First Kisses

Chapter 2: A-hole

One month into dating John, I got The Call.

Let me clarify that The Call was not The Talk…that happened five months later.

I was in rehearsal for Noises Off when my phone beeped with a new text message. I hadn’t spoken to John in a few days at this point—he had left on a school-organized ski field trip. John did not ski, of course; he snowboarded, as is the vocation of all slacker-nerds.

Text message from John: Hey, do u have a sec for a quick call? Know u r in rehearsal.

Text from me: Sure. Will sneak out momentarily.

We were still doing line readings, so stepping outside for a minute wouldn’t disrupt the rehearsal. I walked through the doors on the right-hand side of the Black Box (what we called our more “intimate” stage) into the small parking lot outside. I pulled up John’s number on my cell and hit send.

“Hi,” he said, answering the phone.

“Hi. Is everything okay?”

“No,” John said. He sounded indignant.

“No? What’s wrong?”

He sighed heavily. “I got injured.”

“Oh no!” I exclaimed in my best sympathetic girlfriend voice. “What happened?”

“I don’t want to tell you,” he said. “It’s embarrassing.”

I thought he was embarrassed because he always boasted about how much he boarded and all the fancy tricks he could do. “You can tell me anything.”

He drew in breath, loud enough for me to hear it. “I tore my asshole.”

And horrible, horrible girlfriend that I was, I laughed.

I didn’t mean to laugh; it just burst out of me in a whoosh of air. “Oh God, I’m so sorry,” I gasped, still laughing. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be laughing. But it is a little funny.” I crouched on the pavement and hugged my knees until my laughter subsided. “Okay, I’m done now. God, you must think I’m terrible.”

“It’s okay,” he said. “I’d think it was funny too, if my frigging ass didn’t hurt.”

A giggle burbled up but I fought it down. “How did it happen?” I asked, struggling to keep my voice even.

“The snow at Hunter Mountain is shit,” he said. “It was like a total sheet of ice. I was wearing this spiked belt that I always wear when I go boarding. Anyway, I was going downhill and when I tried to carve, my board slipped out from under me. My belt got stuck in the ice, and my ass slammed down with such force that, well…you know. I didn’t even notice anything was wrong until I got to the bottom of the hill and someone mentioned the back of my pants was bloody.” He paused. “You know, when the doctor looked at it, he laughed, too. He said it was a common pregnant woman injury.”

“Pregnant women who snowboard?”

I could feel his glare through the phone. “Don’t be dense. Pregnant women often injure that area. I guess it has to do with too much pressure from the baby.”

“Ah,” I said, blanching. “Did you have to get stitches or anything?”

“Or anything,” said John. “My, er, sphincter kinda fell out. Rectal prolapse, the doctor called it. He had to push it back in.”

Ew, gross. “But you’re fine now, right?”

He chuckled. “I’m on serious pain meds, so I feel great. Oxycontin. And the doctor gave me a pillow for my ass. It’s shaped like a donut. A few of the kids on the trip signed it, like a fucking cast or something. Some jerk-off wrote ‘nice ass-period, bro.’ ”