After an entire morning of lying in my bed watching TV and not fucking, we’re sitting outside eating lunch at Swingers in Santa Monica.
She says, “So I think I’ve figured out what I want to do with this whole acting thing.”
I take a bite of scrambled eggs.
“I mean, I like taking acting classes and everything, but I don’t think I’m getting anywhere with it. I need to change it up a little.”
I take another bite.
“I’m not sure straight acting is what I really want to do anymore. I think I want to try to be like a funny actress, you know, on a sitcom or something. Some of my friends from school are going to take some comedy classes at Improv Olympic and I think I’m going to do it with them, then try to go on some auditions or something. I mean, I live in L.A., right? I might as well give it a shot.”
I look over through the big glass wall at a guy sitting across from his girlfriend inside Swingers. She’s talking about something as he eats his scrambled eggs and stares into space. I’m pretty sure she’s telling him that she wants to be a comedic actress and I’m also pretty sure that they lay in his bed for the entire morning before coming here and I’m also pretty sure she didn’t fuck him either.
As Alyna keeps telling me how much fun she thinks comedic acting class will be, I come to a sudden realization that is as horrifying as it is liberating. The uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach for the past five or six months isn’t due to the fact that Alyna seems to have lost her desire to fuck me. It’s caused by something else entirely and knowing its source alleviates it completely.
Alyna has slowly become Casey. Aside from her ass, which I’m sure will eventually match Casey’s, Alyna has become everything in Casey that made me not want to marry her. Or maybe she was like Casey from the very start but she fucked me so much in the beginning I couldn’t see it. Either way, this realization changes something in me.
I look at all the other bitches in Swingers and they all might as well be Casey, or Alyna, or whoever they are.
I take another bite of scrambled eggs knowing that any bitch I ever fuck will ultimately become any other bitch I’ve ever fucked and they’ll all become the fat old bitch eating yogurt in the airport. I look at Alyna and see Casey, Jenna, Katy, and every bitch I’ve ever fucked or gotten head from or a hand job or even thought about while I jerked off. There is nothing better. There is no fucking escape.
That night we’re lying in my bed, both completely naked, watching Conan O’Brien. As Conan interviews Molly Shannon I try to think of all the possible excuses Alyna might use to avoid fucking me tonight. She uses one I did not think of, which is that she’s too excited about going to sign up for Improv Olympic classes, and unwittingly sets the following inevitable conversation in motion:
“Alyna?”
She rolls over and says, “Yeah?”
“I was thinking about some things today.”
“What things?”
“Just about us and about you.”
“What about us and me?”
“Alyna…”
“What?”
“Will you marry me?”
Her lack of hesitation as she accepts disgusts me. I wade through an hour of faked joy and hugs and kisses and assurances that we are going to be happy forever. After Alyna calms down, I wait for her to fall asleep without touching my dick and then go to the bathroom and jerk off.