Monica's Wet Hot Revenge

-1-

Her eyes fluttered open as if in time with the birdsong outside. It took her a moment to remember where she was, that the high ceilings of exposed pine and pulse of chirping insects, that the rising swelter in the morning air could only mean Declan's family lake-house—or, as he and most of his fellow Mainers so quaintly called such a place, "camp."

She rolled over and laid her arm around him, watching his shoulder rise and fall in the morning sun, ignoring the itchiness of the old blankets which, owning to tacky patterns or uncomfortable fabric, had been relegated to camp service. She breathed in his scent, faded Irish Spring with just a hint of sweaty funk from the humid night. It was a delicious and familiar smell—his smell.

This had to be the weekend—this was it. Next month would mark the fifth anniversary of when they started dating, all the way back in their senior year of undergrad. Here it was high summer, with her one semester away from her PhD and him two weeks into official certification as a real, live, New Jersey Bar Association-certified lawyer, and they were in their favorite spot on earth. Whenever she asked—careful not to nag but desperate to know—he always said when they were through school, the time would be right. Here they were, many of their friends were up for the annual boozy kayak adventure down the river that fed the lake. Even his dad was coming up that day—everyone was here. It had to be now.

All her friends agreed, the reason he'd been so distant the past few months was because guys got like that when they were psyching themselves up to pop the question. It was too perfect. He probably had the ring already—probably stashed in the little safe he kept beside the bed with all their vital documents and a small stack of cash in case of emergency. Well, Declan Sullivan might not know it yet, but there was an emergency. He was going to have to put out a rapidly-spreading fire in the boxers she'd stolen from his travel bag.

A sudden smile parted her lips as she snaked her hand under the threadbare blanket he'd coiled around himself as he slept. She felt his bare ribs, the lazy swelling and contracting of his firm stomach as he breathed. She allowed her fingers to trace the familiar contours of his lower belly and hip, lingering just below the pant-line before creeping inside, pushing herself tighter against his back as she pressed her chin into his bare, freckled shoulder.

No sooner did she touch it than he spun on her with such violence he head-butted her in the eye and fell, scrambling with the blankets, out of bed. She rocked a little, then laid back, the room browning in and out as she held her hands over her left eye. He regained the bed, his hand was on her thigh.

"Oh, shit, Monica. I'm sorry. I was dreaming, I didn't...oh, I got you pretty good. Goddammit, I'm sorry. I'll get you a washcloth with some ice, hold on..."

She tried to protest but wasn't sure if she was making much sense. She didn't feel so faint anymore but the dull pain emanating from her left brow now seemed to envelop her entire skull. She closed her eyes in turn to ensure they both still saw, watching the knotted doorframe make a small jump back and forth as she closed one, then the other, one, then the other. He returned, apologizing profusely, then handed her the ice and sat, staring out the window.

"It's fine, babe. It hurts, but it was an accident. Don't wor—babe? Deck? Are you...are you crying?"

He turned to her and as soon as he said, 'maybe it was for the best that didn't get any further just now,' she knew it was going to be bad. It was bad when he said he felt trapped by the relationship, like he was missing out on people and experiences because he was investing so much time in her. It was worse when he said he didn't want to do it here, but he just couldn't wait any longer to get this conversation over with. They both knew it was time, he said. Even before she began to protest and try to get a handle on what he was saying, he stopped her.

"Just...wait. You can say what you've gotta say, but that's not all. There's um...there's something else. Um. Fuck. All right. Last year, when I said I was going up home early to see some of the guys and all that..."

"Yeah..." she said and sniffled, sitting bolt upright, bracing herself for this final, and she sensed, worst blow.

"I didn't really come up here. I went to Kelly's. I stayed there for that whole weekend and...we... And I don't know, the more time I spent alone with Kelly, the more I came to realize—"

"Hold the fucking phone, Declan. Are you seriously telling me you're banging my friend? One of my best friends? You're cheating on me with my freshman year roommate, the girl who fucking introduced us? Are you fucking kidding me?!"

He said he wished he was. He apologized until he ran out of ways to say it. He said he wished this wasn't happening but he couldn't keep living a lie.

"Oh my god. How...? Oh my god. You're in love with her."

When he said he didn't mean for this happen, she was out of the bed. Headache or no, she pulled on her clothes and gathered what few items she'd unpacked as best she could while crying that hard. When he tried to hug her, she almost reciprocated out of sheer habit, then shoved him away and screamed and screamed and the next thing she knew she was throwing her luggage into her car and making dust down the lake road.

She made a complete circle of the lake and almost ran over a porcupine and someone called the Thibodeaus' mailbox before she realized she shouldn't be driving. She had no idea where she was going—maybe back, maybe to a hotel, maybe back to the city, she didn't know—until she had rounded the sharpest curve and found herself steering down the one other driveway on this lake she knew so well she almost couldn't remember a time when it was unfamiliar.

She hadn't even pulled herself together enough to get out of the car when she looked up and saw her standing there. Tanya was always her favorite of Declan's friends from high school—just a cool, sassy, down-ass bitch. In the midsummer haze, her wild yellow hair standing every direction from a rough night, backlit by the sun rising over the lake and fluttering on the breeze with a gentleness that caught Monica's attention enough to make her stop hitching and sniffing for a moment, she reminded her of a tie-die clad, rum-scented angel. In that instant, Monica knew instinct had brought her to the right place.

Tanya helped her out of the car and held her as she wept. The loon calls and sunbaked pine needles and morning brightness of the vivid vacationland idyll seemed to mock her enormous, bottomless sorrow. Tanya had led her into the shade of the patio umbrella and put a pint glass of pineapple-flavored vodka and Arnold Palmer in her hand before she could even begin to form words. When she got the story out, Tanya sat studying her, stoic for moment, holding Monica's hands in hers. She stood, gathered her small, exhausted, red-faced friend into her surprisingly powerful arms and bent to Monica's ear.

"It's okay. You can stay with me as long as you want. And Mo? Mo, are you listening to me?"

"Yeah?" Monica managed, drawing shaking hands across her wet cheeks.

Tanya studied her eyes, a suppressed smile twisting her thin, chapped lips. She hugged Monica close and whispered in her ear.

"We're gonna get you drunk. We're gonna rest up a little, 'cause you had a rough morning and I'm hungover as fuck. And then we're gonna figure out to get that motherfucker."

-2-

The basic solution was so simple, it came out of Monica's mouth as a fully-formed thought she hadn't known was there. Declan had cheated with one of her closest friends, someone she had confided in and relied upon and even loved. There was only one way to top that affront: she had to have sex with someone close to him—someone even closer than a trusted old friend.

"Well, let's think, then. Who of that fuckface—I'm not even saying his name anymore, that lying fucking...guh! Anyway, who of his friends are hot?"

They proceeded to list some of his more attractive friends. There were a couple of solid prospects, but Monica had to admit that somehow felt petty, inadequate. She didn't want to match him. She wanted to beat him. She told Tanya as much.

They sat drinking, studying the waves as if they might have the answer. They gasped. It was under their noses the whole time. It came out of both their mouths at the same time.

"Mr. Sullivan!"

The more they worked it out, the more they realized how perfect the idea was. Monica had had a secret crush on Declan's dad since the first time she met him. In fact, when she met him she was so taken aback she had to excuse herself to the bathroom and collect herself just from him bypassing her offered handshake to give her a hug. He was so strong and she still remembered his musk—it had been fall and he'd just come in from splitting wood when she and Declan arrived.

Mr. Sullivan—Dan, technically, but she'd only heard his friends call him Sully—was in his late 50s, tall, blue-eyed, square-jawed, outdoorsy and rugged. He had the aura of a hot lumberjack. There was a refined dusting of gray around his temples and a homemade gym in his garage. She had been confused and turned on by watching him bench-press a giggling Declan one time. He had recently retired as one of the higher-ups at a very successful landscaping and tree care company and he had turned his longtime hobby of custom guitar-building into a sexy retirement gig. Better yet, he had been divorced from Declan's mom since Declan was 15, and he'd had on-again-off-again girlfriends, but his only serious post-divorce relationship—Marybeth, who Monica had despised with strenuously-concealed, venomous jealousy—had ended right around the time she and Declan started dating.

Declan was handsome and fit and whip-smart, but a self-declared nerd. Mr. Sullivan had always been more Monica's style—a man's man, big and firm and strong, who knew how to use a compass and a rifle and what poison sumac looked like. He was several inches taller than Declan and positively towered over Monica's petite frame. Originally from West Texas, he had the most charming lilt of faded Southern accent. Best of all, she'd always thought he resembled Robert Redford, except for those stark blue eyes that mesmerized and tantalized the way she imagined a vampire's eyes might. Of course, it wasn't her blood she wanted Mr. Sullivan to suck.

"Ohmygod, he's...wow. That would definitely go a long way to improving my mood—long-term and short. Let's just say that."

"I'm not even that into guys—like maybe 30-70—and Declan's dad even floods my basement. He's like upper-echelon hot. He looks like a goddamn movie star. And he's so nice. Dude. When he rolls up the flannel sleeves to do something and you can see those forearms...Jesus, bitch, maybe I'll just bang him."

"I appreciate what you're doing here—like you're definitely proving that you're the friend I used to think that albino ginger twat Kelly was—but you cannot Bogart my revenge plan."

"Can I tell you something but you—"

"I thought we weren't telling anyone about any of this conversation. Refill, please."

"I know that's right, little lady," Tanya said, pouring the translucent brown liquid from a shaker with a Ke$ha logo on it until it nearly overflowed her glass, "anyway, I have some information that may be relevant before we go any further with this little scheme."

"Okay. If we keep this pace up, it's not like I'll remember any of this tomorrow, anyway."

"Oh, no Mo-Mo. You'll remember this. Back in high school, one time I came over to Steve's house for band practice and all the guys were just ripping on Declan about something but I couldn't figure out the big joke, you know? Finally, by threatening to withhold cigarettes, I get it out of them. And it turns out Steve and his girlfriend at the time had been up here at the lake and they had smoked up and they were just starting to kind of fool around down on this particular beach the kids around here go to make out and—the one by the jetty, you know it. They're down there and they hear a sound in the woods. They're in a pretty secluded spot, you know, and they're baked, so they're a little spooked. Of course, you know, Steve starts making Jason jokes and all that shit, being Steve, and out of the woods like maybe 50 feet away from them steps Mr. Sullivan. They don't want to get caught stoned—I mean, I'm sure Steve was holding big time, believe it or not he smoked even more back then than he does now—so they just hunker down and try to keep quiet.

'Well, Mr. Sullivan's all sweaty. It's a hot day, summertime, just like today, I'm sure he'd been doing some manual labor at their camp, you know. He looks around, decides no one's watching, and starts to get undressed to take a swim. And according to Steve and his girlfriend, when Mr. Sullivan took his boxers off, both their jaws were on the fucking floor. Apparently, on top of everything else, Dan "Sully" Sullivan is hung like a fucking Clydesdale."

"Oh, really? Oh...wow."

"Yeah, bitch."

"Wow."

"So be prepared for that. But I mean, what do you think the chances are you can actually pull this off, right? Real talk, I feel like this is all well and good in theory, but do you really think he'd go for it?"

"I mean...we've always had a bit of a flirtatious relationship. And I mean...have you ever seen pictures of Dec—excuse me, that jackass fuckstick's mom?"

"I have. The resemblance," Tanya waved her hand across Monica's face like a 'Price is Right' model displaying a prize, "is rather striking. Anyway, who are we kidding? You look like a little pop star, with your little face and your booty, you're cute as fuck. Any straight guy in his right mind would want to fuck you, even elite-level DILFs like Mr. Sullivan."

They drank through the night and fine-tuned their plan. The following afternoon, Tanya met Declan in the driveway and refused to let him in and called him a total piece of shit and even shoved him against his car and told him to go fuck an electrical outlet. Monica watched from the window, barely able to stop herself from going out and attacking him herself. The sight of him only fortified Monica's will to follow through, and by sundown, they had the entire caper ready for review.

While she was now refusing to go on the next day's kayak excursion with the group on the pretenses that she was disgusted with Declan (true) and she was going to spend the day getting drunk with and supporting the heartbroken Monica (false), Tanya was still included on all the group texts. From this, she gleaned that their plan was to head out late the following morning, spend the day fishing and drinking upriver, and time it to get back home around sunset. At that time they planned to have a big bonfire and cookout at the Sullivan camp. In a twist so remarkable, Monica and Tanya agreed it had to be fate or divine intervention or some such cosmic happenstance, Declan was even explicitly asked whether his dad was joining them and said that no, he wanted to stay back and do some work around the camp but he'd make sure to pick up the keg for them before they got back. That left no doubt that Mr. Sullivan would be there by himself all afternoon.

All Monica had to do was pretend failure didn't exist. When she woke up the next morning, not so hungover as she had expected, she felt a surprising sense of calm. Her plan had the feeling of inevitability, of impending and vivid reality. It was simple, really—if she failed to seduce him, she'd be embarrassed. In the moment for sure, in retrospect, somewhat, but at the same time, she'd also never have to see him again. She could be as direct and persistent as she could imagine and there really were no long-term stakes. But as she showered in the little cobwebbed outdoor stall behind Tanya's camp, her certainty that he wanted her only grew.

She recalled one night in particular, two years ago: Declan, tired from the drive up, went to bed early. This left Monica and Mr. Sullivan at the dinner table together, playing cards. Her knee had brushed his. He apologized and they forgot about it. Then her knee brushed his again, and when he went to move, she stuck to him. There was only a moment, a split-second where she found the courage to hold those keen eyes in hers, but she could see that he didn't want her to move away either. They finished the hand in loaded silence and Mr. Sullivan said he needed to go to bed, offered some excuse about having work in the morning. After he left, she sat at that table for a long time, imagining their eye contact holding a moment longer, him reaching for her, those large, wise, weathered fingertips scratching warmly along her jawline, his breath, which always smelled a little like stale coffee, hot and rushing against her ear, the feel of his huge, sturdy body against her own small, soft one, hands on curves, teeth on tongues, pulling him in, always tighter in, with all four of her limbs.

She opened her eyes from lustful reverie just in time to watch a neon blue dragonfly lodge in a spider web in the corner of the shower stall. Before she could reach to move it, a fat spider wrapped its many limbs around it and squeezed as it delivered the killing bite. Monica licked her front teeth, turned off the water, stepped out with her towel. It was another gorgeous morning, the rising sun giving a white, knife's edge sheen to the slow, steady chop of the waves. The smell of sunbaked pine transported her—it still amazed her how the simple addition of heat could turn a scent so strongly associated with Christmas to the very fragrance of summertime. In the distance, her eye came to rest on Tanya's dock. She laughed a little as she remembered the final stage of her plan—the one she hadn't even told Tanya about.

-3-

She did her best not to get too buzzed up as she and Tanya waited for the group texts to indicate the kayak party had left for the day. Her nerves finally started jangling as she pulled into the Sullivan's root-gnarled driveway. It was a wonder she hadn't racked her undercarriage on something speeding out of here the other day—though, she thought with a giggle, the whole reason she was back today was to rack her undercarriage on something as hard, long, and smooth as the oak root she cautiously straddled around the last turn.

It wasn't so much the reality of the situation getting to her—it was that she was completely unprepared for what she saw when the camp came into view. Walking straight toward her, a huge bag of mulch in either first, was Mr. Sullivan. He looked like a model doing a shoot as a bush pilot—work boots, dirty green cargo pants, aviator sunglasses, dark brown cowboy hat, flecks of dirt and mulch clinging to the sweat of his bare chest. She had seen him shirtless before, swimming and such, but not for a long time. He looked like he must have stepped up his workout game, because his pecs and shoulders had more carved definition than she remembered, and she certainly would have remembered if he had obliques like that before. She hoped she could get him to toss her around the way he was tossing those bags around. When she realized she was staring, she parked and stepped out with a cute little wave. He looked surprised, but he smiled as she approached.

She hoped her ensemble—or lack thereof—had the same effect on him that his sun-kissed physique had on her. She had worn only her bikini top, her oversize sunglasses, a pair of jean shorts, no panties, and sandals. She knew she looked good and she walked like it. He seemed to notice, his eyebrows appearing, she guessed involuntarily, over the rims of his shades as she crossed the scorched driveway, sending pebbles skittering and making tiny puffs of dust with each step. As she made her way over, she hoped her lenses were dark to stop him from noticing her eyes tracing the bead of sweat that fell from his chin and coursed its way slowly down the front of his body, disappearing at his beltline.