Frank Peodius was pounding away at his keyboard, frantically searching for the best dating site. So far this year, he's registered at five costly ones--Yahoo Dating and Plentyoffish--searching for that special somebody.

He had just finished entering his credit card information into another site when the cell phone rang. He picked the cell phone up and held it to his ear with the aid of his right shoulder as he continued filling out the required information for membership.

"Hello," he said into the cell phone.

"Frank. It's me, Dennis."

Dennis was Frank's shrink and best friend. They'd known each other since childhood, both spending the majority of their childhoods in the same orphanage.

"Frank," Dennis scolded, sounding more like a psychiatrist than a friend, "You're not wasting all your money and time on another dating website, are you?"

A pause. Frank was pissed. Why was this bastard speaking so patronizingly when he wasn't even on his couch? Finally, after his anger and shock had finally subsided Frank said, "No."

Dennis knew his friend was lying.

"Frank, how many hours, how many sessions have I spent saying it isn't healthful for you to meet women online?"

Silence. Dennis had waited for a response, but nothing came. Then he continued.

"That's why tonight I've decided to set you up with one of my clients, Rosemary. Beautiful woman--she's a good fifteen years older than you; but I know for a fact that that shouldn't be a problem, considering how you've always liked your women a little older than you."

Which wasn't exactly true. Frank had liked them a lot older than him. He was an avid collector of mature pornography featuring women in their sixties, seventies and eighties getting plowed by men young enough to be their grandsons.

At first Frank had protested, but Dennis had finally talked him into it. "Do you really want to get better? Do you want to, if not entirely forget how fucked up your childhood was, start living a semi-normal life? If so, you're going to have to learn how to cultivate normal relationships like everybody else. You must learn how to not fear intimacy; to accept it as a way of life." A pause, then Dennis continued, "Not everybody will abandon you like your parents did, Frank."

Ouch. Frank had gotten the point.

He ripped a piece of paper from out of his printer and then he asked Dennis, "Okay, Mr. Know-it-all, where the hell am I supposed to meet her?

*   *   *

The place was a cozy little Italian eatery. Every table was draped in red-and-white checkered design tablecloth, and at the far end of the restaurant, near the restrooms and bar area, stood a middle-aged man in a blue pin-striped suite singing Sinatra via a cheesy little karaoke concoction.

"And now, the end is near, and so I face, the final curtain..."

He noticed an elderly woman, of about sixty, sitting alone and expectantly at a table in the middle of the restaurant.

He approached her.

"Rosemary?"

"Sit down, hun." She smiled pleasantly. Her voice had seriously aroused him, having a gravelly-yet-sensual sound to it--like Lucille Ball, when she got really old.

They sat there for two hours--talking, drinking wine, and having an all-around good time.

It was ten o'clock, and three tall glasses of White Zinfiendel later, when she suggested they take a cab back to her place.

"Why not?" Frank beamed.

*   *   *

The second they got in the apartment she started kissing his neck, and then biting at it; he pushed her on the bed and then he jumped on top of her.

Giggling ensued. "Oh Rosemary; Rosemary!"

They went at it three separate times that night, then one time in the morning. After the fourth serving Rosemary lit a Virginia Slim cigarette, puffed at it and then she passed it over to Frank.

Frank, for the first time in his life, was content. I am truly blessed, he thought. The next time I see Dennis I'm going to give him a big hug. Bless that man and his sound advice; bless him to hell!

As he fumbled his left hand carelessly on the nightstand for his glasses he accidientially knocked something over. Crack.

It was the sound of grass breaking.

"Sorry, I'll get that," he said. Then he said again, "I'm so sorry!"

"Don't worry about it," she said, exhaling smoke.

It was a framed photo of a young boy--wait a minute! He looked oddly familiar.

"Rosemary--who is this?"

Rosemary sighed, looking a little sad. "That's my boy, Frank. I was forced to give him away for adoption when I was seventeen and--"

Frank, red-faced and crying, collapsed to the floor.

"What's wrong, lover?" Rosemary had said.


"Peodius Complex"

Copyright: © 2011 Jack Bristow

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Jack Bristow, an all-out weirdo from New Mexico, has written for several online magazines and even one print one. Follow him: @Jackbristo

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