Down By Raspberry River

Spring Break. I laid awake in the grass looking up at the moon and stars. Crickets were chirruping and water flowed softly in the distance. My hands rested under my head which caused my Fat White Belly to be slightly exposed in the moonlight. A warm breeze caused me to lift my chin a bit, close my eyes, and smile even though it was obvious my mind was not at ease. When I finally opened them, Zac was standing over me.

I blinked a few times and scowled. “What are you doing here?”

“I don’t know. This is your fantasy. Why don’t you ask yourself?”

“Seriously. Why are you here? How did you find me?”

Zac plopped down on the ground next to me and sat cross-legged. Softly and more cautiously he spoke. “This is Raspberry River. This is where you said you’d rather be.”

I suddenly became self-conscious about the moonlight illuminating my Fat White Belly and opted to sit up. I pulled my knees up to my chin and hugged them. I looked down at the ground and sighed.

We sat in silence for the longest time. I couldn’t look at him.

Finally I stood up, looked down at him, and shouted, “Why are you here?! Tell me why you’re here!!! Are you here to make me feel like shit?! Do you want me to hate myself?! Is that it?!!!”

Tears began streaming down my face.

He looked up at me and calmly replied, “No. You’re thinking too much. I’m here because you want me to be here. There’s no other reason.”

I continued to cry. “I don’t want you to be here! I already told you; you’re horrible!”

“And I told you to tell me what you really think of me.”

“No. I can’t.”

“Why not? This isn’t even real. This is your fantasy.”

“This is also the internet.”

“Oh. Really?”

“Yeah.”

I had stopped crying and there was an awkward silence. I sat back down and looked at the ground again.

“I don’t get it. How is this any different than Matt?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know exactly what I mean. The faux fur-trimmed hood, the sled dogs, the frozen tundra…..I have no clue how to read between the lines on your fantasies but I know for a fact it means you want to do him!”

“What? Are you insinuating that I want to do you?!”

“So I was right? You want to do Matt?”

“Well……dude is hot. But dude is also gay….”

Zac grabbed my hands and leaned closer to me. “Now you’re wasting my time. Tell me where you are right now. What are you doing?”

I looked into his eyes and I knew he could see everything. It was written on my face and it was now written on the internet. “I’m laying on a gymnasium floor at a small college in North Carolina in the middle of the night. I just spent hours in a van looking up at the sky and thinking of you. I can’t stop thinking of you. From the moment I first met you –“

I looked down at our hands. Our fingers were locked. His left hand and my right hand…..the moonlight reflected off the two silvery bands that were touching. I slipped my fingers out of his and ran them over his ring.

“The Ring. Zac…I can’t…”

“How is this different from Matt? Matt’s not just gay, you know. He’s also taken. Why is it ok for you to dream up hilarious nonsense pseudo-sexual fantasies about Matt and post them on the internet and not about me?”

I started to type the answer to the question several times but kept deleting it.

“Fine. What do you want?”

“I want you to leave Raspberry River and go to Lollypop Island with me. Michael is waiting for us there. And if you so desire, Matt will be there also.”

“Zac, I can’t. It’s just not right. The Ring…”

“This is your story. Don’t be afraid; we all understand that this is how you get by. And really – it’s just the internet.”

“…are you sure?”

“Totally.”

Zac took me by the hand to the edge of Raspberry River where there were two paddle boats; a swan and a dragon. He asked me to race him to Lollypop Island but knowing that I was a completely out-of-shape fatass, I declined. Instead, I suggested we take one boat which we would both paddle therefore getting us there faster. He agreed but the plan quickly went to shit as we argued for 25 minutes over which boat to take. I wanted to take the dragon because it looked cooler (it looked less romantic and embarrassing but I didn’t want to tell him that) and he wanted to take the swan because it looked “more aerodynamic”. We eventually ended up taking the dragon as I sank the swan in a fit of rage. We were quiet for the first hour or so of the ride.

“…so what’s she like?”

“Hmm? Who?”

“You know…..The Ring…”

“Oh, you mean my grandmother. Well, she’s—“

“No, smartass! Your wedding ring! Your wife! Stop fucking with me! This is why I think you’re so horrible!!!”

I pushed his sorry ass out of the boat and into Raspberry River which was illuminated by soft moonlight in addition to bright stadium lighting. The water was a lovely shade of pink and the whole setting reminded me of a cross between the Baltimore inner harbor and a putt-putt golf course. As Zac was flailing about in the water, I decided to save him with secret hopes of him granting me a wish like a mermaid or a gay person. He was much more slippery than you would imagine for you see, Raspberry River actually has some gelatin-like consistency to it in some spots. I kept losing my grip on him but he held on to the side of the boat like a trooper. Eventually, I got a good hold on his shirt and pulled him up until he fell on top of me in the boat. Both of us were soaked in slippery, sugary raspberry substance. (Not gonna lie; it was kinda hot in a really weird “whoa-maybe-I-have-a-food-fetish” kind of way. But only for like, two seconds.)

We both panted and sat back down on the bench in the boat.

“Why’d you throw me out of the boat?! Are you crazy?!”

“You were fucking with me! Stop fucking with me! (I can haz wish now, kthxbai?)”

“No, I wasn’t! You’re crazy! That’s not a wedding ring; it’s a family heirloom! My dead grandmother gave it to me before she passed away! Jesus Christ! (Can haz no wishus; I’z notta mermaid!)”

“SHUTUP, YOU M—wait. Wha…what did you just say?”

Zac scooted closer and took my hand. He whispered softly into my ear, “it’s not a wedding ring.”

I sat silent for a moment. After a long pause I looked him right in the eyes and said, “I want you. You’re right; I want to do you. You are so fucking cute and witty and charming, I can’t stand it. I want to make dinner for you, I want to draw you pictures, I want to go on roadtrips with you, I want to hold hands with you at the zoo, I want to kiss you on the Metro late at night, I want to spend Thanksgiving with you, and I’d totally accompany you to a hockey game if you were into that.”

And what the hell; self-consciousness concerning food fetishes be damned –

“And I want to lick every inch of your raspberry gelatin-covered naked body clean.”

Zac just stared at me for a moment as if dumbfounded. Then he started to shake. Then came the laughter. Uncontrollable laughter. He laughed so hard, he snorted.

I just sat there uncertain of what just happened. I guessed that he just wasn’t all that into the food thing but that was ok; we could totally find some other kink to keep him happy. When he finally regained his composure he looked at me and said, “Just kidding! It’s totally a wedding ring. I have a perfect and beautiful wife at home that I love more than anything else in this world and we’re very happy. I just wanted to hear what you really thought of me.”

My heart broke into ten million tiny pieces and in a fit of rage, I sank the dragon paddle boat and watched Zac drown in Raspberry River. Shortly thereafter, his body floated back to the surface and I watched a school of multi-colored sprinkles eat his body and then shit it back out for a school of chocolate sprinkles to feast upon. I grew wings and flew to Lollypop Island where there were only ridiculously sexy gay men that would never break a girl’s fragile heart. I blew my Bear Whistle which turned me into a bear and I lived happily ever after doing things with lollypops that you couldn’t possibly fathom unless you were a unicorn.