Monday, January 16, 2017

BAD FICTION AND DIRTY LAUNDRY: THE SEX, THE BELL, THE BED



By Grant McGee

            Tyler and the guys were hanging out at the bar after work.  There were “Happy Hour” prices and fried munchies like popcorn shrimp and stuff.
            Tyler was enjoying a dark rum mojito and shooting the breeze with Bob the office manager.
            “This reminds me of my days in Denver,” said Tyler.  “Going to the bar after work.  I had to get out of there though, had a nutzo ex-girlfriend.  But man, was she good in the sack.  And noisy?  I think the whole apartment complex used to know we were going at it.”
            “That’s nothing,” said Bob.  “I used to live above a woman who had a ship’s bell hanging over her headboard.  Every time she had an orgasm she’d ring that thing like she was calling the crew for dinner.”
            “A bell?” asked Tyler.  “Over her headboard?  Why would someone do that?”
            Bob stared at Tyler for a few moments then turned and walked away laughing. 
            Tyler was intrigued.  A ship’s bell above the headboard.  It sounded pretty cool.  There you’d be in orgasmic throes and then “CLANG!  CLANG!  CLANG!”  Tyler hurried home to tell the wife about this one.
            “What would you say if we put a big bell over the headboard of the bed?” Tyler asked his wife over dinner.
            She froze, stared at Tyler with a hunk of food in her cheek and raised her eyebrows.
“What?” she asked, kind of mumbly because her mouth was full.
            “Yeah,” Tyler went on.  “And every time you have a ‘Big O’ you’d grab the bell’s rope and ring that thing.”
            “Have you been watching porn again?”
            “No, it’s something Bob told me.  He lived above a woman who had a bell…”
            She held up her hand to stop Tyler’s talking then swallowed her food.
            “He’s kidding,” she said.
            “Nooo.”
            “It’s a figurative way of describing a neighbor who is really loud when they have sex.”
            “I don’t believe it.”
            “Think about it,” she said. “When someone’s having an orgasm are they going to reach up, grab some string and ring a bell?  No, dear, there’ll be no bell over our bed.”
            That night as Tyler lay next to his sleeping wife he thought about sex. 
Tyler thought about The Sex a lot.
Tyler thought about sex and apartment living and wondered why anyone would put a bell in over their bed in the first place.  Tyler still thought the bell thing must be true, why make it up?  But really, why put in a bell?  Neighbors can hear everything anyway.
Tyler remembered that couple in the duplex in Amarillo who rhythmically banged on one of the walls.  It happened during the day so for the longest time Tyler thought they were hanging pictures, you know, hammering in a nail, hanging a picture.  With all the banging Tyler imagined their walls being full of pictures.  After about the third session Tyler realized what was going on.
Then there was the old apartment building where he lived in Phoenix and the neighbors who just sounded like some kind of bread kneading machine when they were “at it.”  A slow, steady, rhythmic thumping against Tyler’s kitchen wall.  There were times he wanted to pound on that wall and yell, “DANG, Y’ALL.  PUT SOME PASSION INTO IT!”
            The next day Tyler stopped Bob in the hall at work.
            “The bell over the headboard,” said Tyler.
            Bob started laughing so hard he turned red.
            “Is that just a metaphor for woman who is really loud when she’s having The Sex?”
            Bob nodded his head up and down as tears started to run down his red cheeks.  He had trouble catching his breath as he laughed on down the hallway.
            Tyler still thought it was a pretty cool idea.
            He thought when he got home at the end of the day he’d bring it up to the wife again.
            Maybe she’ll change her mind.

-30-

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