Fluffy(9)

Spatula abruptly hands me a small bottle of Goo Gone. “Here. Get rid of the sticky stuff on Beastman’s tip.” He shakes it, impatient.

I don’t touch it.

“I thought the point was for him to produce sticky stuff.”

“Only for the money shot.”

“He... has sex with money? Does he wrap it around his shaft? How does that work?”

Beastman laughs. “She’s funny. It’s like she’s never watched our stuff.”

“I–” Sudden shyness overwhelms me. I haven’t watched their stuff. I haven’t watched any stuff. I joke about YouPorn, but it’s not like I use it. If I want to get off on something, it’s an audiobook of a favorite romance novel. No worries about ass to mouth, no sudden choking.

No unexpected scat play.

An audiobook is dependable. Aural sex is the best.

When you’re single, at least.

Or, maybe, when you're me.

Unreality has a funny way of announcing itself when your entire way of viewing the world melts into a gooey pile of chaos. All the carefully spread layers of life, each in its place and held apart from the others by psychological forces so mysterious they’re almost magic, converge into one big mess.

I have become a Snickers bar left on a car dashboard in July.

“Hey, hey, hold on there,” Beastman objects, pointing to the bottle Spatula shoves in my hand. “That shit stings like a mofo. I’m not letting her put that on me. Last time you had to CGI out the red burn spots!”

“Only on close ups,” Spatula retorts, minimizing poor Beastman’s protests.

“This is a pornography movie set!” I shout. It’s obvious, I know, but I have to say it. Have to. It’s like that moment when someone trips and you shout, “Careful!” afterward.

I mean, what’s the point? What’s done is done. Your words aren’t going to make a difference.

But you do it anyhow.

“Sure is,” Beastman replies calmly. Spatula moves to the door, his palms flat against it, behind his back. Panic covers his face with an urgency that looks like I feel inside.

“Why are you announcing that? You wearing a wire?” His eyes roam over me, lower teeth biting his upper lip, looking like he’s assessing whether he can do a body search.

“You lay one hand on me and I will squash you like a bug, Spatula!” I shout. My hands curl into fists and every self-defense class I ever took–all two of them, that I was dragged to by Perky because she wanted to hit on the instructor–run through my memory bank with one final conclusion: Drop to the floor and use your legs.

So I do.

Beastman groans. It’s a sound of... pleasure?

And sure enough, the tide raises his boat, the mast moving up, up, up, the tip rubbing against the light fixture in the middle of the ceiling.

Or, at least, that’s what it looks like from my viewpoint as I bend my knee and rotate my hip for maximum ball kicking. Good thing I'm wearing my Spanx.

Spatula’s jaw goes slack, the panic deepening, one hand ripping his baseball cap off to reveal a nearly bald pate covered in newly implanted hair plugs.

Looks like he’s in phase one. I’ve seen old plastic dolls with better patterning.

“I have looked at plenty of penises in my life, mister!” I holler up at the hairy redwood. “Yours isn’t so special! I never promised to use spit on you! I just thought I was arranging furniture and getting lighting and accessories to sell it!”

“You are, baby, oh, you are. You are so selling it.” Beastman is stroking himself. He’s, um... definitely fluffed.

Spatula lunges, grabbing Beastman’s arm. “No, man! Don’t! You’re too close to climax. We’ve got a daily budget we have to meet. No choking your chicken when you’re not being filmed. It’s in your contract!”

“He’s not allowed to masturbate when you’re filming a new movie? Not even on his personal time?” I ask, righteously indignant on poor Beastman’s behalf. “Masturbation is a basic human right! We need a 28th amendment to the Constitution! The ACLU needs to take this case! How can an employment contract prevent you from self-pleasure? That’s just wrong. Someone needs to defend the rights of single people. Lonely people. People who aren’t willing to settle. People who can’t even pick up a guy at speed dating at the library. People who– “ I wind down and shut myself up, fast.

People like me.

Damn it.

“Nope. No sex with anyone, either. It makes the movies more authentic,” Spatula elaborates, peering at me with those beady eyes.

“That’s outrageous! He has the right to private pleasure! It’s not like masturbation makes hair grow on your hands or anything.” I cannot shut up. The words keep rolling out of me, as if that coconut oil is lubing the path from the fear center of my brain to my mouth.

Beastman just shrugs, but then he carefully examines his hairy hands with a dawning look of horror.

Why I am lying on the floor, my leg cocked like a cricket, arguing for Beastman’s right to flog his meat is beyond me.

This is all out of the realm of possibility.

I’m dreaming, right? This is a sick dream.

Sounds from the foyer make it clear someone else is having an argument, a man’s authoritative baritone booming through the whole first floor.