“Relax Mark,” she says. I slowly unzip my pants.
The living room in this house has an incredible view. It’s as if you can see every inch of the Bay Area from up here. Is the Bay Area seeing every inch of me though?
Mark begins to sob. “My mother was right.” He hangs his head in anguish. “I should have married a nice Jewish woman.”
“Oh please.” Priscilla rolls her eyes. “Have you ever even met a Jewish American Princess? The first JAP you would have tied the knot with would have taken half of your shit and used that money to keep the ball rolling with the next ten men.”
“But look at what you’re doing now! I guess I should have expected no better from a girl I met at an AEPi party!” Mark shoots back.
“We agreed this would be the best action to take for the health of our marriage. Why are you so bitter now?”
“I don’t know. It just feels weird.”
“That’s normal,” Priscilla says coolly. She looks straight at me: “Let’s get this over with.”
“Listen, if you guys aren’t comfortable with this, I can leave,” I say, trying to keep the situation calm. A dog enters the room. It’s big, with what looks like long white pool noodles for fur. If Bob Marley had an Albino dog, this would be it. He seems confused, but he can tell Mark is agitated. The canine looks at me and begins to snarl.
“Calm down, Beast!” Priscilla shouts.
The dog immediately cowers back in fear, whimpering quietly. How did I get myself into this? Priscilla looks back at me: “No, you’re finishing this.”
I shift my gaze back from the dog to the window. “So, are you comfortable, Priscilla?” Great view.
“Doctor,” she corrects me.
“Doctor Priscilla?”
“Doctor Chan.”
“Have you done something like this with your patients?” Mark interrupts anxiously.
“No Mark, I just prefer to be called by my proper title with strangers. Stop being so petty. You know I love you. I’m doing this for you,” she replies gently.
“Yeah. I’m sorry honey. You know I’m just getting worked up,” Mark begins to twiddle his thumbs.
“Ugh. You’re worse than your mother. Do you want to be like them?”
I have to interject- “Like who?”
Priscilla is quick to answer: “The Obamas. The Musks. You know.”
“No, I really don’t,” I answer. Because I don’t. What are these bizarre people going on about?
“Like last New Year’s eve. Elon Musk filed for divorce while everyone was out having the time of their lives,” Priscilla explains.
“And the Obamas?” I inquire further.
Mark answers, “I’m pretty much on a first-name basis with Barry. The controversy is that last Christmas vacation when the Obamas flew out to Hawaii, Barry came back, but Michelle stayed an extra week. It was quite a spectacle.”
“’I’m pretty much on a first-name basis with Barry.’” Priscilla repeats mockingly. “As if we don’t all know Obama’s first name.”
“I don’t get it. What do those guys have to do with you?” I need to ask again, for I am not one of quick wit.
“Well, frankly, the marriage is stagnating. We married too young and never really got to explore ourselves. But we can’t get a divorce, it would be too high profile. The press wouldn’t stop harassing us about it. It would be like if Hillary and Bill got a divorce halfway through her campaign run,” Priscilla explains.
“I understand.” I don’t actually understand. But who knows how long this explanation of their scheming and paltry concerns will go on for? I don’t really care.
“The last thing Mark would want,” Priscilla starts again, “is for me to run away from San Francisco, and travel the world alone! I’d even have a blog, where I would tell everyone that they need to quit their jobs, marry a nice Jewish boy from Harvard with a budding social network, and then split up with him and travel the world!”
“Hindsight is 20/20,” I reply, trying to point out that her strategy for quitting her job, traveling the world, and starting a blog about doing so would probably not have replicable success if attempted by others.
“History always repeats itself,” she answers.
“History doesn’t repeat itself, but it sure rhymes!” Mark chimes in chirpily. He is a well-read man.
“Ugh. You see what I put up with?” Priscilla says.
“Not really, no. But the view from your living room is pretty nice. I can see that.”
“He’s got a point.” Mark agrees. “It only cost thirty million dollars.”
I can’t resist. “Thirty million dollars isn’t cool. You know what’s cool?”
“.Thirty billion dollars.” Mark finishes the line, giddy with excitement.
A flare ignites in Priscilla’s eye. We’re off to the races now. “You just love stating your net worth, don’t you?” She didn’t like that. I don’t want to be stuck here forever.
“Listen guys, I’m not a marriage counselor. Let’s just focus on the task at hand here. I have a job to get back to.”
“At Facebook.” Mark shuts me down.
“Right, whatever. How do you want me to go about this?”
“Move fast and break things!” Mark shouts at me.
Priscilla picks a small porcelain mug up from the coffee table and beams it at Mark as hard as she possibly can. It bounces off of his cranium and shatters into hundreds of little pieces as it hits the floor.
“OW! I said break things, not me!” Mark cries out in anguish.
“Men are possessions.” Priscilla smirks.
Mark looks at me with a frown. “Never get married.”
“I am slow, not insane.”
Get me the fuck out of here already.
“Aww Mark. You’re just cranky. Here,” Priscilla skips into the kitchen and pulls a large, transparent bag filled with red meat out of the refrigerator. On the bag is a label that says “Mark’s meat”.
“Mark’s meat?” I don’t want to know, but at this point I need to ask.
“Mark used to only eat what he killed himself. He mostly stopped, but it cheers him up every now and again to eat something that he slaughtered with his own, bare hands.” She walks back into the living room.
Mark gets up off the couch and excitedly begins jumping up and down, panting heavily.
“Me, me, me, me!”
Their dog, Beast, comes running up beside him, jumping and panting as well. Priscilla places a small piece of “Mark’s meat” into Mark’s mouth. Beast begins to bounce around even more excitedly, certainly wondering when he will get his turn.
Suddenly, Priscilla looks up toward the ceiling. Mark and Beast look up as well. Mark crouches down on his heels, and Beast crouches down on his hind legs, both ready to lunge up as high as possible. Priscilla pulls a large chunk of meat out of the bag, and throws it straight up in the air. Mark leaps upward, trying to catch it with his mouth, but barely misses. The dog latches his mouth on it. Seconds later, Mark is back on the floor, viciously wrestling Beast and pulling the meat from the dog’s jaws with his own mouth. Both of them are snarling.
“That will keep them busy for a while.” Priscilla says, smiling at me now.
“Okay. I’m ready. Bend over.”
The pants come off. The dirty begins. I insert my bowling pin sized chocholate shaft in between those sweet Asian buns, up the birth canal, and an inch into the uterus. A three-by-nine poster of Donald Trump is on the wall, staring at me, smiling. I give Trump a thumbs up. Trump’s portrait raises its thumb back at me, but it’s Snoop Dogg this time. Whatever. I howl. Priscilla roars. Mark whimpers.
The dirty deed is done, but somehow I feel cleaner.
“Aww, Mark, what’s wrong? Is it time for beddy-bye?” the satiated Priscilla asks. Mark grumbles a little bit while pouting, and then lets out a murmured “yes,” frowning at the floor.
Priscilla smiles at me and nods. “Let’s tuck the Zuck in.”
She points me to a rack of children’s books. I pick up the copy of Goodnight Moon. A classic, and Mark’s favorite. I hand the book to Priscilla.
“Perfect”, she says knowingly. She guides Mark to the bedroom. He is giddy with delight as she tucks him in, vehemently anticipating the intricacies of the thrilling novel, with cows lunging over celestial bodies and the farewells granted to such scenes. I hear Priscilla recite the story to him, and then all is silent. Priscilla emerges moments later.
“The Zuck is tucked in.” She proudly proclaims. She’s smiling at me with her eyes now as she says, “Let’s get you an Uber.”
She makes the call and a black sedan pulls up in front of the Chan residence. I give Priscilla a friendly kiss goodbye and hop out onto the lawn, before sprinting to the car. A security guard standing at the driveway’s entrance gives me a wink. I wave my hand like I’m the Queen of England and jump in the car.
“My my, what were you doing at the Zuck residence?” asks the Uber driver.
“Just cucking the Zuck,” I inform him.
“How much wood could a woodcuck zuck if a woodcuck could zuck wood?” he inquires further.
“As much wood as a woodcuck could zuck, if a woodcuck could zuck wood.”