Chapter 6

Last night Donna got her nipple pierced. She did it to see if it hurt, the same reason she got her tongue pierced. Now we know: the tongue doesn't hurt, but the nipple definitely does. Of course, now her nipple itches and she can't scratch it, but at least she says her nipple is sensitive now, which it wasn't before. I guess it's difficult to have sensitive nipples when they're on the end of a pair of FF's. Once they get that big, the nerves tend to spread out so much you can't feel too much. Quite a shame, too, since I like breasts so much. She doesn't see any point in my even touching them since they're so insensitive. Maybe that will change now. If it does, it will have been worth the thirty-five dollars.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this, or how it has any relevance to this novel, since I don't see Sarah as having either a tongue or a nipple ring. Earrings, perhaps, but nothing so radical as a nipple ring. I was thinking about giving Michel an ex-girlfriend whom he's still living with when he's falling for Sarah, but I wasn't sure what she was like. I was thinking maybe she was into molecular biology, but giving her a pierced nipple would definitely add to her personality and explain why she and Michel didn't work out. Michel doesn't seem like the pierced-nipple type, though I can see how he could be attracted to a woman with one for a while, to see what she would be like. But I can also see why he would get tired of a woman that radical and independent, so full of self-expression. She would make Michel feel inferior, though that is exactly the kind of women Michel is attracted to: strong women who make him feel inferior. Maybe it helps drive his misogyny, though I'm still not sure why anyone would want to hang onto such outmoded thinking. Of course, I'm not sure why anyone would be prejudiced against anyone, but maybe that's me. I don't understand the kind of fear that leads to hatred, and maybe I shouldn't try to understand Michel's either.

But I want to get back to his neighbor, to this woman he will be living next to in the future. Maybe if we know something about where Michel is going, we can know more about where he's at. First, let's decide on his neighbor’s name. The first name comes to mind is Patricia, though I think everyone will call her Pat. She's a very attractive young woman, maybe twenty-six with an eleven-year-old daughter named Jessica, or Jessie for short. After that first mistake, she was always careful to use the pill, so she did not become pregnant again despite her extreme sexual activity. She slept with her friends and most of her neighbors, and didn’t care if they were male or female.

So it shouldn't surprise us that shortly after Michel moved in next door, they started having an affair. Her daughter was rarely in the house, always running around somewhere in the neighborhood, so it was easy for them to find the time to have sex. Michel found Pat attractive because she kept herself extremely thin, so thin her breasts disappeared when she lay on her back. She also kept herself shaved between her legs, and Michel was surprised to find how erotic this was. He had seen shaved women in porno magazines before, but to see a woman's shaved crotch live, there for him to touch and feel, was almost too much. It's not too much of an exaggeration to say if Michel wasn't writing or eating, he was next door, having sex with Pat.

This provides us with enough background information to get to the truly bizarre aspect of this relationship. One day, late afternoon, with only a few hours of sun left, after finishing a few chapters of his next novel, Michel was walking to Pat's, going from his back yard to hers. There were some shrubs between the two back yards, planted there by the previous owners, and Michel decided to push his way through them, since it would be faster than going around. When he was about halfway, he stopped. Jessie was kneeling in front of a man, easily in his early twenties. It looked so bizarre, seeing Jessie in her yellow shorts and pink top with little white lacy collar performing such an obscene task. Michel watched for a few seconds before deciding he needed to do something. Michel leaped out of the bushes. The man opened his eyes in shock as Jessie turned to see who it was. The man turned and ran off, zipping his pants as he dashed away. Jessie struggled to her feet, hoping to get away from Michel. He grabbed her by the blouse, and said, "What do you think you're doing?"

"None of your damn business!"

"Where'd you learn to talk like that?" Michel was suddenly hit by the irony of his statement, and followed with, "Come on, we're going to go tell your mother."

"Okay. Whatever."

Michel drags her into Pat's house, entering without knocking. Pat is sitting on the couch, watching T.V. She looks up and says, "What's wrong? What's going on?"

Michel finally let Jessie go, and told Pat what he saw.

"Oh. Is that all?"

Michel stares at her for a minute, then says, "You're kidding, right?"

"Oh please. You can't tell me you haven't thought about it."

Michel is silent, trying to think of what to say. Since there doesn't seem to be any right or wrong answer, he decides to say what he really thinks, "Well, uh, yeah. But I didn't actually intend..."

"Of course not. Most men don't intend it, but they do think about it. That's why I'm so thin and why I shave my pussy. I know I look like a little girl when I do. You like it when I put my hair up in pigtails or braids, don't you? But why pretend when you can have the real thing?"

"I'll, uh, I'll have to think about this..."

"No, don't think about it. Just do it. If you want her, you know where her bedroom is."

Jessie begins taking off her clothes and walking toward her bedroom. "I'll be waiting for you, Mikey."

Michel stares after Jessie, then looks back at Pat. "Well, go on," she says again before he shakes his head and walks into Jessie's room to fulfill every American pedophile's dream.

Speaking of children, Donna just got mad at me because she asked me if I could come watch T.V. with her, and I told her I was busy. Now she's throwing a fit while I'm trying to work on this. She's a moody bitch. I'm trying to be the next Nabakov, and I've got to put up with this bullshit.

Well, now that I've ignored her, she's stormed off to the bedroom and slammed the door. I suppose I could get back to that pervert and her boyfriend (yes, I know he's a pervert too, but the mother is just as much if not more so if you ask me -- I know, as a novelist I'm not supposed to make moral judgments about my characters, but there it is), but now, unfortunately, I'm not in too good a mood, and so I'm going to stop writing. Sorry about the interruption, but sometimes you can't always do what you want when you have a child in the house.