LatinosUSA

For our second date, Stuart offered to fix lunch at his house. We sat around listening to his impressive stereo array. Stuart boasted that he spent $1,500 on his enormous JBL speakers. After enjoying a couple of beers, I excused myself to go to the bathroom.

As I reentered the living room, Neil Diamond’s hit, “Girl, You’ll Be a Woman Soon,” was playing on Stuart’s stereo, the singer’s voice warbling through the refrigerator-sized stereo speakers. When Diamond sang, “…you’ll need a man,” I almost threw up. I made a finger down the throat gagging gesture.

Stuart subdued the music by remote and asked, “What?”

“A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle,” I quoted the latest pro-feminist barb.

Stuart frowned unhappily. “Diamond’s right,” he asserted. “A chick has to know her place.”

“Horseshit,” I offered in return.

“A woman–a real woman, needs a man, to fill her up.”

I laughed out loud.

“What are you,” Stuart demanded next, “a freaking lesbian?”

“So, what if I am? It wouldn’t make me any less female, would it?”

Stuart was nodding now. “That explains a lot,” he said.

“Perhaps it does,” I agreed. “It would explain why you would need a pop star to confirm your misogynistic screed of male dominance. You’re probably dedicated to the missionary position, am I right, Stu?” This was only our second date, and I really didn’t know what the hell I was talking about. I didn’t know Stuart well and was fast believing I didn’t want to. But the beer and the reefer we’d consumed loosened my tongue.

Stuart’s pretty face assumed an expression of offended superiority, and he remarked, “You’re only 20 years old, right, Suze?” I happened to know he was just one year older and arguably more experienced.

“Yeah, so?”

“Once you’ve lived a little more, then you’ll understand what you need,” he said smugly. “Want another beer?” he asked.

“Of course.” He retrieved the brews. “Thanks,” I said.

As he handed over the bottle of beer, he said, “You know, the beer bottle was invented by a woman.” His eyes twinkled as he ran his fingers down the brown cylinder.

I involuntarily rolled my eyes. “Ooh, Stu, can I have it now? Please, satisfy me with your…four inches.” I cackled.

His brows took on the aspect of a thundercloud. “Careful, Suze,” he warned, “don’t push me too far.”

“What,” I asked, “if I don’t take it like a woman, then you’ll take it like a man?” Stuart was pretty high and pretty drunk, and this was the first time in our brief friendship that I’d seen him this way. And it was becoming clear that he was a mean drunk.

In a heartbeat he was off the sofa, the beer and pretzels and reefer and other shit spilling onto the floor. I immediately came to my feet as well. He reached for my wrist and grabbed it. Effortlessly, I pulled it free and then socked him in the mouth.

Spitting out an incisor, he wrapped his fingers around my throat and applied heavy pressure. He was squeezing the life out of me. I gagged.

“Don’t have too much to say now, do you, bitch?” he taunted. With extreme effort, I reached out and seized my filled bottle of beer from the coffee table and conked him on the head. Stuart fell backwards onto the sofa. He was down for the count.

Tenderly massaging my neck, I wandered around the room, gathering my purse, my wrap, and his dope, and started for the door. I was grateful that I drove myself on this ill-fated date. Pausing for an instant, I advanced to the two huge JBL stereo speakers and kicked a big hole in each one with my size-6 red canvas Keds sneakers. Neil Diamond’s voice instantly became reduced to a whisper.

As I made my exit, I paused by Stuart’s inert form and said, “You know, Stuart, a woman doesn’t get an orgasm from shining the floor,” and I slipped through the door.