61 Frames Per Second by John Constantine Today in Nerve's videogame blog: Street Fighter. The movie. A new one. With that chick from that Superman show. Don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about!
The Remote Island by Bryan Christian Mad Men's January Jones struts her stuff in Vanity Fair. Plus: Damages returns, the latest Gossip Girl guest star and Donna Martin capitulates.
"I have a boyfriend," said Mickey
as our conversation swerved from mildly flirtatious to brazen. This
wasn't news to me. I'd scoured her MySpace profile from top to bottom,
hoping to find a point of conversational entry, and stumbled upon a picture
of Derek: the guy she had been dating for four-and-a-half years and living
with for three. I was wondering when she would mention him. The declaration
came just as her body language suggested that she wanted to be kissed.
I had already bought three rounds of PBR, and I was holding
out to see if buying a fourth would pay dividends. Mickey was one week into a
monthlong vacation in Manhattan, leaving Derek in their rented house in the
Florida panhandle. We'd emailed back and forth for weeks before
her visit, but tonight was the first time we'd met face to face.
"I know you do," I said without breaking eye
contact. I read her statement not as an order to cease and desist but as a dare.
She seemed to teeter at the point of no return for several moments before grabbing
my face and kissing me hard, knocking my drink into my lap in the process.
promotion
Before this precise moment, I'd taken a very dim view
of infidelity. My less-than-positive self-image meant that I always sympathized
with the cuckold in these situations. Since I got my first girlfriend ten years
ago, I've been so terrified of being cheated on that I made a karmic vow never
to step out on anyone. But now I found myself in the unlikely position of being
the other man and, to my surprise, I was reveling in it.
We were at Sophie's, a dive bar next to the minuscule
apartment where Mickey and her friends were bunking. It was four in the morning,
and we were being asked to leave. Mickey had been drinking for an hour or two
before I'd met up with her and was slightly the worse for wear.
"Let me walk you back to where you're staying," I
said.
"I'm not tired," she said. "I still want to hang out with you.
I want to see where you live."
Could it be? Was I really just minutes away from fucking
somebody else's girlfriend? Summer had just begun, and the day's heat radiated
from every surface as we walked the nine blocks up Avenue B. As luck would have
it, I'd left my ancient air conditioner on, hours earlier; I congratulated myself
as we walked into the welcome chill of my third-floor walk-up. We made out on
my couch for a while before I carried her into the bedroom and threw her onto
the mattress, provoking a squeal of girlish excitement that I'd like to think
emanated from her.
I'd decided that I liked Mickey long before this point.
I've often been guilty of liking people too much, too soon, but not like this.
Superficially at least, she was everything I looked for: sweet, easygoing,
funny. I'd been the male usurper for mere
I reached underneath her short denim skirt and found her modest
cotton underwear soaked through. "We can't," she said. "I have a boyfriend."
minutes, and already I wanted to be
her boyfriend. I reached underneath her short denim skirt and found her modest
cotton underwear soaked through. I slid them down her legs.
"No." she said. "We can't. I have a boyfriend."
I made an attempt at masking my disappointment and kissed
her on the forehead before we passed out cold.
I awoke some ninety minutes later. Mickey was frantically
trying to locate her underwear. The friends she was staying with were also friends
of Derek and she wanted to get back to the house before they awoke and started
asking questions. Having no idea where that house happened to be, she asked if
I'd walk her back.
"Nobody would believe I just did that," she
said. "Everyone thinks that Derek and I are the perfect couple. They think
we'll get married."
"Do you?" I asked.
"I don't know anymore," she said before offering
several anecdotes that painted a picture of a fairly decent, charming and affable
but flawed and ultimately selfish man. Though my commentary was peppered with
disbelief at his narcissistic and inattentive behavior — what do you mean
he forgot your birthday? What do you mean he doesn't take you anywhere nice?
What do you mean you're only having sex about once a week? — the vast majority
of my exes might describe me as similar, though probably worse.
Yet her demeanor suggested I still had a chance. When
Mickey called me to hang out a week later, I made a conscious effort to become
the anti-Derek. I was fun, spontaneous, chivalrous, gregarious, generous.
Mickey had never seen Times Square before, so before I could think about it too
hard we were sipping $20 cocktails in a revolving glass restaurant next to
a couple from Omaha in matching American flag T-shirts. More booze? Sure! Watch
the man pretending to be a statue for twenty minutes? You're the boss! A horse
and buggy ride in the park? Why the heck not?
As we stumbled home, her cellphone rang. "Shit," she
said. "It's him. I really have to take this. Sorry."
I smiled and kept walking.
It was nice to hear that she had chosen me, of all people,
to puncture the sanctity of a relationship that had lasted five times longer
than anything I'd experienced.
"Hey baby!" she sounded genuinely excited to hear from him. "Just
out with friends. Huh? Oh baby, I miss you too." I perched myself on a stoop
out of earshot. The situation made me shudder to think about the times that I could
have been in his position. I felt bad for him, but the feeling was fleeting. If
his call had served to snap Mickey back into a faithful mindset, I'd be the one
deserving pity. But it seemed to do just the opposite.
"Let's get another drink, then go back to your house!" she
trilled, pulling me into a bar.
I didn't want to jinx things, but I found myself compelled
to ask her how things were going with their relationship, if only to get a better
sense of why people do this to one another.
"I'm not really sure anymore," she said. "I've
been crazy about him since the day that I met him, but now I don't know if we'll be together forever. I used to be so sure. I want you to know
that I've never cheated on him before. I love him."
It was nice to hear that she had chosen me, of all people,
to puncture the sanctity of a relationship that had lasted five times longer
than anything I'd experienced, though in my inebriated state I didn't dare to
take full credit. Two beers later, I had trouble putting one foot in front of
the other. Eventually, we made it back to my place.
"Just so you know, we're not going to have sex," Mickey
said as I struggled to put my key in the door.
We immediately fell onto the bed. Shortly afterward
we were naked and going down on each other furiously. She in particular was doing
a sterling turn, eventually straddling me and rubbing the tip of my penis against
her clit.
"Um, should I grab a condom?" I asked.
"No, silly," she said. "I told you that
we weren't going to have sex."
"Well what difference does it make now?" I
said as she shifted positions.
"This is bad enough," she said before playing
my shaft like a harmonica. "But actually having sex would be . . . you know
. . . crossing a line."
I struggled to follow the logic. "Look, that line
was crossed some time ago," I said desperately. "Only sucking me off
doesn't make you a better girlfriend. It's a technicality! Derek won't draw the
distinction."
"Yeah, but I do!" she said suddenly using more
spit and elbow grease to usher in an explosive finale.
We lay there in silence.
