The Perfect Dick

A short story about falling in love with yourself — and your best friend. (Heat level XXX)

1

Anastasia put down her knitting. The doorbell had rung and Henry, the dentist who was meant to come over for a date, was ten minutes late. Anastasia usually wasn’t a prompt person, but she had turned a page and was starting fresh.

         No lateness.

         No pain.

         No Ed.

         She opened the door and Ed was standing there. Immediately, she shut it. Ed, being Ed, flung a hand into the crack and didn’t budge.

         Anastasia wasn’t scared of him, the man standing on the other side. She had given up fear the day he’d screamed gleefully on the rollercoaster in the old amusement park, two towns over. Ed wasn’t someone to be scared of, but someone to shun. He was all wrong for her, everyone could see it.

         Her mom told her he was best left in her rebellious past. Her co-worker Jill, the kindly receptionist, said, “I just want to see you happy, darling. We all do.”

         She had never felt happy with Ed. Then again, she had never felt happy, period, not since an unruly childhood spent in a house built on rules. Ed made her feel real.

         “Let me in,” he said, not ruthlessly, but soft enough to be a question.

         “What are you doing here?” she demanded. “You’re supposed to be Henry.”

         A soft laugh informed her that Ed was aware of Henry. She swung open the door.

         “Where the hell is Henry. What have you done with him!?”

         “He’s fine,” said Ed, not flummoxed. “Cut him off at the pass.”

         It was a new moon. She should have expected this behavior.  

         Edward’s eyes shone clear, from all the nights of losing his mind and searching for sobriety. He knew right from wrong, but preferred to skip between the two. His hair was copper brown and shaggy, not from any known intent but because he had other things to do than brush his hair. She had twisted her hands in it. They had been young lovers, when lovers was too dignified a word to describe what they did. His mouth on her neck, her hand digging into the front of his jeans, young, dumb, together.

         Then she had gone to LA, for dental hygienist school and to be by the ocean. Now she was back, to escape the hellish traffic. She was starting a new life for herself, had put a down payment on a house, thanks to granny’s money when she died.

         “What did you do to Henry,” she repeated.

         “Craig told me Dan overheard him at Mulligan’s, bragging about taking you out on a date. “  

         Henry was blonde and not capricious. He brought her lattes on Fridays and declined her offer to Venmo him in return. Edward made coffee like mud.

         She booted him in the calf with her slipper.

         “Ow,” he said. “I guess I deserved that.”

         “What are you going to feed me?” she asked, more from spite than wonder. “Henry was taking me out to dinner.”

         Ed whistled, like a cartoon, fingers between his teeth. 

         His hands she should not look at. They were calloused, from his job as an auto mechanic, and tan, from weekends spent trekking the Arizona outback.   

         Just then his dog, Tito, came trotting around the bushes, pulling a wagon. The wagon had pizza in it.

         “You didn’t,” she said.

         “Did. Tito insisted.”

         Tito, a golden retriever so opposite from his owner in temperament and moods, waggled his muzzle and waited for pets. She bent over to comply, cursing his owner for playing dirty. For involving Tito was playing very, very dirty.

         “I know you like olives,” Edward said. Then, raising a bottle, “and I brought whiskey.”

         “I don’t drink that stuff anymore,” said Anastasia, leading the way into the house, or rather, following Tito, who had found his favorite cushion.

It was on a couch that had once been in Edward’s grandma’s basement, when they were teenagers, and didn’t know any better than to spend hours watching movies, without touching. They had liked each other for ages, before senior year of high school, when they’d both had enough Jack Daniel’s to risk it. Risk kissing, which they did, on that couch, as a New Year’s party raged upstairs.

         “That couch’s where I first touched yer coochie,” said Edward, flicking his head toward Tito. “Not surprised he likes it.”

         He called it that to intentionally sound like a dick. He knew it turned her on. She blushed, and turned away. 

         She heard him putting the pizza box on the table as she reached for her adaptogens, in the tea cupboard. It was a mushroom blend she had splurged for at Target, non-psychedelic. It was supposed to make her calmer.

         When she returned to the table, he had folded all six-feet-seven-inches of himself onto the plain wooden chair. Ed was the kind of tall that was awkward.

         “Can I have some?” he asked, nodding toward her mug.

         “I thought you were drinking whiskey.”

         “I was,” he replied. “Can’t drink alone.”

         She made him a mug of the adaptogen blend, even though she knew he’d hate it. It was comical watching him grimace as he sipped. She wanted to burst out laughing, but suppressed the urge.

         They began eating the pizza in silence. She didn’t bother with plates.

         “Seriously,” she said, after her first slice was through. “What happened to Henry?”

         “Flat tire,” he said, sounding menacing.

         “You didn’t.”

         “Like I said. Cut him off at the pass. Nothing more to it.” 

         Anastasia lived at the end of a single lane road that divided suburb from country. Edward drove a big truck.

         “Why are you such a piece of shit?” she asked, reaching for another slice of pizza.

         “Mom says I was born this way.”

         He seemed nonplussed. He always seemed nonplussed, in his string bean body, with his floppy dick. Not that it was always floppy. She had seen it limp, though, and once a woman sees a man’s penis limp, she can never unsee such a hapless atrocity. This made her bite back a grin, remembering. Edward grimaced through another sip.

         “Did you wear this for him?” Edward asked, licking his fingers and nodding at her outfit.

         Anastasia was wearing a velour, lavender lounge set that she’d picked up from Target. Henry was meant to take her to a taco stand, then a drive-in movie. It was supposed to be a cuddly night.

         Edward drained his mug of tea, refilling it with whiskey.

         “Thought you weren’t gonna drink alone,” she said.   

         “You drive me crazy.”

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