You First: A Joe Goldberg Prequel (You, #0)(46)

“Baby, what happened to you?”

I am not a loser, baby, or you wouldn’t call me baby. I tell you that I’m sorry. I tell you that I should’ve been there, at the coffee shop, and you tell me that doesn’t matter.

“My God, Joe. What happened to you, baby?”

Dick clocks me and I do it. I build me up, buttercup, and spin a yarn about a fight with a junkie who was trying to mug a little old lady. And it’s just like Dick said. You believe! You call me a hero and take me in your arms and there is no other place I’d rather be.

“Baby,” you say. “I mean, I knew something was wrong…. It’s not like you to bail on me and I don’t know what happened, but I just…Oh, you poor thing. Let’s clean you up.”

You want to lick my wounds after all and we weave our way through the sticky cauldron of Cynthias and Vaginas. Seduce and Destroy. D-Day is V-Day! It was all real. You lead me into the bathroom, and the bathroom has a door that closes, a door that locks.

“God,” you say. “I’m so bad right now, but fuck it. I missed you, baby.”

You drop to your knees and go to town on my belt. You tell me that it killed you, waiting for me in the Beanery. My buddy Dick said I might be out tonight, so you came and I owe that guy a beer and you unzip me. POW! My jeans hit the floor and you’re on the floor and the Bowie is blurry, and your mouth is wet. The thing with feathers. Hope. You take me between your lips, and Little Miss Tongue goes up and down, fast and slow. Tawna Birch in fourth grade eating a cone by a Mister Softee truck; my first hard-on, maybe. You are Tawna, you are every woman I ever wanted, with all ten thousand of your hands digging into my legs and I am not a loser, baby, but yes. You are going to kill me.

I tug your hair. Mine. You look up at me. Mine.

You get back to business and the Bowie fades into light, white Philadelphia-based funk and you…Wait.

“Why did you stop?”

You wink at me and tear a wrapper with your teeth and really, Vail?! Are we doing it in here? Are we fucking? You hold up the little packet. It’s not a condom and you’re not Vagina, so why the fuck are you holding Pop Rocks?

“Pop Rocks?”

“Trust me,” you say. “It adds to the pleasure or something. It’s even in Cosmo this month. Not that I read that magazine, but Cynthia does, so we can thank her later. You ready?”

No, I’m not ready. It’s my Portnoy and you and your mouth are enough, same way I am enough. Am I?

“Can we just…You don’t need to do that.”

“Joe, come on. It’s fun. And I’m like drunk but not that bad. I know what I’m doing.”

I’m pretty sure the guy doesn’t get to tell the girl on her knees what to do, so I give you the go-ahead. You dump a few Pop Rocks onto Little Miss Tongue and you come for my Portnoy and it’s good it’s…Wait. That sound and that snap, like Snap, Crackle, and Pop are having a party on my fucking Portnoy and that’s my foreskin. My sensitive skin. The pain, the pain. You want this, you said I would like it, so I close my eyes and trust you like Miss Frascatore said to do and before you know it…Yes. The pain marries the pleasure and you…You…you, you…you make my dreams come true. I tell you I’m getting close, and you lap at my Portnoy like it’s an ice cream cone. I feel your hands urging me—Come, Joe, come—and I heed the call.

I come, Joe, come and I lose my mind in the good way. You ate me. You killed me. You own me. And then you…spit me out.





17


In 1983, Prince wrote about a girl who moves too fast. You know the song, Vail. Everyone knows the song. “Little Red Corvette.” The one where Prince concedes that he should’ve known a girl was trouble. There were signs. She parked her car like she was ready to run at any minute. She had a “pocketful of Trojans, some of them used.” Hint, hint. But Prince fell for her; he let her take him to “the place where the horses run free.”

That’s track number 1 on the mixtape I’m building for you. I’m camped out at the Beanery, and Dick has to stop teasing me. I’m not “stalking” you. It’s a free world and I like it here and he picks up the insert card of the Maxell jewel case.

“Pop Rocks,” he says. “Goldberg, no. You’re not making that chick a mixtape.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s Valentine’s Day and you’re alone in a coffee shop.”

“Well, I might see her later.”

“No, Goldberg. She spit and ran.”

I grab the damn liner notes out of his cynical fucking hands. “Don’t you have beans to grind, Dickwad?”

He nods. Nice. He respects me a bit more now, and okay. It’s true. Technically, you spit me out and bailed on me, but that’s why you need a Little Red Corvette. I’m not judging you for being fast. Hungry. The city turns pink and we all get a little hungry. And I hope you’re not judging me. Sure, you were tipsy, you turned into an astrology slut on spring break. But I let you put candy on my dick, so I kinda think we’re even. But we’re at a standstill. You can’t call me—you blew me in a bathroom—and I can’t call you—you spit me out on the floor. We both froze up. You stood there at the sink before you fled, washing your hands, avoiding your own eyes in the mirror. You said what girls say, what Dick says you all say.