Secrets of Making Love, Harold Meadows
Although Lisa was a reliable reader of my stories, sometimes she took forever to get back to me. Just for the hell of it, I gave her a call – just to remind her.
When Lisa answered, I could hear the sounds of people talking and laughing in the background.
"Where are you?" I asked.
"At the beach. Me and my girlfriends took a trip to Myrtle Beach."
"Well, have fun!" I said, wondering whether I should even bring up the subject of my stories.
"So what are you doing this weekend?"
"Nothing as fun as you apparently. I'm setting up a new backup system for my hard drives."
"Boring! You need to get out of town once in a while. Go to the beaches, enjoy the sun, that sort of thing."
"Are you there with Kenneth?" Kenneth was the man she was currently dating (I think).
"No, that bastard made some lame excuse. Something about having to paint his mother's house. Hey, we're about to go into the water. I want to talk to you about your stories. Can I call you back?"
"Just out of curiosity," Lisa said when she called later, "were you planning to show these stories to people you date...or even a future wife?"
"Eventually," I said. "But not on the first date."
"You're not a pervert, but if I dated a man who wrote naughty stories, I'd be wary."
"But would it disqualify him?" I said.
"No," Lisa said, "but I know you already. But what about that last story – the one about the breakups. It's too cynical; you're always depicting relationships as doomed. That would probably bother me more than the kinky sex. A person might wonder if the writer were even capable of a healthy relationship."
"That's the point," I said. "Understanding why relationships fail helps to understand what makes them work."
"The world doesn't care about lousy lays or tainted love. They only want to hear about occasions when romance succeeds or when the union of two people in sex or marriage produces something remarkable."
"How often does that happen?" I asked.
"That's not the only..." Suddenly another woman takes the phone from Lisa and starts speaking.
"Hello, Kenneth, is that you?" the woman said. "How are you doing?"
"No, April, that's not Kenneth," Lisa said in the background. "That's a friend of mine from high school."
The woman laughed hysterically. "What's your name?"
"Charles."
"Hi, Charles," she said. "So do you think Lisa's butt is too big?"
Several women laughed in the background as I stumbled towards an answer.
"Seriously though, do you think Lisa should buy a hybrid car?" More laughter. "All of us think she should ditch her oversized American-made car and buy a Toyota."
"Sure," I said. "They say great things about the Toyotas."
"Hey, Charles..." she said, "You have a sexy voice, do you know that?" More laughter.
Lisa finally grabbed back the phone and apologized. "As you can tell, everyone here is a little drunk..."
"Apparently."
"Back to what we were talking about... What were we talking about?"
"I don't remember. Something about fiction."
"Oh, yes, don't write too much about breakups, or people will think you're deranged. Love is like a religion. You have to believe in it from the bottom of your heart. Are you a believer? Do you have the faith?"
After an uncomfortable silence, I said, "Really, I don't know how to answer that question."
Lisa made the sound of a TV gameshow buzzer. "Wrong answer! People don't fall in love with people who give wishy-washy answers. By the way, when am I going to receive your next story?"
"Hopefully soon," I said, hanging up the phone. As I sat trying to imagine Lisa on the beach in a bikini, a dialog message popped up on my computer. BACKUP IS COMPLETE.
