Upchucky Valentine

I’d just bumped into this girl right, and she was a babe. Older than me, but still a babe. Not quite a cougar, she was too cute for that, but nonetheless still foxy in her own magnetic way. We’d met in the library, and kind of both stopped in our tracks when casting eyes on each other. It wasn’t love at first sight, I’m not sentimental enough to even believe in that, but it was something at first sight. I’m not sure what, maybe some sort of soulful recognition, but it registered with us both, I could feel it. An awful lot of energetic vibrations can occur within visual contact, and when our eyesight collided, a mild tremor occurred inside our spirits.

A week later I was knocking on the front door to her big house. She seemed really delighted to see me. There was an awkward moment when we just idled in the hallway; I suspected she might want a kiss, but my shyness failed me and the moment passed. I thought it an opportune time to reveal the card I’d prepared for her. I’d bought a calligraphy set and handwritten it especially. The thing had taken me hours. She accepted it with a courteous bow. “This is my son,” she said then, introducing me to a lumbering teenager who grunted at me in greeting. Fine, I thought – not what I was expecting, but I could live with it. “Hi matey,” I said. “How’s it going?” Another grunt.

We made our way through into the kitchen. The place began to feel like home already. There was a table set up with rose petals scattered all over the cloth and a bottle of wine on ice in the middle. Candles too. She asked me to take a seat, which I did, and then she attended to the oven, extracting a large precooked fish. My heart sank. I hate fish. As a general rule, I tend not to eat anything that is looking right back at me. “This is gorgeous,” I said, when we started to tuck in, but on my very first bite a felt a bone lodge in my throat. As soon as I felt it get stuck I knew it wasn’t going anywhere for a good while yet. It seemed to hook into the flesh. I tried hiding my coughs and did my best to ignore it, hoping more food would remove it on the way down. It never did. She offered me some wine, which I gulped just a little too eagerly, raising an eyebrow from the teenager. Two glasses later, and it had gone straight to my head. The taste of the skanky fish was making my stomach do somersaults. I excused myself to use the bathroom.

And it was in there where I took a distinct turn for the worse. The walls and ceiling started to spin. Soon I was holding onto the bog for dear life. I heaved, I convulsed: I convulsed, I heaved. I splattered the bowl with thick vomit. Chunks got trapped in my throat, making me gag and choke. I thought I would feel better once the first load was up, but it seemed to be never-ending. I was a projectile machine. The sickly feeling wouldn’t go away. The taste of the bitter wine and regurgitated fish were self-perpetuating themselves on my palette. I chucked and chucked again. Make no mistake, I was in the third circle of hell. Worse than any of it, I knew they could hear me downstairs. I knew this was the ultimate, ultimate insult to her generous effort. “It’s not your fault,” I mumbled under my breath. I started waffling, in a desperate bid to distract myself from what was happening. Now she would think I was a headcase as well as an ungrateful pig, but I couldn’t help it. “The meal was great,” I said. “The wine was nice…” Talking to myself.

Eventually, she came up to see if I was okay. I must have been there for the best part of half an hour. She bent down beside me with her hand on my shoulder. I’d stopped chucking up, but still felt unable to move away from the shitter. The night was over, in my mind, but she said I was welcome to stay. She’d prepared a bed, with more rose petals and candlelight. “I wanted to kiss you,” I said, “but I guess I missed my chance.” Who in their right mind wanted to swap spit with a guy who had just been puking? “It’s not a problem,” she replied, “just brush your teeth first. I’ll be waiting in the bedroom.”

Is right! I was in! I stood up, dusted myself off, and popped a male enhancement pill!

[The fish bone remained in my throat for 9 days. The relationship lasted 4 years.]

Based on true events © Zombie Publications 2016