Single Player: Humor, Love, Breast Cancer and a Gaming Girl... (6 page)

“See you on the battlefield, maggots,” I shout into my headset as my estrogen-fueled character charges into a raging testosterone battle, looking to take on the toughest and roughest of characters. The ensemble of guys in my headset laugh at my enthusiasm and it comforts me like that soft wool sweater of yesteryear.

After twenty minutes, the guys start bowing out of our epic battle one at a time and I’ve had just about enough of their quitting attitudes. I shout at the last guy, gamer-tag ‘
GamesWood’
, “What the hell? We’re just getting’ going here, am I right Wood? What’s the rush people?

“Look Panties. It’s Thursday night and some of us like to party. How would we ever get laid if we stayed in playing games every night? Not that you don’t sound totally hot but that’s not going to help my wood here (Seriously). Besides, don’t
you
ever need to get some?”

“Some of us can function without “
it”
you know. My panties will survive tonight firmly in place.” With a loud sigh I add as an afterthought, “What I really need is someone to walk my dog.” I don’t know why I let that slip out but thank those gaming gods that I did because my buddy
GamesWood
gives me a fantastic idea.

sex, I mean six

Twenty minutes later there’s a rap on the door and I’m so anxious about my plan not working that I forget my usual worry about having to talk to a stranger. It’s been a while. 

“Here we go, Master.  Let’s hope that for your sake this works, buddy.” He huffs into my hand, rubbing his muzzle against my sweaty palm as an outward sign of his K-9 support.

After the delivery man knocks for the second time I pull open the door, trying to control my trembling hands and heavy breathing. The leash is tethered to my left hand, hidden behind my back as my right one holds the door open for him to enter. He looks confused about the invitation but since I’m a harmless looking little girl he comes in holding the delicious smelling pizza out in front of him and asking with his facial expression alone ‘where do you want this?’

“Sorry, my dog here is desperate to go outside. You can just set that over there on the counter,” I say blathering along. “It’s been a few days since he’s had a walk on account of my foot here and I have to have him on his leash; otherwise he’s running out this door for a chance at peedom.” I pause to catch my breath and see the poor guy looks really concerned about my well being at the moment, as he should be. 

“Obviously I can’t go chasing him around the neighborhood in my current state (I cleverly put on an old walking cast that I had stored in my closet, and so far he’s buying my charade). Poor guy needs a walk but I just can’t manage. He’s been using that itty-bitty back yard for the last three days. Can you imagine?” This is working. I can see his wheels turning, so to add some emotional turmoil to my story I talk in my best puppy voice directly to Master’s sad face (who knew he was such a great actor?  Go Master!). 

“This poor guy just wants to go potty outside. Yes he does. You’re such a good boy. Mommy’s so, so sorry she’s such a klutz. I hope that one day you can forgive me buddy.” After that little show, I don’t even have to ask him. 

The pizza guy bestows pity on us both and decidedly takes the leash from my hand, wraps it around his own like he’s done this before and says, “I have a lab myself and he’d die if he couldn’t get a walk. Let me,” he’s already through the living room and to the front door when I ask again to show how considerate I am.

“Are you sure? I mean… thanks. Gosh, that’d be swell.”  Gosh? Swell? What am I? A 1950’s sitcom character? Then before he gets suspicious of my weird behavior I slap a twenty into his palm to cover both the pizza and the tip and move out of his way.

He looks at me a little funny (again, as he should) but covers with a sincere smile and slips out of the house with one very excited dog who’s ready to do his business out in the freedom of the great beyond. He’s off to smell the pee-mail from around the neighborhood. What a lucky guy. 

Since I know Master Chief loves a good dance party I decide to put on some of his favorite music, (again, the doggy telepathy). I search through my playlist titled ‘awesome jams’ and come across the one he’s been most excited by lately.
Let the Groove Get In
by Justin Timberlake floats out through my awesome surround sound and this party just officially got started. The thought has occurred to me more than once that if I could just go through life dancing all the time maybe I’d be able to go outside again.  Apparently, that is frowned upon by society as a whole because Ashton says if I do that, people will think I’m losing it. Joke’s on him, though. That’s already happening.  Or wait!  Is the joke on me?

I’m fully engrossed in my jam, trying to moonwalk (here I’d like you to please put the emphasis on trying) when the front door crashes open. Embarrassed that I’ve been caught in my most vulnerable dance move, I look up to apologize to the poor pizza guy and instead see the one person I’ve needed to see for the past couple of days standing there looking at me wearing his trademarked, ridiculously cute smirk that he knows I love on his pretty little over-sexed face. We start talking at the same time.

“Hi you. Saw my buddy here with the pizza guy and,” he stammers holding up Master’s leash.

While I lead with, “I want your sex.” Yep, I’m an idiot, but seriously, thanks for the inspiration George Michael.

His face freezes in shock while his lips look like they’re trying - and failing - to make words. His mouth keeps opening and closing continually, but there’s nothing but air making its way out. And now on top of the weird fish face he’s got going on, his eyes are blinking unnaturally fast. I’m starting to think that maybe he was chewing gum and now he’s choking on it so I say, “Are you choking?” while giving him the universal sign for choking with my hands crossed at my throat. Still…nothing! Oh My GOD!  HE’S CHOKING!

I run over, circle my small arms around his large frame and am about to start Heimliching him to within an inch of his under-oxygenated life when he starts laughing. You heard me… LAUGHING!  .

“WHAT?” I yell at him while simultaneously smacking him really, really,
really
hard, especially for someone so petite. I am now trying to hurt him. A minute ago, I couldn’t stand the thought of him dead. Now I want to personally kill him. 

“NOT FUNNY!” I shout, then I push him once more for good measure and harrumph over to the kitchen counter where the pizza box is.  Master, the traitor that he is, sits at Ash’s feet and looks up at him with a face showing nothing but adoration mixed with the extreme gratefulness he feels for having him home. Home my butt Master, show some damn loyalty.

“Are you done having your hissy fit yet little girl?”  Now he’s walking towards me with his arms held up in surrender, a look of imaginary fear etched across his gorgeous face. No, ugly. Ugly face is what I meant. Then he does what he’s always done after we’ve had any kind of fight or disagreement. He puts his big hands on either side of my cheeks, adding just the right amount of pressure to let me know he’s not backing down, stares into my big blue eyes with his beautiful golden ones and says, “Forgive me.” He doesn’t ask. Not Ever.  He just tells me.  You forgive me, reminding me of The Pact that we made when we were kids. 

***

Ashton’s been in a real bad mood today and my just-turned-eight-year-old self doesn’t know what I can do to make him feel better. I suggest all of our favorite go-to activities, especially the ones I know he likes best. First, we ride bikes even though I don’t really like that as much as he does. Then I suggest we play Guitar Hero, he loves Guitar Hero because I suck and he kicks my butt every time, but today that doesn’t even make him feel any better. I got it, we can play doctor. He thinks it’s hysterical when I look into his eyes using my pretend eye scope, while wearing my practiced and very serious doctors expression and say silly stuff like, “Wow, look at that? You have poop for brains.  That explains so much.” 

He agrees to my game and as I begin to write out a prescription on my Hello Kitty notepad for the treatment of poo for brains he jumps from the exam table(my bed) and runs over to my desk where he threatens to read my diary if I don’t change the diagnosis. 

Why I care if he sees inside my private thoughts is beyond me.  The only things he’d read are the stories about how I wish I had a mom like all of the other kids at school or that my best friend Ashton is the greatest person I know (that would be bad though because his head is way too big for that kind of compliment) and also, how my brother is a poopoo head. Clearly I like potty humor. There are a lot of poo references in my innermost, private thoughts.

Anyway, today is the day that I learn something bad about Ashton. Plastic stethoscope in hand I lift up his shirt in order to check out his heart and I see something really scary. There on his torso is a big, ugly bruise about the size of a football that circles around from the front of his ribcage to the middle of his small, thin back. He quickly pulls his Power Rangers t-shirt down but it’s too late I already saw the damage done to his small body. He stares at me with tears in his eyes and all I know is that I do not want my friend to cry. I know it would embarrass him for me to see him do that. He always says crying is for sissies and he is decidedly not a sissy. He’s a total tough guy according to everyone in our second grade class, so I look down at the floor, respecting his vulnerable state, and I wait. 

Then, after a minute, I look up to see him staring into my big, glassy, blue eyes. He’s on the bed while I stand wearing my fake lab coat in front of him. Then I do it. I put my little hands on his soft, sad face and say very seriously, “forgive me.” I don’t ask. I tell him and he nods in confirmation and just does it. And so from this day forward, that’s what we will always do. We won’t beg, we won’t have to worry about any long drawn out explanations to one another because even though we are only eight years old we already know that no matter what the circumstances, we will never hurt each other intentionally, not… EVER. So, if one of us says “sorry,” it is true… no questions asked. I’m sorry I now know something that he doesn’t want me to know, but there is nothing I can do about that. There are no take-backs.

It only takes me a little while to figure out that his dad is the person responsible for these bruises. As time passes I also realize that it happens on a pretty regular basis and not only to him but to his mom as well. Once I become privy to this information, it’s pretty rough on our young friendship because I can’t help myself from  begging him to please tell someone, I can’t stand to see him hurt.  At school they tell us that if someone is bullying you, you should tell, but he won’t.  He says, “My mom says we can’t ever tell because if we do, he’ll leave us and then we’ll be homeless.  So please don’t tell CeeCee.  Please, just don’t.” So, I don’t.

At eight, almost nine, you only know that you don’t want your friend and his mom to be alone and homeless so you do it, you stay quiet, and it’s just so bad. Sometimes after a really awful night with his father he climbs into my bedroom window while I’m asleep and crawls into bed next to me.  He trembles all over with fear or maybe it’s shock racing through his small veins after a particularly bad night in his seemingly happy home. I wake up when I feel him next to me and see if he needs any medicine or maybe a Band-aid and then I do what I know I’d want done for me. I hold him the way I always wish a mom would hold me when I’m feeling sad. Then we fall asleep curled around each other, knowing that no matter what, we’ll always protect the other. Even if the only thing we can protect is the other’s feelings.

***

So, here we are years later and he’s still trying to protect my feelings. Unfortunately I sense that his protecting me is beginning to change us, hurt us, and I don’t know how to fix it. Right now I only know one thing for sure and that is tonight, on a very human and base level, I need him. Like the way a woman
needs
a man. It’s an internal and pulsating need that I’ve never felt for anyone before and I’m both terrified and expectant. I’m Terrectant or… Expified! Period, shmeriod.  Maybe I’m just ovulating.

The “it” in question is big for me since everyone in the room knows that I’ve never done “it” before. Ashton has always known this bit of private information about my, wait for it… Privates (I’m channeling a twelve-year-old boy apparently.  Sorry.) and always thought that the doing of the “it” would be a great and healthy treatment plan for my inner demons (he also thinks “it” could solve every possible world problem so I don’t take a whole lot of stock in his opinion on the matter). 

I have no clue how to approach the doing part of the night or what he’ll even think of me for being so crass about the whole thing to begin with, but we’re about to find out.  Here goes nothing.

“I heard you, you know? On the phone the other night, with that girl, having S… E… X,” I really did just spell that out, too embarrassed to say the word again. Maybe I shouldn’t do “it” if I still can’t even say “it” without referencing old George Michael songs. He waits, knowing me well enough to know that I’m not done talking yet; I’m working stuff out aloud. He knows my word rhythm. 

“Anyway, I was pretty upset and I didn’t know why. I still am not confident in the why but I have figured out one thing for sure. I would very much like to feel the things that girl felt and since I don’t know any other boys and you obviously know how to make a woman feel, you know, like that…” Then I stop and look up at him from behind hooded, shy eyes and he’s not laughing anymore.  He’s completely thrown off guard and I’m not used to him being stunned. He’s always so damn self-assured and confident, bordering on arrogant. Yet, somehow right now he looks completely mystified with how to handle what I’ve just suggested he… we… do.

“To clear this up for me, you just said, ‘you want me to do “it” to you? Did I get that right?” He’s still looking at me like a deer caught in headlights but he nailed it (pretty please), so I just nod my head in tacit approval of his perfect summation.

“Why now Cee? I don’t get it?” 

He looks completely at a loss for words and starts pacing my small home while rambling on, which is a real change of positions for us. 

“You’ve kissed me a total of one time and then proceeded to barf on me. You’ve seen me naked… a lot. I’ve seen you naked… a lot. Even though it’s usually only when you’re sick. You’ve peed on me, near me, around me, and in front of me on more than one occasion.” He’s on a roll now, hands flying around in exasperation. “All the while you’ve only ever wanted to be friends, best friends, no strings attached. You think I’m a man whore, called me out for having STD’s, regularly I might add…”   Then he just plops down on the couch, a look of utter confusion mooring his striking face. Master walks over and nudges Ashton’s hand with his big squared-off head and then lays down to patiently wait for the scratch that he knows will follow, and right on cue, it does.