Desperate Women
by Randy Foster
Calvin once complained that there were not enough desperate women in the world. What he meant by that was there were not enough beautiful women willing to sleep with a six-foot-four, one hundred sixty-pound computer geek who, on a good day, looked like an ostrich with a severe skin rash. To be more precise, it should also be pointed out that what he meant by “enough” was at least one.
Miranda Peterson turned out to be that one. Why she was desperate was not immediately obvious, but her beauty certainly was. Calvin met her at the office where he was the data systems manager. Somehow, she had de-activated the firewall on her computer and unintentionally downloaded a trojan. There were pop-ups of porn sites flashing all over her monitor.
Porn pop-ups were quite common, and Calvin had dealt with them many times before, but he’d not experienced having a beautiful buxom blonde in heels and a mini-skirt watch him over his shoulder with her hand placed softly on his back.
“Mm,” she said, coyly. “These sites are quite educational.”
“I... I suppose,” Calvin replied, with his fingers flying nervously over the keyboard.
She stood there making non-verbal noises expressing shock, disgust, surprise, and then delight.
At one point, she caught him totally by surprise by asking him, “Have you ever done that?”
On the screen was a sex act that Calvin was almost certain required a trampoline and a block and tackle to perform. “No,” he replied, guffawing.
“Would you like to try?” She bent over and whispered in his ear.
Calvin was not what anyone would refer to as suave, but one didn’t have to be Cary Grant to recognize an engraved invitation like that.
Desperate women are often not desperate for sex. Sex is the tool they use to get what they are really desperate for. Calvin knew this fact intellectually, but when he was around Miranda there was never enough blood anywhere near his brain to help him discover what she was really after.
His friends tried to tell him that there were certainly some laws of nature being broken for him to be sleeping with a lady who could have been a Victoria’s Secret model if she’d wanted to. If Darwin had still been alive he’d have been scratching out several of his theories. There had to be something that was missing.
Certainly, if Calvin had been rich, or the potential of becoming rich, it would have made some sense. The only conclusion anyone could come up with was that Miranda was crazy.
“Okay,” Calvin conceded, “I’m willing to agree, but what should I do about it?”
“Are you kidding?” said his friend, Herbert. “You should keep tapping that as long as you can. So what if she turns into a she-wolf at a full moon? She’s worth it. Just sleep with the lights on. You should do that anyway, dude, with someone as hot as that.”
So Calvin continued to have a relationship with Miranda, anticipating the day when he’d wake up to her standing over the bed with a butcher knife in her hand. Days, weeks, months, and eventually a year went by with no psychotic episodes. Calvin and Miranda went out to celebrate their anniversary at a club downtown.
In the course of the evening, a drunken steroid case staggered over to their table, and shouted, “How the hell did an ugly geek like you end up with a babe like this?”
For some people, people such as Calvin, the days of being bullied never go away. Calvin took karate for a year, but he had no skill and learned just enough karate to get his ass kicked more efficiently.
“I don’t want any trouble, friend,” he said, standing slowly.
“I don’t either,” the goon laughed. “I just want to take your woman with me and show her what it’s like to be with a real man.”
“Actually, I believe she’s already made her choice in that matter,” Calvin replied.
“Issa a woman’s perogitif to change her mind,” the drunk slurred. Then he punched Calvin in the nose and Calvin was out for the count.
Miranda stood, grabbed the drunk by the hair and smashed his face into the table, then dropped and swept her shapely leg beneath his legs, flattening him on his back, and finally drove her spiked heel into his groin. She poured her vodka Collins on his face. She bent over, unbuckled the man’s pants, and yanked them, underwear and all, down to his ankles. She laughed and said, “Muscles do nothing to satisfy a lady, Peanut.” Everyone in the club roared with laughter.
Miranda walked back to the table, moistened a napkin in her water glass, bent down over Calvin and began mopping his forehead, “Are you okay, Calvin?”
Calvin came to and sat up. A trickle of blood fell out of his left nostril. Miranda began to dab at the blood, then handed the napkin to Calvin, “Here, put direct pressure on it.”
Calvin did, and she helped him to his feet. He looked over at his dazed assailant and noted the man’s deficiency, but it didn’t make him any happier. Perhaps it was the pain or the humiliation of being protected by his girlfriend, but he angrily asked, “Why are you with me, Miranda?”
She took a few more steps, then she stopped and turned to face him. “Because I love you, Calvin,” she said, flatly.
“Why?” he asked. “Why do you love me, Miranda? Look at me. I’m a computer geek and will always be a computer geek. I’ll never be handsome, rich, or famous. That guy’s right. Why the hell are you with me?”
She smiled, then said, “You look at me, Calvin. Really look at me. My roots are dark. If I didn’t go to the beauty shop once a week my hair would be a very mousy brown. These boobs you love so much cost me three thousand dollars. My ass and body come from doing an hour a day on stairclimber. My eyes are not blue but brown, and if I weren’t wearing these contact lenses I’d be wearing glasses thicker than yours.”
Calvin nodded, then said, “But you had the base equipment to change all that to look like you do now. I can spend all day in the gym for weeks, and I’ll still look like this. And I’ve tried every cream and ointment in the world and my face still looks like a pepperoni pizza.”
“I know you don’t remember me, Calvin,” she said, “but we knew each other in high school.”
Calvin starred at her blankly.
“We were lab partners in Mr. Hornbeck’s chemistry class.”
“Phyllis McPherson was my lab partner.”
“It’s me, Calvin. I’m Phyllis.”
Calvin stared at her for a really long time. “Okay, I can see that it’s really you,” he said. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was afraid if you knew you’d only be able to see the fat girl with the unkempt hair, and that you wouldn’t be attracted to me.”
“Why would you care about that? I asked you out three times back then. You kept turning me down.”
A tear trickled down her cheek, “I know. I was the shallow one back then. I wanted someone else. That’s why I did all this. I changed my name; I dieted, worked out, got a boob job, and went through this transition to attract someone else. Someone who used and abused me, then cast me aside.”
“So, I’m a rebound guy.”
“I don’t see you that way.”
Calvin stared at her for a really long time, then said, “I would have been really thrilled to have had a date with the girl I sat next to in Chemistry, but it is obvious that I wasn’t good enough for you back then. Why am I good enough now?”
“Because I’m tired of being hurt by good-looking self-absorbed jerks.”
“Well, I’m sorry if this hurts you. But I’d rather be loved by a fat ugly girl than to be a safety net for a beautiful one. Bye, Miranda or Phyllis, or whoever the hell you are.”
A tear trickled down her cheek, “I don’t suppose I can blame you.”
Calvin turned and walked away. Then he stopped and turned around. She was still standing there looking as beautiful as ever. “Who am I kidding?” he blurted out, then he walked over and kissed her. She may have been desperate, but Calvin could live with that.
Copyright © 2008 by Randy Foster
