Chapter 4: the girl next door

You don't care why I'm writing this, do you? You just wanna hear more stories about Dick. Fuck, I can't blame you. I got dozens of 'em. It's almost boring.

Hey, I said "almost."

But if I shoot my whole wad, you might not get through it all, and there's more to this story than a bottle of Jergens and a box of Kleenex.

Like every tale worth telling, this one is about a girl. (I just watched "Spider-Man" again last night. So sue me.) And I haven't even mentioned the girl yet.

Plus, I have to tell you how I finally got Dick off my back, and got my own dick back.

I first saw her in this very coffee shop, as a matter of fact. Right over there. She breezed in looking for a phone book.
Like with every female I encounter, my subconscious Lust Diagnostic ran and issued a summary profile.

She was in her early twenties, I'd guessed, though a moment later she looked seventeen. (As in "Sexy + 17".) Remember, I'd only realized I was Old a few months earlier, and then Dick came along and made age more or less academic, so my age indicator was lacking in precision. I never did figure out how old she was, but I'm sure Dick could tell you. Probably hammer out her birthday in morse code.

She was five-three, maybe five-four. Curvy. Slightly-tanned skin. Honey-blonde hair, shoulder length. Short summer dress, tight down to the hips with a ruffled and flared skirt, strappy wedge-heeled sandals. Looked a little too country and not enough rock-n-roll for this town.

Perfect.

I should have known right then I was in trouble.

Ordinarily, a girl that close to my personal ideal of femality would send Dick into overdrive, and I'd let him run his course -- after all, with Dick's tastes, I've taken one for the team more times than I care to count; I deserved some playtime too. See, even Dick's a creature of habit, and he'd long since gotten into a rut. (Insert rim shot here.) I know it seems nuts to complain about getting to bed women more or less at will, especially when you're as... average as I am, but you try it for three months and see if you don't start to get tired of servicing overpampered undersexed upper-class housewives and overpierced undershaved neogoth chicks. That's what Dick's been into lately. I don't know where Dick gets it from, honestly, because both are kind of turn-offs for me. (And even if they weren't before, they would be by now.) If I had a shrink, they'd probably try to tell me I was taking out my aggressions against women who didn't fit my preconceived notion of proper roles or something. But really, it's not me. Unfortunately, all it takes is a little flash of cleavage or some exposed leg to catch my eye for an instant and Dick's all up in it.

Sorry, got a little off-point there. What was I saying? Oh, right.

I should have known right then I was in trouble. Ordinarily, I'd let Dick do what Dick does and score me some physical fantasy fulfillment. But there was a glitch in the matrix or something. Dick hesitated. And I really wasn't in the mood -- I mean, I'd just taken the first bite of my grilled cheese. This coffee shop makes a really good grilled cheese -- all hot and gooey, with none of that plasticky greasiness you get when you try to make one with regular cheddar off the block at home. So I clamped down on Dick, focused on the sandwich, and didn't give Phone Book Girl another thought.

If I never saw her again, I'd probably still be letting Dick do the talking, and accepting the chaos that comes with him. It wasn't like I could ask for help.

But Fate swooped in and smacked me upside the head.

Because the next day after work, I got back to my apartment and she was moving in next door.

Standing right there on the stairs with a box labeled "Lingerie" in that adorably girly loopy lettering they all seem to have.

I know what you're thinking -- the Move-In fantasy. Hot chick's moving in, you offer to help with the heavy stuff, you get to setting up the bed, she falls on it, letting out a contented sigh and some lame shit about how she's gonna rest there for just a minute, and then she lays some even lamer shit on you like you look tired and why don't you lay down for a second too, or maybe she asks you if you feel that busted spring in her mattress, and you dumbly say you don't feel any busted spring, and then she jumps on top of you and says Well then let's break one together...

Okay, kind of fell apart there at the end, but that's because I'm a little rusty on how these fantasies go. See, if you're thinking that way you're still not fully appreciating the terrible magnificence of Dick, because if you were you'd know the Dick version of the Move-In fantasy is this: you walk right up to her, grab her around the waist, throw her down on the bed, unzip your fly as she voluntarily shucks her clothes -- or just hikes up her skirt, if that's the mood you're in -- and Bam! you're making your O face.

That's what should have happened. Light hits eyes, image hits brain, recognition system alerts His Maleness, and Trojan Man mounts up. Badda-bing, badda-boom-boom.

But somewhere I must have gotten my wires crossed. When I saw her standing there, sex wasn't the first thing on my mind. For whatever reason, Image Processing sent the data stream to an old system that hadn't been used in a long time. Not since I got Dicked. For a moment, I was the old me.

Okay, actually I wasn't the old me -- even the old me was an objectifying lust machine.
I was the chick-flick version of me. The me that queues up the ending of The Fifth Element at least once a month and has a good cry. (Shut up. It's a beautiful moment.)

But that version of me needed a few seconds to spin up to power, so I didn't know what to make of her yet. Into that void of indecision rushed an event that collided with destiny and forever altered its course.

There at the coffee shop, I just saw tits, legs, ass, hair, dress, feet. Here on the stairs, this was really my first look at her. And I was smitten.
Maybe because I'd done the object-analysis already, I was able to see her as a person now. Maybe it was this second-first look that fostered the sense of attraction.

Or maybe it was the way she fell into my arms.

I'd like to tell you I saw her heel break and her balance fail, and I'd like to tell you I used my cat-like reflexes to lunge and save her from serious injury. Truth is I was staggering back at the base of the stairs with this soft warm weight pressing into me before I knew anything at all had happened. Then a muffled scratchy thump on the ground marked the "Lingerie" box's scattering landing.

The way she'd fallen she was half-facing me. And her eyes met mine.

There's something about catching a woman in a moment of vulnerability that's just... well, sexy. Not sexy the way Dick thinks. It just makes a man feel like a man. It presents him with that paradox of predator and protector. He suddenly sees his purpose. Conquer Her, Care For Her.

So I was thinking, Hey, This is a Pretty Cool Moment.

Then Chick-Flick Me finally got up to speed and issued an alert.

She was beautiful. So beautiful my heart stopped. So beautiful I felt faint.
So beautiful I couldn't look at her.
Because I didn't want her to get Dicked.

See, ever since Dick came into my life, I'd just been going along for the ride. Sure, Dick made life complicated sometimes, but it was also pretty swell.
Yeah, I said swell.

Then, with one glance from her, the facade falls and suddenly I know I'm living in hell.

It's always the eyes, isn't it?

I'm not saying it was love at first sight. Let's not get crazy. I was so far from it at the time it's not even funny. But sometimes you just see a girl and there's this aura. You just know she's special. The meat-meter just goes offline -- or at least you feel guilty getting a reading.

You think, Woah, there, this one's a Nice Girl.

Bullshit -- how can you know that? You're projecting. This girl could be a stripper, or a con artist, or a serial killer for all you know.
So it's not her at all, really, it's just... you see a girl like that and you remember that there is such a thing as love, and there are people looking for it, and people in it. And you don't know where you stand on the issue. Or where she stands. And that knocks you off balance for a minute.

Then she goes and does something sweet, like she talks to you, asks you for something, smiles, or...

... or lets you save her.

Okay, it was a small save, but it was a save nonetheless. It counts, dammit.

All these synapses shorting in my brain so close to the procreative drive centers had awakened Dick. I could already feel him digging for traction in my mind. But for some reason I was able to slow his grip.

Slow, but not stop. I knew I didn't have much time if I wanted to protect her from Dick. And, you know -- Nice Girl -- I had to protect her.

I ran right up the stairs. I think she called after me, but I can't be sure. Two seconds later, I'd locked myself in my apartment, and curled up in the farthest corner with last month's Popular Mechanics.

Dick hates Popular Mechanics. And I hadn't yet read this issue. Helicopters of the future and nuclear-powered mobile homes -- Dick was done for the night.

Unfortunately, I hadn't gone grocery shopping in a while, and hunger hit.

Get the door, it's Domino's.

No it's not. It's Her.

"Hi. I'm sorry if we got off on the wrong foot. I just wanted to thank you for-"
I slammed the door in her face.

I felt like shit doing it, but I had no choice.
She was dangerous. I was dangerous. Dick was dangerous.

She was impossibly cheery. "Was it something I said?" she said through the door.
"I'm contagious," I yelled as I retreated, smug in the smartness of my lie.
"Oh, okay." I heard her go back into her apartment.

Then my brain processed the image of her in my doorway.

Honey-blonde. Long, curls.
Some jewelry around her neck.
Perkiness reaching through a shrunken wifebeater.
Short little skirt, three rows of denim ruffles.
High-heeled mules with little plastic flowers on the straps.

And the face of an angel. Pixie nose. Soft, high cheekbones. Pouting lips. And big, bright, beautiful eyes.

Dick was coming online, and going right to Warp Nine.

I found myself heading for the front door. I knew in five seconds Dick would have me pushing my way into her apartment, her eyes would glaze over with brain-deadening lust, one of us would slip a raincoat on ol' helmet-head, and we'd get to fucking.
And the little spark of a dream tucked away in the back of my mind would be extinguished.

But I didn't get through the door. The phone rang. Habit answered it.