Big O Box Set

1

Consoling my best friend Stephanie has turned into a fulltime job. I feel for her, I do. It must suck to have every single boyfriend she’s ever had cheat on her. But when you’re only attracted to the bad boys, what do you expect? They don’t get those bad reputations by handing out flowers and writing love letters with words that make Hallmark cards seem like scribblings on the stalls of men’s bathrooms.

Stephanie and I go back and forth instant messaging each other. It’s been almost a month since the “incident” with her ex and yet it’s still all she talks about. I guess I’d feel the same way if I were her, but I’ve never stuck around relationships long enough to be cheated on. I’ve never connected with someone enough to care about what they do when I’m not around.

While she vents, I check out the latest Twitter gossip. There’s always someone saying the wrong thing while the internet crouches down like some creep in a back alley waiting to pounce. Sometimes it’s better than reality TV.

Stephanie: Why are guys such dicks?

Me: You’re asking the wrong person.

I switch over to Twitter again. Some D-list celebrity has finally made it back into the spotlight over some sexist remark and now suddenly, everyone is going insane. I’m glad nothing I post is worth talking about. Despite my five thousand followers, I doubt anyone would notice me even if I said something rude and offensive. Most people just follow me so I’ll follow them back, or because we live in the same town. It’s all so pointless, and damn entertaining at the same time.

Stephanie: Whats so wrong with me that all those fucker’s feel the need to be with someone else WHILE their still with me.

Her grammar is atrocious.

Me: There’s nothing wrong with you. You are amazing, and you can do so much better.

Stephanie: I’ll never find another guy like him again.

Dramatic as ever.

I roll my eyes. Me: Sure you will. If you sit in front of the jail long enough, the next love of your life will walk out of those doors any minute now.

Stephanie: Your not funny.

I smile at the bright screen.

Me: *you’re*.

Stephanie: I hate you.

I check out Twitter again. Things have quieted down for the most part, but I leave it open so I can check in from time to time.

Stephanie: I’m going to send you a picture.

Me: Of what?

Stephanie: My burning rash. Tell me if it looks infected.

Oh god. She’s my best friend and I love her to pieces, but sometimes I think we’ve grown too close.

I start to type back, begging her not to, but realize I was starting to reply in my Twitter-feed instead. I delete it and switch back to Instant Messenger. She already sent the photo. It pops up on my screen and I breathe a sigh of relief. The title says Infection, but it’s a picture of her ex and his new girlfriend.

Stephanie’s boyfriend isn’t great-looking, but he has a nice body and never seems to have trouble with the ladies. Stephanie thinks he looks like Ryan Gosling. Maybe if you squint hard enough and put a picture of Ryan Gosling in front of his face there might be some resemblance. The new girlfriend, on the other hand, is stunning. Long blond hair, perfect boobs, shapely legs in a short skirt. Of course I don’t tell Stephanie that.

Me: She’s gangrene.

Because that’s what good friends do.

Stephanie: I’m mostly pissed about the sex though. He was AMAZING in the sack. It was like NASCAR up in our bed. Zero to Fuck Yea! in five minutes flat.

I cringe while picturing his face in the throes of an orgasm, those bulging eyes, balmy skin no matter the weather.

Me: You’re lucky.

Stephanie: How so?

I can’t believe I’m about to admit this to the person with the biggest mouth, but maybe it will make her feel better.

Me: What I’m about to tell you better never fucking

leave this space.

Stephanie: And you’re the one always calling me overly dramatic.

Me: I’m serious. If you don’t make me a promise, I won’t tell you.

Stephanie: Fine. I promise.

Pop-up ads fill my screen, slowing down my computer. I click out of them before I reply.

Me: I’ve never actually had a guy give me an orgasm before.

I’ve never told her that. I probably should’ve kept it to myself. The longer I sit with the thought, the more I start to regret telling her.

I wait for her to say something about it—freak out, more like it. It’s not the type of confession Stephanie will just let go.

One minute goes by, then two, and still nothing. Maybe she’s too busy rolling around on the floor, laughing.

Fuck. Now I’m really regretting it. Stephanie and I tell each other some personal shit, but this might be over the line. This has potential to become an anvil she’ll hold over my head for the rest of my life. A pointed weapon she can jab me with whenever she feels the need to entertain herself.

While I wait for her to reply, I turn up the music on my iPod and go through my Christmas list, checking off the gifts I’ve already bought and the ones I still need to buy. Stephanie has been taken care of. She’s the easiest to shop for. Sex toys all the way now that she’s living the single life again—and perhaps, after my admission, a ball gag. The list seems to go on forever. I need to get something for my boss. The Christmas party is coming up soon and I haven’t gotten anything for anyone at work yet. I’m such a procrastinator. If I wait any longer, I’ll be fighting the Christmas Eve crowds in stores I would never shop at otherwise.

My eyelids grow heavy and I catch myself starting to doze off. I can’t nap right now. There’s too much to do, so I get up off my bed in my PJs and thick socks, and go into the kitchen for some caffeine. Once I’ve made my coffee and get something to eat, I look out the window.

Such a beautiful winter evening. The sun is starting to set, casting everything in a gray-blue shadow. A perfect layer of fresh snow on the ground, unmarred by the scurry of busy feet. Winter is my favorite time of year for pumpkin and chestnut flavored things, for reading beside the fireplace, and wearing all my cute scarves and boots. I’d love to just sit around the apartment all day, every day, doing nothing—like I did today.

I take my coffee and go back to my room where my fluffy feather comforter is in a ball on my mattress and last night’s clothes lay scattered across the floor. I never bother to clean on my days off.

The light on my phone is flashing on my bedside table. Picking it up and swiping to reveal my home screen, I see that there are several texts from Stephanie and an equal amount of missed calls. What the hell? I was gone fifteen, maybe twenty minutes. She never calls me unless there’s a dire emergency.

Suddenly I’m thinking car wreck. Please tell me she wasn’t messaging and driving. Especially in the evening when the temperature begins to dip and streets ice up. I worry about that girl sometimes and her bad decisions, but I don’t think she would be that thick-headed.

She didn’t leave a voice mail, so I check my texts. There are five of them and they all say the same thing: Check your freakin computer, damn it!

I frown at the screen. If she were hurt, she would’ve said so. My relief is subdued by the annoyance pricking my nerves. This is too needy, even for her.

I glance at my computer where my Instant Messenger is closed. Weird. I don’t remember closing it. I just sent her a message before I got up. I open the app and see her frantic words in all caps.

HOLY SHIT. LOOK AT TWITTER.

Really? Is whatever’s happening on Twitter worth scaring the shit out of me with all those phone calls? Figuring she’s following the same story I was, I go to Twitter—which I thought I closed along with the pop-ups, but apparently didn’t—and see that I have over three hundred ‘likes’ and one thousand shares.

Shares? I haven’t posted anything recently, not since announcing the coming snow storm in the local forum, which, obviously has already happened. Not exactly a post newsworthy enough for likes, and definitely not for shares. All you’d have to do was turn on the news for that kind of info anyways.

I look at my previous posts to see what’s going on and my stomach lurches. Suddenly the room is too hot. My feet are burning inside my comfy socks, socks that aren’t feeling so comfy at the moment.

Instead of sending the message about my orgasm—or lack thereof—to Stephanie on Instant Messenger, I sent it to my Twitter feed. A very public Twitter feed. To my five thousand followers—three thousand who live in my very town. I guess I’m no longer invisible to them after all. My omission is displayed like some lewd flasher in the mall, exposing myself.

What. The fuck.

My phone rings. I pick it up. Stephanie’s voice on the other end, high and frantic: “You are punk as fuck,” she says in her high, brassy excited voice. “I can’t believe you just told the entire Twitterverse about your bedroom tragedy after you swore me to secrecy. I thought you didn’t want anyone to know. Doesn’t everyone we went to high school with follow you in the local forum?” She doesn’t stop talking long enough for me to reply. “You’re seriously my hero.”

At first I just stare at the computer screen, my mind spinning in circles. Finally, I find my voice. It comes out meek, scared. “I didn’t mean to.” I clear my throat, and when I speak again it’s less pathetic. “That was meant to be a private message to you! I can just delete it, right? Pretend it didn’t happen.”

Stephanie can’t hold back her laughter, even though I know she hears the distress in my voice. She’s probably thinking, ‘better you than me.’ Actually, I doubt she would care if it were her. Most likely she’d find her own admission funny too. She would love all the attention. Sometimes I wish I were more like her.

“Deleting it would be a little obvious, don’t you think?” she says. “Leave it. That way, if people think you did it on purpose, you’ll seem like some kind of rebel. You know, fuck the world. Like some brave bloggeress who’s confident enough to tell the world about her sad vagina.”

Jesus Christ. I’m so fucked.

The shares and ‘likes’ just keep multiplying until one thousand becomes two and I’m thinking of different haircuts and disguises I can use to change my identity. I will be Callista no more. Maybe I’ll change my name to something more timeless, more old Hollywood, like Maude, or Betty. Or how about something exotic? Angelica, or Mariana.

“How the hell am I getting so many shares?” I demand. It’s not like I’m some celebrity or something. I’m just nobody trying to figure out what the fuck I’m supposed to buy my friends and family for Christmas.

“People have no lives,” Stephanie says. “It’s cold as shit outside and everyone is sitting around their computers like zombies, shopping online and checking out the WhatTheFuckery happening on Twitter. Like us.”

My computer chimes.

“Oh, God, here we go,” I say, my heart seizing. “I just got a private message on Twitter.”

Her laughter rings in my ears. “Read it.”

I don’t want to read it. I want to delete it without even opening it. People are bold on the internet. They say hurtful, horrible things and don’t care who it’s aimed at. They don’t stop to think that there’s a living, breathing human being on the other side of their insults. I don’t want my Christmas to be ruined by hateful trolls.

I stare at the little envelope icon with the red dot next to it, wondering what to do next. If I delete it, I’ll always be wondering what it said. Whatever it says, I can handle it. I’m sure I’m not the only girl in the world who’s never had a guy give her an orgasm before, right? I mean, that’s not my fault.

Or maybe it is.

Doubt starts to wriggle its way inside my head until I’m wondering if maybe it’s me. Maybe there is something wrong with my body and it was never the fault of the guys I’ve been with—even if most of them seemed to be fumb

ling idiots in the sack with no clue as to the workings of female anatomy.

I’ve had plenty of men brag about their sexual prowess before having sex with me, only to give it their all and come out defeated. My vagina is oh-for-none. Men come to play, and leave with their tails tucked forlornly between their legs. I used to fake orgasms to give them a boost of confidence, like a participation trophy. The older I get the less patience I have. You either play to win or get the fuck off my field.

Ugh. Okay, enough of the sports analogies.

I look at the envelope icon again and decide, fuck it. Whatever it says, I can handle it. Can’t be worse than it already is. I’m far too curious not to read it anyways.