Mr. Q

Published in the Spring 2017 issue of The Gambler Mag

June 18th 2007

I lose my virginity to Suzy in the basement. This isn't her first time, so she tells me what to do. The strands of her curly blonde hair bounce in unimaginable ways as we become one entity, coupled, in a manner that I previously could have never imagined. Afterward, euphoria comingles with confusion as I linger at the edge of sleep. We lay there in silence, until finally she decides to leave. Long after Suzy has retreated back to her stepfather's house down the street I drift off, not yet realizing that something's not right.

October 5th 2018

In a bed that is not my own, I rise, touring a modern apartment filled with leafy green plants, an abundance of right angles, and brightly colored acrylic paintings littered all over the floor. Before I have much time to contemplate where I am, I hear a loud buzzing coming from the nightstand back in the bedroom. I pick up the noisy rectangular device, realizing it is some kind of futuristic telephone, and answer a call from a beautiful woman named Cassandra whose picture is displayed to me in high definition.

That evening, Cassandra makes her way over to the apartment, her encapsulated flesh rocketed across the city at a ridiculous speed so she can greet me in the place I’ve come to understand is my home. I have not gone outside, but the television and the telephone have surprisingly informed me of far more than I feel I should know. Somehow, even though yesterday I was just seventeen, I am now twenty-eight.

Cassandra has been my girlfriend for one month, and as she tears off my clothes, I fear that a repetition of my pleasurable distress is about to overcome me once more. This is apparently the first time we’ve had sex, as she whispers how badly she’s wanted it. And while it is enjoyable, it ends too quickly. As she slips into a land of catapulting sheep, I grasp onto the corners of the bed as if I am Rose DeWitt Bukater, clinging to a piece of wood that will save me from drowning in the Atlantic. Is this repetition of love the very curse that my grandmother had warned me about? The riddles drag me into darkness, and I misplace myself in a reverie.

March 22nd 2064

My skin feels heavier than it ever has before, as if there are weights hanging from my earlobes, underneath my armpits, and in the cracks below my buttocks. I don’t open my eyes for fear of seeing who I have become. Time has melded its wicked ways upon me, devolving from the construct it had once strictly adhered to, delivering a mutation from which penetrative desires fall freely.

I touch my scalp, its dry coarseness shocking me as I discover I no longer have any hair. As my gasp emanates out from my lungs, I hear the throaty giggle of a woman breathe out in a singular, controlled tone, as if her response was planned before I was even conceived.

My eyes open then, and I see the woman I’ve married for the very first time. Unlike most human beings, my life no longer unfolds chronologically, but instead in an order all its own, arranged around the throes of love.

I assume I’ll be dying before long, as my seventy-four year old bones already seem to be decaying within the house that harbors them. Instead, my wife Rebecca climbs atop me and rides me like I’m a beached whale floating into an everlasting sunset. I scream as I ejaculate. I don’t even have to fall asleep this go around.

January 24th 2037

It is my 47th birthday, and Rebecca has made me a delicious dinner of chicken cordon bleu. The pinot noir gets us tipsy, and as we dance in the darkened candlelight to an old record she always adored, I pull her close up against my chest. I can feel the beat of her heart thrumming in such an unruly rhythm, her clammy palm so unexpectedly cold in mine.

The kids are both at sleepovers, so we don’t feel the need to be quiet once we finally make it to the bedroom. And as I look into her eyes, as we collide, the storm outside thrashes its madness, the leaves from the trees in the yard spiraling down. I don’t want to leave her, but I know the choice is not mine.

May 11th 2010

I ask Grandma what she meant when she told me a few years ago that certain men in our family were never beholden to time. She chortles and then shrieks, her head shaking back and forth as she seizes right there, in front of me.

I never get an answer.

That night, my college girlfriend Ashley wants to come and cuddle with me in my extra long twin size bed. She says she wants to console me since my grandmother just passed away. My roommate is home for the weekend and we have the space to ourselves.

I try to reject her advances, not wanting to leave this string of days quite yet, but I fail. It isn’t long before our bodies are nakedly aligned.

December 12th 2020

We only have a little over a month left of Donald Trump as our President, and I know I still have a tad more than two years before meeting Rebecca, so when Suzy calls me out of the blue and asks if she can come over, I oblige.

I haven’t seen her since high school, and she’s truly come into her own, a radiating eminence exuding from her pores. The lavender perfume she wears imprints itself upon my clavicle as she takes me to the space where she wants us to reside.

And her long curly blonde hair bounces in ways I never thought possible.