The Total Package

She was straightforward and told me I had “zero charisma.” She didn’t mince words. She insisted—with venomous emphasis—that I was boring and had nothing of value to offer. She compared me to a dead mime and because she refused to explain the analogy, I had no rebuttal. 

She pulled no punches, my Lois. Really gave it to me straight. She never pussyfooted around a difficult subject. A real straight shooter—that was Lois. 

Yup.

So she eventually left me and I never saw her again. That was eight years ago. Her last name eludes me now. It started with a “W” I think, if I ever wanted to look her up (I don’t). I’m positive it wasn’t “Wilson” or “Watson” or “Ward.” I would have remembered those names due to mnemonics: Woodrow, Holmes and, and Hugh Beaumont. It wasn’t “Williams” like Ted or “Walsh” like Adam or “Wagner” like Lindsay. It might have been “Whitney” like Huston. 

Yeah, that rings a dim bell. We’ll call her Lois “Whitney” for now. You and me, gentle witness to this vague, painful  testimony. 

Heads up now.

Lois “Whitney” lived in Austin, Texas while I was working as a mail carrier in Fort Worth. There was a three-hour drive between us but we refused to allow that long, tedious distance to become a Forbidden Zone between us. Our ardor could survive the commute. It was the goal, not the net, hockey analogy-wise. I was the goalie in this metaphorical configuration. Always playing defense. But without the NHL-regulated padding protecting my shins. And I didn’t wear a mask. I was always just myself. And I got pucked (ha-ha, small pun there). I think that’s the reason she left me. My naked personality held no intrigue. I remember her joking with me, “You can shut the fuck up now,” whenever I tried to tell her about my day. Or how I was feeling. Or when I got word my mother had died.

I was a Fort Worth mailman for almost five years. Long sweaty years under the heavy, draining Texas sun. I drove a mail truck. I had a twelve-hour shift. My route was ruthless. I learned there were crazy people inside many different houses.

I met Lois “Whitney” at a Wendy’s restaurant. I was on my lunch break. I ate at Wendy’s every day and always ordered the same thing: a “Baconator” burger, a bacon cheese baked potato, a sugar cookie and a large Dr. Pepper. The perfect meal for a ravenous mailman. 

Lois was there with, I presumed, her parents. She looked really pretty to me. Like a female member of a cult programmed to flirt with men and draw them into a brainwashed, quasi-ascetic lifestyle. Selling metaphysical philosophy with the promise of a practiced blowjob—the only philosophy that really strikes a chord with me. Better than roses on a piano.

You can keep your Plato, your Hegel. Your Dr. Whozitz and Professor Whatzitz. I’ll take a raucous BJ every time.  

Of course, Lois refused to do anything resembling oral sex. She used to hit me with a sly smile and purr seductively, “I’m not putting that disgusting little piss-wand of yours in my mouth.” 

Once, on my birthday, she agreed to stick out her tongue while I masturbated on the other side of the room. She said it was the best she could do. When it was over she tucked her tongue back into her mouth and said, “Well, that was totally gross and degrading. I hope you enjoyed yourself, you rancid little pervert because I’m never doing that again.”

She said she felt violated. Then she told me to “for godsakes” go wash myself and clean the floorboards I had befouled with my nauseating DNA.        

“I can smell the pathetic desperation in that sickening little dribble of semen,” she said. “Men are vile.”

I could always count on Lois to say something.

I went into the bathroom and cleaned my dick in the sink. I tried to dry it with a square of toilet paper and thin pieces of tissue came off and stuck to the head of my penis. I spent the next ten minutes peeling little shreds of wet confetti off my wilted dingaling. It was like they were glued on. 

Lois banged on the door with an impatient fist. “What’s taking you so long? Are you jerking off all over again?”

“No, Lois. Just cleaning myself like you told me to.”

“Well you don’t have to fucking sterilize the damn thing. Just wipe off the goop and get out. Other people need to use the bathroom too!” 

I admit, I was smitten.

Lois was thirty-five when I met her. I was twenty-four. She had black hair, which I’d always found attractive. She had a smile that resembled a sneer and that was attractive to me too. Her complexion was pale, porcelain, and never reddened or became blemished. She once asked me if pimples itched, as she’d never experienced them.

I told her, No. They didn’t itch. 

“I didn’t think so,” she said, already bored with the conversation. “Go make me some tea.” 

Back to our big meeting at Wendy’s…

Lois was wearing a cute black dress, sitting in a booth across from an elderly couple. They’d all just finished eating and the old man carried their tray of trash to the receptacle. Everything on the tray was crumpled: the napkins balled tight, foil wrappers compressed, French fry cartons folded small, etc. Even the waxy paper cups had been crushed flat. I found that curious. 

I observed everything from my vantage point at the end of the customer queue.  

The old man, after disposing of the debris, tottered back to the table. He wore two hearing aids and thick, tinted glasses and was dressed in a frayed brown corduroy suit. His mouth worked soundlessly, as if whispering to ghosts. Atop his bald head sat a women’s plaid pillbox beret. Also curious.   

That was when I realized Lois was looking at me. She had fiery eyes with jet-black irises. It looked like her pupils were three times too large. She was sending me signals. I felt an uncomfortable creep of frost under my scrotum. The little hairs on the back of my neck stood at attention. 

I was excited. 

The old woman across from Lois was playing with a small pile of salt on the table, swirling it with her left index finger, making tiny designs then erasing them and then making them again. Her wig was big and obvious. I think it was supposed to be blonde but it looked gold to me. It emitted a dull shine, like a cheap bracelet or a high school trophy.  

The man sat back down beside her. Nobody spoke.

Lois was still staring at me with her anti-matter eyes. She didn’t acknowledge her lunch companions. They made no move to leave even though there was nothing keeping them there; the table had been cleared (all except for the little cone of salt).

Again, I assumed the elderly couple were her parents. Or grandparents. 

I was wrong on both counts.

“My dad’s dead,” Lois told me once. I think it was Christmas Eve. We were spending it together, despite her objections.

I had asked about her family, trying to get to know her better. 

“We lived in Oklahoma,” she said. “My dad blew his brains out after he lost a bet on the Super Bowl. My mom’s a worthless drunken slut. I was an only child. We never had a dog. Is that enough fucking personal information for you, you nosey fucking bastard?”

“Um, yes. Thank you. So, what brought you to Texas?”

“Oh my god! You’re killing me with all these stupid fucking questions! Just shut up and FUCK OFF ALREADY!”

Lois didn’t beat around the bush. She gave it to you straight. Shot from the hip, she did.

And I was falling in love with her. 

I wanted to express my feelings but I could never find the right time since she was always smoldering below the surface. She could really snap at you if you weren’t paying attention. She could bite your head off just for clearing your throat. 

God she was sexy. A real hellcat.

Anyway, back at Wendy’s…

I had collected my usual lunch and was walking my tray to a little two-seat table. I think it’s rude to take a whole booth to yourself. I glanced over in time to see the elderly couple rise and slowly shuffle out the door. They never said a word. 

I wondered why Lois didn’t go with them. She remained at the table. Staring at me. 

I unwrapped my Baconator.

Now, before I finish the story I want to make it clear that Lois and I did have sexual intercourse once.  

 Lois didn’t like to be touched and kissing was out of the question. “I’d rather drink out of a dogbowl than put my lips anywhere near that bacteria factory you call a mouth. Gross.”

As for fucking, she informed me that she had a septate vagina which meant she had two tiny vaginal canals separated by a thick wall of tissue. Her Müllerian ducts (whatever those were) didn’t form back when she was an embryo. She had two painful pinholes instead of a vaginal canal (or introitus) suitable for coitus. 

She said, “Not even your pathetic little toothpick dick could get in.” 

She was sealed tight.

So, I figured I was out of luck. I was resigned to a bangless relationship. Once in a while she’d let me sit on the toilet while she showered and sneered at me. That was the extent of our sex life. It was better than staring at a Playboy centerfold, I suppose. At least Lois moved. 

And then one rainy day in late July I came home early from work and found Lois in the backyard. She was completely nude, laying in the wet grass. The summer Texas rain was heavy and hot and pouring on her and she was moaning and furiously stimulating herself.

“Fuck me!” she said. “Fuck me, please.” 

It was the first time I’d ever heard her say “please.”

“But what about your pinholes?” 

“I lied. Fuck me! Fuck my cunt. It’s open for you!” She was gasping and writhing and almost crying with desperation.    

“Uh, well. Sure, okay.”

Seized with unguarded excitement, I pulled down my pants and pulled up to her welcoming legs. I didn’t understand what was happening. I thought she’d gone insane. I thought she was on drugs. I wondered if this was a ruse to murder me. But I didn’t want to waste the opportunity. I entered her… 

And immediately ejaculated. 

Lois looked up at me and hissed, “You gotta be fucking kidding me.”

Oops. I felt my penis shrivel and recede.  

Meanwhile, back at Wendy’s…

I was eating my sugar-cookie dessert when Lois approached me. She sat right down at my table, across from me. I felt pressure in my chest. Her eyes were so piercing, so knowing and radioactive that I felt the way I feel when I get a prostate exam.

She gifted me with a crooked smile. “Hi. I’m Lois.”

“Hello,” I said. “My name’s Clark.”

“Oh really? Do you turn into Superman?”

“Only when malfeasance is afoot.”

 She laughed. “You’re funny.”

“Thanks. 

After a few beats of awkward silence, I said, “Do you mind if I ask you a question?” My curiosity had gotten the better of me. I was suddenly endowed with a boldness I didn’t usually possess. 

“You just did.”

“No, um. I was just wondering. Who were those people you were with?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know them?”

“I just met them this morning, at a funeral. They mentioned they were coming here and I asked if I could tag along.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“You said you were at a funeral?”

“Yeah, but I just crashed it. I didn’t actually know the deceased. Or any of the mourners.” 

 “Oh.”

“I think their son was in the coffin though. I didn’t ask.” She laughed softly. “It’s none of my business.”

And that’s when our tumultuous relationship began.

It ended nine months later in the rain.

Lois pushed me off of her and scrambled to her feet. Her pale naked body was flecked with dark shards of grass and she rinsed herself off under the downpour.

“Well, thanks for nothing, Clark. I should have known your pathetic little worm would prove useless. It wasn’t nice knowing you.” She turned and started walking away. 

I called after her, “Where are you going?” 

She kept walking.

“Where are your clothes?” I shouted as she disappeared behind a stand of trees beyond the property line.

The rain came down. I pulled my pants up and ran into the trees but she was gone. 

I never saw her again. Our breakup that day felt like a supernatural event. Was she a witch? A wraith? A will-o’-the-wisp? Did she suck out my soul on that warm rainy day? 

Undine! That was her last name. I just remembered that. Lois Undine. So it wasn’t a “W” after all. 

Sorry for the memory lapse. 

How embarrassing.