July
MedMax played CAD for 32 points.
It was a solid play. The "C" was laid on a triple letter score and counted twice, filling in between an "IT" above and an "H" below to also form "ITCH".
Max trailed by 40 points, performing better than in most games against Jasmine. If she fell into tile trouble, he might still jump ahead.
Jasmine sent him an in-game message: "What girl did you mistreat today? Tasha I hope."
How the hell did she know?
Ah, she didn't. She was just riffing on his last play, but it was a segue into his big news.
He typed back: "That was my best play, but as it happens, Tasha and I broke up this afternoon."
Her response came seconds later: "Good".
Jazmatazz played BYE for 22 points.
She had hooked the B to also play BITCH vertically.
Max had been sipping his evening coffee, and his laughter caused him to inhale a teaspoon of Guatemalan dark roast into his maxillary sinuses. She hadn't hit any colored tiles with that play, and had probably skipped better options on the board just to play those two words. When she saw a word in the tiles that seemed to fit their conversation, she almost always played it, and she usually beat him anyway.
MedMax: "That was one of your better ones."
He used the I in BITCH to play "SAKI", landing the K on a triple letter.
The game suddenly disappeared. Thelonious Monk's "'Round Midnight" crescendoed, and Jaz's photo slinked onto the screen. He liked the photo. He had taken it in front of Shedd Aquarium. Mischief twinkled in eyes framed by exquisite cheekbones. Strands of her hair counterfeited an auburn veil, blown asunder by the wind off Lake Michigan.
Max answered the phone, and had to move his ear a few inches away to avoid being deafened by Jaz's rendition of "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead."
When she paused for a breath in the middle of her discordant wailing, he interrupted, "Don't hold back, Jaz, tell me what you really thought of her."
"Youdidit! Youdidit! What happened?"
"She had a depressive episode, and I found out she stopped taking the Lithium I had prescribed."
"Third strike?"
"Yeah, she tried to say it was the side effects, but I had warned her after she flushed her Prozac and Zoloft that she needed to tell me when she went off her meds."
"And you followed through, instead of staging another rescue attempt?" Jasmine sounded impressed.
"She strung her last boyfriend along for six years. I ended it in six months. I figure I got off easy."
"You could have saved yourself five of those months by listening to me when I first met her. 'Don't date losers, Max,' I said."
That annoyed him, but he kept a lilt of humor in his voice. "You should talk."
Jasmine's tongue tsked him through the airwaves. "Don't break our rule! After giving our initial opinion, we can only insult each other's bad relationship decisions once they have ended. It has worked well for ten years."
"It won't happen again. So where is your current bad relationship decision tonight?"
She made a raspberry sound. "Jack has a gig in Milwaukee."
"Milwaukee hasn't yet banned Linkin Park cover bands? Good for Jack." He had known too many poseurs back in college, and could spot the guys who only saw music or art as a means to score drugs or women. Jack was all about both, but like most of Jasmine's boyfriends, he was buff, chiselled, scruffy ("rugged", Jaz always called it) and oozed an aura of rebellious danger that made her knees weak.
"Post mortem time," Jasmine said. "How was Tasha in bed?"
They did this after every breakup, sharing the intimate details in order to learn from each other. Both had found it valuable, as if they were reading the other team's playbook. "Best sex ever for about a month," Max said. "Then it tapered off."
"How was she at oral?" Her tone was that of a teacher going through a grade sheet.
"A-minus, but more for enthusiasm than technique. When we were first dating she liked to go down on me in public places, which was amazingly hot."
"What's so hot about sex in public?" Jasmine asked. "A few boyfriends have pushed for it, but I just worry about getting caught, and the stress dampens the mood."
"I don't know. I think it's the woman wanting me so much she doesn't care whether she gets caught. There is nothing sexier than rampant, uninhibited, female lust."
"Most of my boyfriends would disagree," she said with a tone of disappointment. "What was wrong with her technique?"
"I think she learned it from watching porn, which had it's upsides, but it was like she was playing a role, giving me what she thought I wanted, without actually paying attention to whether I liked it. She would do something amazing with her tongue and she would suddenly use her hand too fast and hard, without noticing that she was hurting me."
"So she wasn't paying attention to your responses. Check."
"You are looking for tips on oral?"
"I don't think I am that good at it, and I am trying to figure out why."
"I doubt your problem is technique."
"Uh huh. Why do you say that?" Jasmine's tone indicated she knew she was being set up for a punchline.
"I just doubt you could stop talking during the act."
She made another raspberry sound. "How about the actual sex?"
"She loved cowgirl, missionary, and doggy, which are my favorites, so that was all good. But she had this thing for impossible kama sutra positions that look much better on paper than they feel in practice. I think I would have to be packing fourteen inches in my boxers to actually pull some of those off, which I don't think a woman would find comfortable most of the time."
"Don't knock it 'til you've tried it. Any kinks?"
"Nothing major. She had a knack for talk, and was a hell of a screamer. Literature really turned her on. She would ask me to read from the letters of Abelard and Heloise, and then she would hump my leg while I did it."
"Those are wonderful. Had I known she was a fan, I would have liked her more."
"Bullshit."
Jasmine laughed. "Well, I would have respected her taste, anyway. How did she handle the breakup?"
"Desperation made her horny. You should have heard what she promised me when I told her I was ending it."
"She would get your permission before cutting herself next time?"
"Come on, she wasn't a cutter. No, she promised me the 'abject sexual submission of a woman to a man'. I wasn't sure what she meant by that, but it seemed to include on-demand fellatio for eternity."
"You must have a will of iron to decline an offer like that."
"If I had believed it, I would have put a ring on it."
That made Jasmine laugh again. "You can do better. I have to go to bed. Early day tomorrow. Your move." She hung up.
His phone buzzed again as her next move arrived.
