Too Much TV

I'd only met Jojo once- at a party hosted by Dr. Nigel Funaki, Professor of Histrionics on extended leave from Harvard to promote his book on the socio-political aspects of bondage. In his revisionist eyes, there were two kinds of people in the world- those dishing it out and those asking for it.

It was a terribly boring party, mainly because the Doc's brilliant jabberwocky was no match for his catering. The entire buffet table consisted of jellybeans, pretzels, underdone toast, unbuttered popcorn and a big punchbowl of steaming sticky white rice. Renowned as the biggest cheapskate in American academia, he put two dozen dixie cups next to the bathroom sink and called it an open bar.

Jojo was a haggish white woman with wiry red hair and a north Atlantic brogue like Mr. Scott from Star Trek. I only spoke to her briefly, but after I came back from the package store, she caught me dumping a twelve pack of Heineken in the refrigerator.

"Gimme one of those." she said.
"I give you one, everybody'll want one."
"So what? There's eleven people here."
"I don't give anything away- what you got to trade?"
"Trade?" she said, "What I look like, a ruddy pilgrim?"
"No trade, no brew."

She looked at me, nodding slightly. She looked around the kitchen to make sure the cost was clear. She stepped into the pantry and hiked up her gabardine skirt and yanked her black French cut panties to her knees. She carefully stepped out of them and tossed them to me.

"All I got on me."
I smiled. "We'll consider this a down payment."

That was about a month ago. Since then Jojo and I tied up the phone lines muttering lewd things in a kind of pornographic pissing contest. She's bragged on and on about how she's been into kinky freak-freak with guys, girls, latex toys, even a giant quartz crystal. I don't know if she was lying or not, but it didn't matter- it was the only sex left that couldn't kill you and it was better than television.

Most of the time she called me while she was petting her kitty and I was happy to do it to her in her earhole- the exhibitionist in me hoped my phone was tapped.

But the other night she pissed me off. In the middle of my DeSade-like rap, she stops me and says "hold on". I'm stiffer that northern New England and the cow puts me on hold! I hung up the phone and brought the rapture onto myself. Rapture like that always leaves me hungry, so I got up and went into the kitchen. I stood up in front of my open refrigerator naked and famished.

All that was left were two old franks and the butt ends of a loaf of Wonder Bread. I put the dogs on to boil and dropped the bread in the toaster. If Jah was on my side, the phone would be silent until I was finished cooking.

I took out the dogs, dropped them on the barely toasted bread and squeezed two lines of ketchup on each of them.
As soon I bit into one, the phone rang. I chewed listening to the phone ring four times.
"Yeah, hello?" I said.
"Sorry baby," Jojo said, "it was work about my schedule. So you were saying?"
"I was saying?"
"You were saying slow and deep, a good groove, how there was nothing like it."
"Oh yeah...right. You lying on your bed?"
"Yeah."
"Still in that blue night shirt?"
"No, it's on the floor. I naked and I'm spreading my legs..."
"Mmmm, really?" I said. I took another bite of my hot dog.
"I want you baby."
"Mmm-Hmm."
"I'm touching it-" she whispered. There was a long silence. She purred a couple of times while I finished the first hot dog and got to the other one.
"Aren't you going to say something?"
"Mmmm. Just a sec-"
"Me? I'm-"
"You're not eating, are you?"
I swallowed hard. "Of course not-"
"Yes you are, Jesus Christ, I don't bleedin' beleive you!"
I took a big swig of icy Coca Cola and burped. "What's the problem?"
"I'm over here bare assed like some phone sex slut for your personal pleasure and you're eating a sandwich!"
"Hot dog."
"You are a bastard. What'd you do, get off while I was on the phone?"
"Time waits for no one."
"You've totally blown my mood, you know that. I swear, the next time I see you I'm gonna stab you in the eye with a pencil-"
"You're the one with the sex toys. You got more than enough help over there-"
She hung up after that. I wrote a note to myself to take Jojo a few flowers next week and stuck it to the refrigerator. Jojo was fun to hang out with, but too much sex was like too much TV- a debilitating habit that made you slow and stupid.
I went back to the bed, got in and turned the radio to the college station that played jazz.