Marla asks me over for Chinese.
"I'll call it in, can you pick it up?" she asks.
I nod.
"Jacob?"
"Yeah. Pick it up."

I live by the Denis Potvin Rule. The fierce competitor. Lucky number five.

One.

"Hey Marla."
"Hey Jacob."
She wears blue silk, it clings to her body, her naked body, and I see hips and nipples and goosebumps.
"Did you bring the Chinese food?" she asks.
"Screw the Chinese food."
I stare at her with reflection-less brown eyes.
"Me and you?"
"Mmhm?"
"Done."
She stares at me with her big blues on and there's water in them, tears. Marla's smart. How I got her is almost as baffling as how I get rid of her.
But I won't be budged, I'm the Cooler King and she knows this. So she starts sashaying over to me with those hips of hers and I feel a stirring but I hold my ground and she lays her lips on mine. Somewhere in the background someone is listening to Heartbeat City and Rik Okasek says Hello, again and I repeat my powerful mother of a word.
"Done." Then, for emphasis. "Marla."
She knows now and she's desperate.
"I can't lose you, Jacob."
I'm lost already, babe.
Her long fingers start finding their way around me, through me, under me and one more time we lie horizontal, she's pushing me, overpowering me. Approaching climax, satisfaction, brain spattering orgasm. We breathe together afterward. She props herself up on an elbow, this little smile on her face.
"Hungry?" she asks.
She got a hearing problem?
"Done."

Who am I kidding?
"Hey Marla."
"Hey Jacob."
She wears blue silk, it clings to her body, her naked body and I see hips and nipples and goosebumps.
"Did you bring the Chinese food?" she asks.
"Screw the Chinese food."
I stare at her with reflection-less brown eyes.
"Me and you?"
"Mmhm?"
"Done."
She stares at me with her big blues. And laughs.
"Who are you?" she asks me. "Steve McQueen?"
Then we eat.

The music's still playing. Here she comes Looking for love.

Marla's my first real girl.
"What did you think when you first saw me?" she asks, big blue eyes swinging before me.
I thought, Blue balls. See, I had girl slash friends in high school who fell for that line. Becky, Susan, Norma, Susan II and Vicki.
"A guy could die."
The first time I see Marla, my balls swell. It's my first real case.
I meet her by the big beer fridge and she clinks my beer bottle with hers and says, "Here's to us."
I know she means football team but I think maybe as well she means us, ie Marla and Jacob.

My sister Precious (yep) when she was about eight and I was thirteen, she caught me in the washroom after a supremo wank I'd been hanging onto ever since the night before when I went to see Flashdance. I'm wiping the mirror down and Precious comes in too good for knocking and screams, "Not with Mom's good towel!"
And she tells Mom who shrieks at Dad that his son's some kind of pervert and they were the towels Aunt Magda gave them on their twentieth anniversary, didn't he care, didn't anything mean anything to him anymore? Dad just sat there. Didn't say anything, even after dinner when he suggests having coffee, and she makes him drink decaf because caffeine's bad for him.
He used to stop at Tim Horton's on our way to hockey practice when I was seven.
"Shh." Our little secret. "Don't tell the witch."
He bought the Jumbo super caffeinated special. I'd get my first payment in donut and a number 5 Islanders sweater.
The fierce competitor.
I saw Flashdance five times.

I like Marla because she holds my hand just right, you know how you hold hands with someone and they put the finger in the wrong spot or they do it backwards and it's uncomfortable? Marla knew from the beginning how to do it and even if maybe I could be bugged because I could think, she's awfully good at this, there's been others, I don't let it bug me.

Marla doesn't think sex is a good idea right away.
"Define 'good idea'," I say.
She laughs at me, aren't you something else?, which only makes me start shaking with need and thirst and hunger and need.

Two.

"Hello Marla Marla."
"I hate it when you call me that."
"I don't do anything right, do I?"
"Did you bring the Chinese food?"
She wears khakis, baggy and wrinkled, and a big floppy hat and no bra beneath a yellowed white tee shirt.
"I thought you said Indian," I say.
"Because they sound so alike? Chinese Indian Indian Chinese?"
"I'm an idiot."
Downcast brown eyes. Slight pout, she has told me my lips are the most seductive part of my body.
"No argument there."
"I think you deserve better than me," I tell her.
"Maybe you're right."
I turn away. Drop the heavy-smelling Indian food on the side table where she keeps her mail and her keys and I grab for the doorknob. She is suddenly behind me, nuzzling my neck, apologizing.
"God baby I'm so sorry what was I thinking."
She turns me toward her.
"Kiss me and tell me you forgive me."
I don't give in yet, my body remains immovable.
"Don't know..." I mutter through the swarm of kisses and I inhale Marla and the smell of curry and she throws me to the floor and the tee shirt is gone, the khakis are off, it's just the floppy hat, and she tells me over and over, "You're better than any man I've ever met, Jacob, the best, the best, Jacob."
climax, satisfaction, brain spattering orgasm
She feeds me naan and lamb chunks, both of us naked, the drops of hot sauce licked off my chest, my toes, my knees, my forehead by her expert tongue.

Yeah. Right. Sorry, rewind.
"Hello Marla Marla."
"Hello."
"You hate it when I call you that, don't you?"
"What?"
"I don't do anything right, do I?"
"Did you get chicken balls?"
"I thought you said Indian," I say.
"Go ahead. Say it."
"Jacob, what is up with you?"
"You hate Indian."
"I love Indian."
"I'm an idiot."
"No argument there."
"I think you deserve better than me."
"Jacob, shelve the Woody Allen routine and open the wine."

First month anniversary, Marla buys me a watch and I buy her a blue cardigan. She holds the cardigan to her face and rubs it back and forth along her cheek, she's got these rosy cheeks I love looking at and touching, I'm jealous of the cardigan and I think I love her (whoa, fella).
She looks me in the eyes with her baby blues and whispers, "Yes. You do."
I never said it out loud. I get a shiver up my spine.
Sshh, don't tell the witch.

I had hockey practice every Tuesday and Thursday. Mom never came cause she thought hockey was for bullies. Duh. So Dad took me, real early every Tuesday and Thursday morning and we'd stop at Tim Horton's for his big coffee and I'd get a chocolate milk and a chocolate donut so I was set like a spring for practice. I'd skate rings around the losers who still hadn't figured out the art of moving and controlling the puck at the same time, I'd whiz by in number 5 screaming, 'Potvin!' and I'd see Dad with the other parents, watching me and it was good.

"What do you like about me?" Marla asks me.
Your voice, your eyes, your smell, your laugh, your eyes, I said your eyes, your voice, fuck I said your voice, your pull.

Three.

"Jacob, did you bring the Chinese food?"
Stretching my weak arm her way, the bag falls to the floor and that red sauce spills like thick, sweet blood.
"Jacob, what's wrong?"
I'm clutching my stomach real tight. Brown eyes squeezed shut, brave through the pain.
"Marla, maybe it's time I told you..."
I can barely get it out. I spritzed myself with water from a bottle before. I fall onto my knees.
"Told me what, Jacob? Should I call the hospital?"
"It's too late for that. I'm....I don't know how to say this..."
I peek at her. She's wearing the tight black pants I like and the red turtleneck, her breasts encased in one of those Wonderbra packages.
"I'm dying, babe."
This is totally separate from the blue balls thing.
Her hands are warm, soothing, as she helps me to her bed and I fall onto my side. She pours hot steaming water into a bowl as I moan, twist about, she returns with a sponge cloth and strips me from head to toe and bathes me in hot sweet smelling water, cooing.
"You're not leaving me now, Jacob. Because..."
I feel her lips on my forehead, my neck, one nipple, the other nipple, along my stomach, satin touches of bliss as she sings sweetly in my ear.
"...you might think I'm crazy All I want is you."
She is beside me, caressing now with fingers, no sponge and I feel myself grow strong again.
climax, satisfaction, brain spattering yadda yadda yadda

click whirr
"Jacob, did you bring the Chinese food?"
Stretching my weak arm her way, the bag falls to the floor and that red sauce spills like thick, sweet blood.
"Jacob, what's wrong?"
I'm clutching my stomach real tight. Brown eyes squeezed shut, brave through the pain.
"Marla, maybe it's time I told you..."
I can barely get it out. I fall onto my knees.
"Told me what, Jacob?"
"It's too late for that. I'm....I don't know how to say this..."
I peek at her. "I'm dying, babe."
"This is totally the blue balls thing."

You know you can't go on thinkin nothin's wrong
Who's gonna drive you home

I don't wear the watch, she wears the cardigan all the time. It's like, when I put the watch on, I feel my strength being sucked out through my wrist while I look at her blue eyes getting brighter.
A guy could die.
I get these quick flashes in my brain about what my life's been like since I met her, how I think about her all the time, how I smile at the sight of her, how her voice on the phone makes me hard, how my insides go warm and how my defenses go down. And I know something's up and maybe my shiver's some mortal warning.
She makes me smile, she makes me weak.
She gets me excited, I'm out of control.

I got a hold on you I got a hold on you I got a hold on you got a hold on you

One practice, I came out early from the showers and I saw Dad still sitting in the stands with some mother of some teammate, the two of them alone and I walked up and he didn't see me and I saw his hand was all caught up in hers and I knew in me, this is wrong. Not that I'd ever seen him and Mom do it, like I had some reference point, but I knew that was wrong too. When Dad did see me, after she spotted me and wriggled her hand out, he clapped his hands together and said,
"Way to go, Number Five."
Patted me with the same hand that was wrapped in some strange lady's hand a few seconds back. I hated myself.

"What do you like about me?" I ask Marla.
"You're gentle. You're cute. You're agile. "
I sound like a monkey. One of her flying monkeys with the little red jackets and the wings, the monkeys that scared me almost as much as the Lollipop Guild.
All those little munchkins.

Four.

"Hey Marla."
"Hey Jacob. The Chinese food?"
"I figured we'd just have some of your boil and bubble cauldron mix."
Fix hard, knowing don't-fuck-with-me brown eyes on her, overpower the blue.
"I was wondering when you'd figure it out," she says.
"Well, since you're a fucking witch, we got to break up."
She's got on the long back dress, with the plunging neckline. She walks toward me, right up to my chest and fingers me with a long red nail.
"You don't break up with a witch, Jacob."
"Then you break up with me and I'll go along."
"Doesn't work that way either, sweetie."
"What, do I have to be condemned to eternal afterlife?"
"That's vampires, sweetie. Witches bite your penis off."
Only ending I see is me crucified to a cross somewhere surrounded by gravestones and lightning in the sky. I see no climax, satisfaction, brain spattering orgasm. Or if I do, I'm some sorry dude afterward.

I try to find it everywhere. She points at yellow flowers, I look for dead squirrels. She asks me to watch a sunset, I see rain the next day. First snowfall, I feel a cold coming on. Cute cat, allergies.
We watch 'Casablanca', I think what a manipulative bitch.
I try to make her fingers into tiny daggers in my palm.
The fierce competitor.

Marla asks me over for Chinese.
"I'll call it in, can you pick it up?" she asks.
I nod.
"Jacob?"
"Yeah. Pick it up."

Dad stopped the car along the way home. Nowhere near Tim Horton's.
"You like hockey, don't you son?"
"Yeah Dad."
He looked across the dashboard out the window, one arm thrown up over the steering wheel.
"Cause I'm doing this for you."
"You mean, going to hockey practice?" He nodded. "Sure."
"And we - you or I - wouldn't want anything to happen to make it stop."
He still had some of his Jumbo super caffeinated coffee left over and I watched him lift the cup up and take one last long swig.
I play hockey for five years. 121 goals, 165 assists, 455 chocolate donuts, 485 chocolate milks and two Denis Potvin sweaters, overall.
If I ever got a hole in one of them, Dad's friend'd sew it back up.

Five.

"Hi Jacob."
"Marla."
"You coming in?"
I shrug.
Chicks hate it when you shrug.
"You can come in past the front mat, Jacob."
She takes the Chinese food. She's wearing jeans and a white tee shirt and the blue cardigan. Her hair's messy, on purpose. Lips like cocoa.
"Did you remember chicken balls?" she asks me.
"Yeah."
"Let me take your coat."
I'm cold. She dumps the Chinese.
"What's up?"
"This." I wiggle the fingers on my right hand between us. "Us."
I pull at my scarf. I'm choking. "I..."
"Feel constricted? Need more space? Just want to be friends?"
Her nails are shell pink.
"I don't love you."
"Yes you do."
"Yeah. I love you. Never said it out loud."
"You didn't have to. Pooky."
click whirr
There is no room for Pooky.
play

"Did you remember chicken balls?" she asks me.
"Take a look for yourself.
" "Yes sir. What's up your ass?"
"You going to take my coat?"
"Drop it on the chair. You forgot chicken balls."
"It's not like they're real or anything. Look I don't love you."
She pulls at the chow mein with painted black nails like noodle guts.
"Yes. You do."
I reach down for my coat again.
"This," I say wiggling the fingers on my right hand between us, "us."
Shake my head. There's no more Chinese food in her hands; instead her hands are stretched out like claws and her nails reach into my chest and grab my heart and squeeze and I feel popping ventricles, bursting arteries, exploding veins, the tiny box that makes it beat detonates KAPOOM. Blood spurts everywhere.

click whirr
play
"Did you remember chicken balls?" she asks me.
"Did you ask for them?"
"Let me take your coat."
"I'm okay as is, thanks."
She dumps the Chinese.
"What's up?"
"This." I wiggle the fingers on my right hand between us. "Us."
"I might need you to string a whole sentence together, Jacob."
I pull at my scarf. I'm choking.
"I need..."
"Stop right there," she says. "Give me more than cliches."
"I don't love you."
The worst of all.
"I think you do."
"Never said it out loud."
"Not with your mouth."
"I should go," I tell her.
"Is this about the sex?"
I thought so, maybe. Before. It was all I thought. Until it turned into something else. I'm back on the ice screaming 'Potvin!' and Dad's clapping. The sound of one hand clapping.
Marla's nails are painted red.
There's a glass of water on the side table, beside her keys and her mail. I pick it up and, with a quick flick of the wrist, I toss the water at her. She recoils like a snake or a spider. The cardigan and the front of her shirt is soaked. I see her pink bra. The smell of wool fills the air. Overpowers the Chinese food. I feel ill.
The cardigan, it's a different colour now. So're her eyes.
I make the high five signal.
"You're fucked," she says.
No long fingers or expert tongue, no soft lips or cooing.
no climax, satisfaction, brain spattering orgasm
no I love yous
Baby I refuse
"I know."