A Woman I’d Been Seeing
Helena, a woman I’ve been seeing off and on and who works over at the National Enquirer, texted me a picture of Jeff Bezos’s junk. You know, the one that’s been getting all the media attention.
How had she come by it? Was it just floating around the office for all and sundry to consult? Like the Oracle of Delphi? Or did she have a special inside connection to the top brass among whom iPhone snaps of famous dicks suitable for blackmail would have limited circulation?
When the image arrived in my inbox, I glanced at it. Read Helena’s comment: “This is it! J.B.’s junk. Totally awesome, yes!?”
It looked pretty nebbish to me.
But the full frontal issue for me was its provenance. Was it really his? Or a clever forgery?
I mean, the junk in the .jpg from Helena wasn’t tattooed with the name Bezos or even his initials. And no chain of custody had been established, like the cops are required to have for admissible evidence. (I’m a big Law & Order fan.)
All I had was Helena’s word for its authenticity and she definitely didn’t score 100% on the truth-o-meter. More like 67%.
There was the time when she said she had a stomach bug and needed to stay home close to the ceramic bus. That night I spotted her in Veselka’s with some guy in a suit. They were eating stuffed cabbage and laughing at 1:00 a.m. I didn’t call her for a week. Then there was the weekend she went to Cleveland because her mother was ill. It was February. Nobody goes to Cleveland in February. I later found out she went to Miami (probably with the same guy). I discovered the airline ticket stub in her apartment—interleaved as a bookmark in Portnoy’s Complaint.
That Helena said it was Jeff’s junk meant diddly-squat. It could have been anybody’s.
Then it occurred to me: How many peckers had Helena been involved with in her 28 years? Five? Fifteen? A hundred? It’s a subject we never discussed. And, frankly, I didn’t want to discuss it now. What if she turned out to be the female equivalent of Georges Simenon?
Jealousy swept over me like a riptide, carrying me out to deep waters. I was sure the .jpg prick belonged to the guy in the suit.
As it was mid-November and sleeting, I put on my tweed overcoat, my gray Bogart-style Borsalino and a scarf. In my pocket rested the snub-nosed .38 my roommate had asked me to keep while he went to prison for armed robbery.
I took a cab to 2nd Avenue.
It was my lucky night. There he was, the suit guy, sitting at a table in Veselka’s. But not with Helena. A skinny blonde faced him—scoop-neck T-shirt, no bra. She looked cold. They were both eating borscht with sour cream and drinking beer.
I took a seat at the counter, ordered a decaf tea and waited.
Soon enough he went to the men’s room. I decided not to approach the blonde and show her the pic. “Is this his?” It would have been too weird. Instead I followed him.
He was standing at the urinal, junk in hand, mind somewhere. I stepped up behind him, jammed the snub nose of the .38 into his ear. He blanched.
“Show me your pecker,” I said.
The one in the .jpg Helena sent? It wasn’t his.
I clubbed him on the side of the head anyway. He slumped floorward. I fled.
Later that night the truth hit me.
Helena was sleeping with J.B.! What a shag hag (!), as my Brit friends would say.
I read in the Times he was coming to NYC about the new Amazon HQ. According to the paparazzi and glam gossip sites, he always stayed at the St. Regis.
Then Amazon dumped its New York plans. But that didn’t mean J.B. wouldn’t come to NYC. To catch a Broadway show. Mayhap to boink Helena!
* * *
Every day, like Elisha Cook, Jr. in The Maltese Falcon, I sit in the lobby of the St. Regis, hidden behind my copy of the Daily News, the .38 in my pocket, waiting.
But my patience is wearing thin. If he doesn’t show soon, more than likely I’ll have to shoot Helena instead.
Horror Sleaze Trash 