Brave Pirate
I met this girl with a body that made thinking impossible. Dark, no kids, and she actually laughed at my jokes—the full Charlie Harper bit, all of it. We talked about this German actress for like an hour, hypothesizing what she’d be like in bed. That passed for seduction. She wanted to come over, and I’d actually cleaned up—thrown out the trash, dealt with the dishes before they evolved.
We got upstairs and moved fast. I went down on her and found myself in a lake of blood. Dark and sticky. Not what I expected, or maybe exactly what I should have expected if I was thinking at all.
I knew what it was. Wasn’t a kid anymore. Didn’t bother me. I was already there. Moved from her breasts down to her navel and she just shoved me off the bed. I landed on dumbbells I’ve bought but never once actually lifted, which felt appropriate for how that night was going.
What are you doing?
I have my period.
Right. I sat up and told her what I’d always heard: a brave pirate sails the red sea. I probably shouldn’t have done the Ramones thing. Hey ho, let’s go
—that definitely wasn’t the moment.
She pulled her pants up, kissed me on the forehead like I was a small child she was leaving at school, called a taxi, and vanished into the night. Not even late enough for anything decent on TV. I was left alone with an erection and a real, honest question about whether I was a monster.
Is this strange? Does nobody else think about this? Do people really just shut it down and wait a week? Every single month, just a gap? She came to my apartment knowing what was going to happen. What did she think we were going to do—ski jumping?
I lay there on blood-spotted sheets with my forehead pressed into the pillow and my dick pressed into the mattress. My mind was everywhere. Video game worlds. Fire. Lava. Meat Boy. Chunks. Tampons. Seas of liquid. Neverland was red that night. And there I was in the middle of it all, hard and alone, genuinely wondering if I was the only brave pirate left in this whole country.