

“It destresses me. I can’t sleep if I don’t orgasm.”

Great. The masturbation discussion. Again. Why do we always have to talk about masturbation?

“Do you have an orgasm every night?” Russ asks. He can’t take his eyes off her. My back tenses. Is he going to fall for her now? Start sleeping with her? What if I become Sharon and no one tells me he’s screwing someone else? If he did it to her, why not do it to me?

“Of course,” Layla says. “Don’t you?”

“I do,” Nick says.

“I think you’re the first woman to ever admit to masturbating,” Russ says.

Layla looks shocked. “What are you talking about? My friends at home and I talk about it all the time.”

“You do?” Nick asks. “Now there’s a conversation I’d like to overhear. Can we call them?”

“I’m not embarrassed about my body. Women have to be in charge of their own pleasure.” She gives me a meaningful look.

“Charge away,” Nick says, and everyone laughs. Everyone except me.

Back at the Zoo, Russ asks me to masturbate for him. I don’t really want to touch myself down there. “Can’t you do it?” I ask.

He gently bites the top of my ear. “I want to watch you do it.”

This is highly stressful. I don’t want to touch myself with him watching. I don’t even know what to do. But I don’t want him to think I’m a prude. And what if Sharon used to do it? I can’t not do what Sharon used to do. I can do this. If every other woman can make herself come, so can I. If it takes way too long I’ll just fake it. I’m good at faking it.

“It might take me a while,” I say.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

Unless he meets someone else.

I dip my hands into my pants and attempt to arouse myself. I feel like an idiot. But I pretend I’m finding this arousing. I continue rubbing myself and it starts to feel better. And better. I feel him getting hard beside me. This apparently turns him on. Which turns me on.

I continue stroking myself, faster, harder, lighter, slower. He starts to stroke himself beside me. My legs and arms start to shake. My hands and feet start to feel cold, but we don’t stop. We’re each breathing so hard, we could have asthma.

Eventually I feel overwhelmed with heat, like an itch that desperately needs to be scratched, and then…

So that’s what everyone keeps talking about.

I love you, I think but don’t say.