Page 9 of There Is Also a Dog
Or maybe I should just textBRBand then write to her again when I’ve recalibrated and figured out how to tell her I like her eyes and ask if she wants to come over for a little hot chocolate and lots of even hotter sex.
Or I guess I could just textthat.
I pick up my phone to text her that I like her eyes and to ask if she wants to come over for some hot chocolate and even hotter sex, but I see an email notification from my mom, and suddenly the insuppressible concupiscence is suppressed.
Audrey Conrad
to me
Hello again, dear. Just checking in to make sure you’re still having a nice Christmas Eve at home all by yourself. I also wish to confirm that you still have absolutely no prospects for a romantic partner and thus will not be giving your father and me a grandchild within the next year.
Quebec City is even lovelier at night, and this hotel is decorated so beautifully. It’s really a shame you couldn’t join us.C’est une grande shame!(I have no idea how to sayshamein French, but you getla pointe.)
Dad says hi.
Hopefully we can FaceTime tomorrow if you aren’t too busy doing whatever it is you’re doing that’s more important than spending your favorite holiday with your aging parents who might not live to see next Christmas, as far as you know.
Give our love to Agnes.
Love from your mom who adores you even when you reject her company on our favorite holiday.
P.S. Quebec is a large province, and the odds of you running into your ex-wife and her new husband at the airport just because they went to Montreal were always slim to none. But we respectfully understand your decision to avoid seeing us too, nonetheless. xo
Mitchell Conrad
to Audrey
Hello again, Mother. Thank you for your warm tidings of comfort and joy. I surmise you have now enjoyed two-and-a-half cups of mulled wine (the ever so subtle guilt trips kick in after two cups, but the typos don’t kick in until you’ve consumed a full three!) and Dad has fallen asleep on the hotel bed halfway throughIt’s a Wonderful Life.
Agnes and I are still on the sofa by the fireplace, the tree is still lit and beautiful, we’re still listening to my old Dean Martin Christmas album on repeat, and I’ve still gotDie Hardon the big screen.
If you must know—I do have a romantic prospect. She is but a mile down the road and exactly as spunky as you’d hope she’d be.
Hi to Dad.
Agnes sends her love even though you don’t value her enough as a grandchild replacement.
Love from your son who feelsabsolumentno guilt whatsoever, even though he misses you the most this time of year.
Merry Christmas
P.S. I can’t give you any more details about the romantic prospect because there is only the prospect of romance i.e. the possibility of future success in the romantic arena. So don’t ask.
P.P.S. I know you’re going to ask anyway, but I’m telling you now that I have nothing to tell you yet.
Fuck me, I’m such a mama’s boy.
Ladies and ladies, next up at auction: Here we have Mitchell—he’s a thirty-five-year-old divorced ophthalmologist specializing in pediatrics! He keeps lollipops in his lab coat, has aDog Daddysticker on the rear window of his truck, and doesn’t want to disappoint or lie to his mom on Christmas. Can we start the bidding at one flirtatious text convo that doesn’t end with a lady thinking he’s a dork? Any takers?Anyone?
Now I’ve got to turn this thing with Jillian around so I don’t have to lie to my mom when I FaceTime with her.
I’ll wait until tomorrow morning. Send a benign Merry Christmas text. Start over. Take things slow. Maybe invite her over for breakfast. Once we’re more comfortable with each other, we can have FaceTime sex when she’s in Manhattan or whatever the kids are doing nowadays. We can take turns visiting each other on weekends.I’ll woo her with Agnes and my incredibly sexy emotional stability and financial prowess; technological expertise; extensive vocabulary; knowledge and collection of rare, antiquarian books and board games; and my big, hard cock.
Maybe I’ll bake her something else. Swing by and drop it off in the morning. Or later tonight, even.
Maybe she doesn’t think I choked. Maybe she really does think I’m a total stud who’s too busy fending off texts from other horny women to reply to her saucy message right away. I can further convince her that I’m a stud by delivering her a fresh batch of homemade cookies.
She already knows I bake peppermint bark cookies that are so perfectly crisp and chewy they’ll knock her on her ass, spank that ass until it’s candy cane-pink and refreshingly tingly, and then massage those cheeks until she begs Santa to treat her like a naughty, naughty girl again.
