Look Who's NOT Coming to Dinner... Ch. 03

"You are stupid," Ashanti said.

"Really? Well my mom says I am the smartest and handsomest boy ever, so maybe you don't know so much."

Goddamn it. Ashanti was laughing again as he puffed out his chest like his mother just put a medal on it. "Dude, you are killing me," Ashanti said after she stopped cackling. Cackling. This guy made her cackle.

"Go to my house and clean my ferret cage," McGuire said and waggled his fingers in front of her face like he was casting a spell or trying to hypnotize her.

"What?" If this was another joke she didn't get it. Was cleaning a ferret cage some white boy code for something else?

"Marilyn Monroe is a lying cunt," he said with disgust as he shook his head.

"What did Marilyn do to you?"

"She said that if I could make a woman laugh, I could make her do anything."

It came together in her head and Ashanti laughed again. "So, since you made me laugh, and supposedly you can now make me do anything, your ferret cage is the first order of business?"

"I am field testing a theory here. I figure if a girl is willing to clean a ferret cage, ferrets are the most disgusting of the furred creatures, she is willing to play Halo for head all night."

"Halo for head? Halo the video game? What are you talking about McGuire?"

"Okay, so we flip a coin to see who goes first then we pop in Halo, the first edition on the easiest level, and whoever won the coin toss starts playing while the loser goes down on them. The player plays until they die and then we switch."

"You do this often?"

"Not often enough," he said like an admission and Ashanti laughed again.

"You're funny, but I don't think we going to match up like that."

"That makes me sad," McGuire said with his smirk that was growing on her. "What do we do now?"

"We could just hang out and bullshit. Keep me company while my girl works out what she's going to do with Rico Suave out there."

"Okay, I need a beer, you ready?"

"You provide drinks with your keep me company services too?"

"Sure, maybe by hanging out with you some of these other women will wonder what they are missing." He gestured to the few other women in the Reservoir Bar. "Buying you a drink is like an investment."

Ashanti shrugged at the portly bearded white man and he left to get their drinks. He was funny but he didn't make her think the nasty thoughts like Earl did even though he was a younger version of him. The pussy sauce in the coffee seemed to be what made her crazy. Not even the Fitty wannabe she fucked on a dance floor did it for her. McGuire was at least funny, he already brought her more pleasure than the big-dicked brute did while fucking her. The table she and Elaine first sat at came available again and Ashanti went and set her drink on it. McGuire joined her and took the seat opposite her after setting his beer and a fresh drink for her on the table. He lit a cigarette and she thought of Earl again.

"Okay, so I don't do it for you. As shocking as that is, who does?"

"You don't even want to know," she replied and rolled her eyes.

"Why?"

"It's fucked up."

Did she tell McGuire her troubles? He was a stranger. She would probably never step foot in this bar again. She would probably never see McGuire again. What if she told him all the things that she as too afraid to say to her friends and family? She drained her last drink and winced at the harsh alcohol flavor then set the glass aside and pulled the one he bought her closer. She glanced over at Elaine who laughed at something else her Latin suitor said and she reached out and pawed at his chest as she laughed. That was a sign and the handsome Hispanic picked up on it and caught her hand and held it as they continued to speak. It looked like Ashanti had some time to kill. Fuck it.

She opened up to McGuire. She told him about dropping out of college, wrecking her car, quitting gymnastics, and everything else she had done to disappoint her family. She told him about her new job at the convenience store and about the old white biker looking dude that came in every morning at six, and how she wound up finding him attractive. Not why she wound up finding him attractive, not the bit about her dosing his coffee with essence of her, just that she did wind up finding him attractive for mysterious reasons. She wouldn't even tell that bit to a stranger she would never see again.

She did admit that she started flirting with him and eventually got him to give her a ride on his motorcycle, and that she went home with him, several times. She described Earl, his clothes, his gut, his Santa Claus beard, the flipflops, and the earring, his age, and how she never, ever, found any of those things attractive about a man. That all her young life she found the opposite attractive. She admitted that even now, right this instant, she wanted to call him, to go to him, and to be with him, even though it was possibly the most self-destructive move she could make at this point in her life.

"That's fucked up," McGuire said after she stopped her descriptive rant.

"I know, right?"

"No, not what you think is fucked up. You are fucked up."

"That's what I'm saying McGuire; I am fucked up."

"Yes, but not because you are attracted to this guy. You are fucked up because you give a shit what anybody else thinks about what you are attracted to. Fuck your dad, your sisters, your friends, and anybody else who thinks they have the right to tell you who you can and can't be attracted to."

Damn, McGuire didn't have a smirk on his face and what he said wasn't funny. He just hit her right between the eyes with it. Somehow, this was a serious topic to McGuire, and he felt as free to say the hard words to her as she felt free to discuss shameful shit with him. Maybe for the same reason. McGuire probably figured he would never see her again either and so, why not level her with his perspective? He made her feel shallow and small. Was she shallow and small?

"You don't understand," Ashanti said.

"Oh, okay, my bad, please clarify for me what I wasn't able to grasp." He said it thick with sarcasm.

"Dude, you don't have to be rude about it."

"Rude? You are talking about dumping a guy you like just because people outside the relationship might judge you for being with him. That is fucking rude. I am just telling you like I see it, because we don't know each other very well, probably never will, and fuck it. I thought a lot more of you before you told me your sad story."

Ashanti wanted to fire back but any response that came to mind felt hollow and wide of the point. What he said was right. Just because it pissed her off, wasn't what she wanted to hear, was no reason to attack this man. His attack was justifiable. As a stranger he was willing to call her out on her shit. It was her shit. He was right. She was fucked up, but not in the way she thought she was fucked up.

"How old are you McGuire?"

"Twenty-four."

"What makes you so smart at twenty-four?"

"Maybe I am not all that smart, but when one of the beautiful people whines about their relationship woes, it pushes my buttons. When one admits she has found happiness, real happiness, in a man outside her beautiful people tribe, and plans on ending it for no more reason than the man is not beautiful enough for her friends and family, it mashes my buttons even harder."

"Are you one of those incel nice guys I hear about on the internet that thinks all pretty girls who won't fuck them are stuck up sluts who should be raped and killed?"

McGuire threw his head back and laughed this time, then took a sip of his beer. "Nothing like that. If I need to get laid, I still have a couple numbers I can drunkenly dial at three in the morning. So while I won't categorize myself as an involuntary celibate, I know what side of the ugly-pretty line I stand on. Us over here in Uglyville get a little frustrated watching doors slam open for you beautiful people and then still hear you complain."

"Were you listening to me? I don't feel like any doors are slamming open for me."

"No? You saw a guy, developed an attraction to him, and then fucked him, pretty much at will. You take that for granted. You know how many people I see on a daily basis that I'd like to fuck and just have to accept that I never will?" He chuckled. "You maybe don't realize it, but with your looks, you could probably do that in all areas of your life. You want a better job? Your looks can get you one. You want a new car? Your looks can get you one. You want better grades in school? Your looks can get them too.

"I have a structural engineering degree from an ivy league school. I busted my ass to graduate at the top of my class, and was hired by an architectural firm right out of college. They hired this other guy at the same time as me. He went to a shittier school and graduated somewhere around the middle of his class, but he's real pretty; six feet tall, athletic, with a movie star jawline.

"Now neither of us have been promoted yet, and he's a nice enough guy, but I have to go behind him and fix a bunch of stuff he fucks up on a regular basis. You know how many times he's been golfing with one of the partners? How many times he's been invited to lunch, or on company junkets? How many times the office manager has taken him out at night on the company's dime? Me neither, but I know it is more times than me, because I have never been invited to any of those things. I have to hear him tell me about them when he gets back as I go through and fix his fuck ups.

"Society claims to value what I can do more than how he looks, and yet, the Kardashians exist, the Jersey Shore happened, and Paul Giamatti has a net worth of about twenty-five million while Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson makes that much per movie. So if it makes you feel better, call me an incel, a nice guy, and even, God forbid, ugly, if you want, but when it comes promotion time, Shondre is probably going to get it before I will. So call me what you want, but don't pretend my beef isn't legitimate."

"Goddamn McGuire, I didn't mean to get into all that, but who the fuck is Shondre?"

"Shondre is my good looking buddy at work."

"He's black?"

"Yeah, white people don't do that shit to their kids Ashanti." He chuckled and she rolled her eyes and joined him. "Is what color he is supposed to matter?"

"It's not supposed to," she said and tried to organize all he said in her vodka addled mind. This next part was going to be mean, but funny, and she could not resist. "So this Shondre dude, he sounds great. Can you help me get with him?"

For a second his eyes widened in shock and anger then he saw her smirk and threw his head back and horse laughed. She joined him and they both laughed so hard they drew stares from the other patrons of the Reservoir Bar. He held his beer up and she clinked it with her iced vodka drink. They both drank then laughed some more.

"You are funny too," he finally said with a grin.

"Surprised?"

"Yeah, a little."

"Why?"

"I don't know, us grotesques have our negative stereotypes about your people too: dumb, shallow, insincere, tacky, lacking in culture, uneducated, not funny, etcetera."

"Damn, all that?"

"And more, it's nice to be surprised."

"Like most stereotypes, most of those are wrong. I know pretty people who are none of the above, lots of them. Who fucked you up. Why are you so insecure?"

"I am not even remotely insecure."

"You think you are ugly, called yourself a grotesque. I know you trying to be funny, but that kind of self-deprecating humor is usually tied to a lack of confidence."

"Maybe, but not in my case. I could clean up, dress better, make an effort, but my genetics would halt my attempts to look pretty at the merely average level of the spectrum. Average is regarded much the same way as ugly, so why bother? Rather than try something I am destined to fail at, I prefer to not even play."

"Bullshit, you were trying to play as soon as we came in."

"Don't confuse me trying to fuck your friend, knowing it was a long shot, for playing the game. I hold her in as much contempt as she holds me, that doesn't mean I don't still want to fuck her."

"If you don't like her, then why try to fuck her?"

"Because I have needs and I like the way she looks. I don't know anything about her, but I suspect that how she looks is pretty much all she brings to the table. It takes me about seventeen minutes to satisfy that need. What is there after that? What are we going to talk about? Twilight books? Love and Hip Hop Atlanta? How the barista at Starbucks was mean to her because even though grande means large in Spanish, it only means medium at Starbucks?"

"That's fucking rude McGuire. You are right. You don't know anything about her." Ashanti chuckled as she said it. The Starbucks bit got her.

"Wait, are you saying that judging someone based on how they look is rude?" He smirked at her as he lit another cigarette and looked like Earl again.

This fucker was right and she saw him with new eyes. She still wasn't attracted to him, anymore than she was attracted to the brute on the dance floor, but the conversation was stimulating. He made her laugh. He also made her think. Was she a shallow piece of shit for letting what others would think about Earl and her together to threaten a possible happy future with him? She couldn't even contemplate how that would work. But why? Because her parents, and siblings, and friends would be shitty about it? Elaine did judge McGuire based only on how he looked. So did Ashanti. Now here he was being funny and interesting as fuck.

"Okay, fine, Elaine and me may be shallow bitches sometimes." She looked out to where Elaine was now making out with the Hispanic man, his big hands were palming her round Puerto Rican ass. "So we judged you as un-fuckable, and you judged us as un-dateable." He chuckled at this and she joined him. "Who is worse?"

"Beats me, and who cares? None of us are going to change. What are you going to do?"

"About what?"

"About your old white man."

"I don't know."

"How bad would it really be? Your family and friends I mean. How big a dicks are they?"

"It would be bad. You got a sister?"

"A couple. One older and one younger."

"What if your younger sister brought a fifty year old black man to dinner, or a family function?"

"My dad would load his gun, my mother would faint, my older brother would laugh his ass off, my older sister would be over the top welcoming to him and rage against my parents and the awful racist shit my brother was saying because he thought he was funny."

"And you?"

"I'd invite the dude out to the garage for a smoke and try to get to know him."

"You say that now."

"I do, maybe it would be different. I hope that's what I'd do. Fifty year old men, of any color, have some interesting tales to tell. They have seen some shit."

"Like what?" Ashanti looked over to check and Elaine was no longer making out with her man. They were talking again, but they were still in each other's arms.

"They watched the world change. They were alive before the internet. They were alive to see a lot of amazing shit happen, as it was happening. You should ask your old white man for the specifics."

That would be nice. She wanted to know Earl's life story. She imagined laying her head back on his belly like she did that morning, his beard tickling the side of her face, as he told her all about himself, and the specifics. She would ask questions. His hand on her breasts would distract her, but the distraction would be a welcome one. They would pause his story from time to time so she could sit on his face, or she could suck his dick, and fuck, a couple times they would pause and fuck. She realized she was smiling at these thoughts and she felt a growing warmth. It was the alcohol but it was also arousal. The brute stirred the pot but he didn't finish cooking the stew.

"What's your number McGuire?" she asked suddenly.

"Why?"

"I like talking to you. I may want to again."

"Are you leaving?"

"In a bit I am. I don't want to forget to get your number later though."

He gave her the number and she tapped it into her phone. When it was in she dialed it and his phone captured her number. They tapped in silence as they programmed their numbers into their phones. Neither asked for last names. Ashanti was Ashanti and McGuire was McGuire. She didn't know if that was his first or last name.

"I'll be right back," Ashanti said after she put her phone back in her clutch. She stepped out of the Reservoir Bar and walked over to where Elaine was still in the arms of her new man. He was cute, handsome even, like underwear ad fine. "Hey bitch," she said as she approached them.

"What bitch?" Elaine said back. Her voice was sweet, like her head was full of pleasant thoughts.

"I need a minute."

Elaine whispered something to her new friend and stepped away a few feet with Ashanti. "What?"

"I am going to take off. You good with this guy? If you need me to stay I will."

"I am so good," Elaine said with a nod. "Where you going? You need me to drive you home?"

"No, I got a plan. If it doesn't work out I'll get an Uber."

"Ugh, your plan isn't McGuire is it? I saw you talking to him."

"You should talk to him. McGuire is funny as fuck, but no. I got a different plan."

"We never got to your phase. You need me and I'm here. You need to talk?"

"No, not now, not today. I think I got this. What about you? Does Papi here feel safe to you?"

"Yeah, we ain't hooking up tonight. He out here with his sisters, a chaperon, so he'll call me tomorrow."

"Alright," Ashanti said. "When you are done with him, go talk to McGuire. He's funny and thinks all you got to offer is good pussy and no conversation."

"What?" Elaine looked angry and glared at McGuire where he stood by the door. He smirked back at Elaine.

"Fuck you," Elaine mouthed at him and Ashanti laughed.

"It's no worse than how you judged him," Ashanti pointed out.

"Whatever," Elaine said and turned back to Arturo.

It was almost two in the morning and Ashanti took out her cell phone and walked away from the Reservoir Bar. She felt nervous. She was apprehensive about waking Earl up but she knew she was going to drunk dial him. Maybe it was the alcohol, maybe it was McGuire shaming her, but she was in the mood to give into her desires. She pulled his number up in her phone and her thumb hovered over the call button. Fuck.

"Good morning," he said sleepily into the phone after the third ring.

"I am sorry to wake you, and if you want you can hang up on me and I'll understand."

"You okay?"

"I'm fine. A little drunk."

"Is this one of those booty calls I keep hearing about?" he asked and she laughed loudly. She could imagine his old white face saying the words and he looked ridiculous. There was no denying it though. This was a booty call.

"If it is, are you interested?"

"Affirmative." She laughed again.

"I'd need you to come get me."

"On my way. Where am I going?"

"I'm in Ybor. Do you know where the Reservoir Bar is?"

"I know it."

"I'll be about three blocks away from it on the same side of Seventh."

"Twenty minutes. Bike or truck?"

"Bike, please, but I am going be a spectacle. I'm not wearing much."

"Okay, in that case, I'll be there in ten minutes."

She hung up and tried to wipe the grin off her face as she walked back toward the Reservoir Bar. Elaine was still talking to Arturo. Ashanti left them alone and went back into the bar. McGuire was talking to a skinny white girl with a flannel shirt tied around her waist so it looked like a skirt. She wore combat boots and a tank top. Tattoos ran up and down both of her arms. She wasn't wearing a bra and her little nipples on her small breasts poked through. She also showed some small side boob. Ashanti avoided them too so she didn't inadvertently fuck anything up for McGuire. She ordered a drink. She would finish it quickly then walk three blocks down and wait for Earl.