You Sunk My Battleship, Herman!

   My Mona is terribly, awfully marred. Ona knows how hard I worked for my Mona. 730 nights I was suspended in a pitch black slumber tank, naked but for a nylon mask called a "love helmet" snug around my head and neck, lips spread by a tube providing oxygen. I had to prove myself, earn my Mona. Sleeping like a fish suspended in warm, viscous fluid with no light or sound takes willpower. I would dream of my Mona, her flaxen hair, wrapped around my head, neck, shoulders, arms, and torso, sealing her to me, mouths locked together, all through the night.
   Monas are delicate creatures. They have no free will of their own. Monas live to cook, clean, and pleasure. Such a beautiful, guileless creature may be granted to only one of hundreds of suitors vying for her companionship. Ona saw fit to grant me one after my 730th night in the tank. I had shown myself worthy.
  We lived in harmony for many months and one evening, after dinner, I brought out one of my favorite childhood games, Battleship. 
  "What's that?" Mona said, stroking her hair. Her voice high like the mew of a kitten.
  "Come here," I motioned for her to sit on the couch. She swept up her gown and sat gingerly beside me. I opened the board and gave her the battleship piece to hold. She held the grey plastic miniature as if it were a pearl.
  "What does it mean?" Mona asked.
  "I'll show you," I said. I mimicked a game for her and she watched every movement as if I was dissecting a frog's heart. And then, we played one game.
  To my surprise, she was quite good at Battleship. My Mona ascertained that I almost always placed my Battleship along the edge of the board, while she never had a reliable pattern, or a discernable tell. We played one game every night for two weeks. I quite enjoyed the ritual. And then, she won her first game.
   "D4."
   "YOU SUNK MY BATTLESHIP!" I cried.
   Mona yanked her hair from her face, her blue eyes bulged in confusion. I went to her side and wrapped my arms around her shoulders, stroking her arm, I reassured her that winning was a happy thing.
   Then three months after she won her first game, I came home from work and Mona asked me if I wanted her to make dinner? 
   "Of course," I replied. 
  She stood in the middle of the living room in her white gown.  Her yellow hair neatly braided away from her face, her downy eyebrows and long blond eyelashes were as angelic as before. Her eyes, however, normally dreamy, were alert to something I could not decipher from the placid expression, like a skim of porcelain serenity, on her unblemished face. 
  I should have known something was wrong when she asked me a question. Monas do not ask questions, they are not Bridgets or Tonas. It is not in their engineering to question, they intuit. She was asking me a question about a duty she was specifically created to perform and I should have returned her to the castle the very next day, but I did not want to spend one more night alone.
   A week later, I came home and found my Mona sitting on the floor in front of the battleship board. She was clearly in the midst of a game. 
   "You're playing Battleship all alone?" I said. There was a thundering BOOM inside my head. It is rare, but possible for a sore suitor who lost his bid to a Mona to find yours and deprogram her.  It takes a tremendous amount of skill and access to the sensory machine in the Castle, but it has been done before. 
   I heard the bathroom door open and a Tona walked into the living room. The strange Tona looked at me and walked out our front door without a word. 
   "Where did that Tona come from?"
   "302C."
   "Who is her suitor?"
   "Max Tripplehorn." 
   The name did not ring a bell, but I was far less alarmed at the sight of the red-haired Tona than if say, Max Tripplehorn had walked into our living room. I sat down on the other side of the game in progress.
   I asked, "Whose turn is it?"
   "Yours," she replied.
   I wished then that I had taken a look at her board, but that would have been cheating. The Tona was losing from the looks of it. The only thing left was one hit on her destroyer and one on her aircraft carrier. I had to make my next move count.
  "What was her last hit?"
  "A4."
  "Has she called A3, A5 or B4 yet?"
  "Yes."
  "Were they hits?"
  "D4," I said.
  "You sunk my Battleship, Herman!" Mona cried. 
  I pulled the cord of my imaginary horn for victory! 
  Mona stood up and announced, "I have to make souffle."
  We ate her expertly prepared souffle. After dinner Mona washed the dishes, while I watched the news. Since we had played Battleship, Mona prepared for the slumber tank. She is practically sewn into her gown with its yard or hooks on either side of her bodice and satin ribbons laced along her arms. I decided rather than reading, I would watch her undress. I placed a comfortable chair opposite her dressing mirror with a perfect view. 
  Her fingers move like a concert pianists' playing Mozart. Once unbound, the satin gown falls to the floor revealing her fine collar bone, her pomegranate breasts, and soft, smooth belly. Naked in front of the mirror I saw her do something shocking. My Mona smiled at herself. I saw it with my own two eyes. I could not miss the uplift of her rosy lips, for I was watching her intently.  Mona smiled at her own beauty. The shock of it made me gasp.
   "Mona," I was breathless."Did you smile at yourself?"
   She turned to me, the smile now gone, she answered simply, yes.
   
To Be Continued

Action = defeat

The Wednesday night before Thanksgiving, I was sure I was going to get laid by the hockey-player with a porn-sized johnson, until we started talking about his ex. A little back story.

One night a while back, I got pissed-off at him for not giving it up until we'd talked for hours and I just told him that I wasn't with him to TALK but to F*@k and if we weren't going to for another five hours, I had to go. These weren't dinner and conversation length interactions, these were him up and down off the couch, changing the music on the television ten times, going on-and-on about his ex, how great hockey is, how much the market sucks, or how fantastic the early Rolling Stones were but they lost steam after a while. He had called me, after all. I assumed he knew the deal. And his response was beyond. He tried to placate me at first with words - Aw, c'mon! Why so crass? What happened to talking before sex? - and when I wouldn't budge, he yelled in real pain, "SHE BROKE MY HEART!" And that was my cue to leave, but not before I asked him for twenty dollars for a cab home, which he gave me.

Back to last Wednesday night, we're talking about her and he just cannot help telling me about their last encounter and how she'd called him up and told him that all she wanted was to get wasted and screw, and he wanted her even more for that. (That wounded me.) And she's not even the best-looking woman he's been with but there is something about her smell that makes him crazy.

I'm sitting patiently for him to breath and then I said, "You do know why I'm here."

"Oh. You're right. I'm sorry. It's just that you're my sounding board for all of this stuff with her, you know. You're right. I do know."

I figured he'd already been pounding back the vodka and orange so I repeated myself, "You know WHY I'm here?"

"No. What? I thought you said, 'you know I'm here," A brief pause and he said, "Sex?"

Bingo!

He smiled, he knew all along what I was after. He said, "Well, to be honest, I don't know if I can. I had it last night at like 3 a.m. But, I was thinking we might just after we've gone out."

I should have gone back to my neighborhood and hung out with my friends, but I wanted to see where this was going. It's really not the sex that I wanted (not anymore) A part of me wanted to be there for him because I could. I also really wanted to go along for the ride that is Mr. Hockey. Going out with him is like riding the tilt-a-whirl that uses alcohol for electricity. It still kinda lights me up, makes me dizzy, and I feel like I've had an experience, every time I see him - good and bad. It may sound weird or sad of me to say, but most of life is not nearly as eventful.

The rest of the evening, we talked with lonely-hearts and party-goers alike who all told Mr. Hockey that I was fantastic and he should hold on to me, that I was a keeper. Around 1:30 a.m. we're outside smoking and we kiss like horny teenagers. I was back on the bandwagon again and we left. Back at his place I think things are going in one direction and then he starts playing music and pours himself a drink. He wants me to wait but I just can't and I pass out.

Here comes the Doogie Houser ending. I have said it before and I'll say it again, recycling is not always cost-effective.