Alan

Alan makes me desperate for him, like a ridiculous drug.

/ Daisy Danger / 4 Comments

He’s strung me along for years and I fall for it every time. Sometimes it’s a day before he calls again, sometimes it’s months. But when he does, I’m here, like always, an obedient, lovesick puppy.

We’re watching nothing in particular on TV, flicking through channels of game shows and sitcoms. He’s sprawled across the battered couch, I sit on the floor next to the couch, hoping he’ll make a move, but he doesn’t. He mostly ignores me, other than to occasionally ask me to grab him another Budweiser. Just when he senses I’ve had about enough and I’m ready to leave, he says “Wanna take a shower with me?”

Alan doesn’t really give me much choice, not that I would say no anyway. He takes my hand and leads me to the bathroom. The faucet squawks in protest as he turns the water on. It’s an old trailer home, so the bathtub is made of cheap molded blue plastic. The tile was white once, but it’s also cheap and it’s turned a tobacco stained yellow here and there. Every girl’s seduction fantasy backdrop, I’m sure, but it’s all I’ve got. Continue reading →

Ten stories about 20 years

/ Daisy Danger / 3 Comments

1. I’m twelve years old the first time I meet Alan. His best friend Cliff is my first boyfriend, my first kiss. We’re all in 7th grade. The three of us are inseparable. Cliff is tall and serious. Alan is his sidekick, too loud, too fat, too obnoxious, too-much-of-everything. Cliff and I will drift apart, but Alan will become the single thread that weaves in and out of my life for the next twenty years.

2. We’re sophomores in high school. I’m still in love with Cliff, even though we broke up in 8th grade. I lost my virginity at the beginning of the school year. I have a taste for sex now, and I want Cliff , he should have been the one I lost it with. Alan wants me. Alan is the only one of us with a car, and he refuses to pick me up unless I agree to fuck both of them. I fuck Alan first, just to shut him up, and the bed cracks. He pouts outside in the car while I give Cliff a blowjob, honking the horn and flashing the car lights on and off through the bedroom window. Next year Alan and Cliff will get in a terrible fight and never speak again, and neither one will ever tell me exactly what happened.

3. I’m downtown with my friends. We all look alike, big hair and tight jeans. We sneak sips of Southern Comfort from a can of Coke that we pass back and forth. There’s a party that’s supposed to be cool, so we go.  I immediately spot Alan. He’s lean. He looks shiny and muscular. He says he’s in the Air Force and he’s on leave. I can’t take my eyes off him. I follow him to the house where he’s staying, and we drink beer and play quarters with his buddies. I go outside for air and lay on the hammock, but I’m so drunk that I flip right off. Alan carries me upstairs and we fuck so loud that they crank up the stereo downstairs to drown us out. Continue reading →

It’s hour six

/ Daisy Danger / Leave a comment

…of my thirteen hour drive to Kansas City. It’s really a booty call, but I convince myself it’s love. I’ve known Alan since the first week of junior high. In high school he was always my second choice. I was in love with his best friend. Now I am obsessed and desperate. Alan’s learned to dangle the proverbial carrot, I fall for it every time.

I’ve driven to Fort Wayne, Terre Haute and Grand Rapids, to budget motels that advertise kitchenettes and weekly rentals. I pull in as the sun sets. We spend a weekend in a decrepit camper, stoned on pot and muscle relaxers. He’s beginning a bad alcohol habit, he sweats beer. The camper is cramped and smoky. A thunderstorm shakes the earth like a herd of running dinosaurs. He fucks me and I make love to him.

Alan will never tell me that he loves me until it’s too late. After this weekend he stops calling and moves away. I won’t see him again for ten years.