I Just Want My Pants Back by David Rosen Page B

first, I guess.”
    She swam away. Ten minutes later I was out of the pool, picking through some salty Ruffles and Lipton onion-soup dip when Christy, in a “CB”-initialed suit, flip-flopped over.
    “Hi.”
    “Hi.”
    “Do you want to go for a walk in the woods?”
    Barefoot, I followed her into the suburban-grade forest that marked the edge of Carol’s lawn, the twigs biting into my tender feet. Despite the pain, I had enough of a grasp of manhood to know you didn’t scream “Ow!” when you were oh-so-close. We were both still wet from the pool, and Christy’s blond hair was dripping water down her back. We stopped by a tree. Christy leaned against it.
    “Ever kiss anyone?” she asked me. She took a piece of gum out of her mouth and chucked it clumsily, the weird mechanics of a girl throw. It went six feet and hit the dirt.
    “Uh-huh, sure.”
    It was cold there in the shade and I was shivering a bit. She put her closed lips up to mine. We stood stone still, lips stiff, hands hanging dumbly at our sides, like Siamese twins attached at the mouth. I opened my eyes and saw that hers were open too, so I quickly clamped mine shut again. I felt something on my lips. It was her tiny pink tongue, and it pried my mouth open and then it was inside. It was all warm and minty and it was official, I was French-kissing. More than anything sexual, I remember feeling relief. I had finally reached first base.
    Back then, the girls really took the lead. But things seemed to have changed over the years. The girls just didn’t seem to chase the boys all that much anymore. Or at least my girl Jane wasn’t chasing me. It was now a week and a half since she had slept over, and I hadn’t heard a peep from her. I had even texted her late Wednesday night after another bout of debauchery with Tina, “My turn—u up?” No response. I tried to rationalize that maybe she had gone to China or something for work, but in my head that annoying “Nah nah nah nah, hey, hey, hey—good-bye” song was playing. Repeatedly. It was just plain weird that she hadn’t gotten back to me; I mean, I didn’t remember completely blowing it. In fact, I thought it had gone sort of well.
    It was nearing eleven on Friday and I was sitting at the receptionist’s desk at JB’s. The office was slow and so was the news online. I checked my e-mail every eighteen seconds, looking for something interesting, spam, anything. I watched the clock tick and tick. Melinda was running errands all morning, so I was stuck there all alone for the next couple of hours. I thought about my options. I could maybe start in on a rubber band ball; JB had one on his desk that was fairly impressive. Perhaps I could top it. Or I could make a paper-clip chain of ludicrous length—a paper-clip jump rope, even. God, I was bored. Maybe I could slip out and get high and eat a wheel of cheese. I just wished something would happen, anything. The worst feelings in the world were boredom and nausea. But at least when you were nauseated, you didn’t have the feeling you were wasting your time.
    I had nothing else to do, so I figured what the fuck and shot Jane another e-mail. She was on my brain, and my brain controlled the fingers that started jabbing at the keyboard. Hell, one more e-mail couldn’t really make matters any worse at this point. And if I went zero for three, then I’d at least know it was officially kaput.

Hey Jane,
Woke up this morning and went to put on my Dickies and then I remembered—hey…you have them! Give me a shout and let’s catch up, make a plan. I have other clothing items that will fit you fantastically…
Mr. Giggles

    I hit SEND and then began composing an e-mail to my folks. We were pretty bad at staying in touch; even in college I’d go weeks at a time without speaking to them. My mom liked to think of it as a genetic flaw in the family: We were all self-sufficient to the point of negligence. I caught them up on the news I thought they’d be most