Fiction by PETER COOK
Arts & Features Editor
When she first met the sex icon she said “You’re not
what I expected.”
The icon loved this.
He told all his friends.
“She says I’m not what she expected!”
The second time she met him, she said, “You
seem bigger, more real, on t.v. and in movies.”
The sex icon liked this as well.
“Bill, Eddie, Gaspard, guess what!”
“What’s that, sex icon?”
“She says I seem more real on T.V.! Bigger
somehow!”
The third time they met, and we all know the
wealth of pressure that rides upon third dates, she said, “You
are nobody, really.”
The sex icon did not tell this to all of his
friends. He went home and sulked, but it was a sulk tempered by
awe. “How amazing she is, to see the truth so truly. I am
nobody she says! She is right. I am nobody, nothing, a shadow,
a dream.” The sex icon marveled at his own poeticism.
He wrote a book of short verse and had it published
by using the influence his icon status accorded him. His book
was universally poorly received.
The fourth time they met, it was by accident.
It was in the supermarket.
“Hi,” he said.
“I didn’t know international sex
icons went to the supermarket,” she said.
“I love you.”
“You are, across the board, a terrible
poet.”
“You read my book?”
“Yes, unfortunately. The worst was that
poem: You are the secret light in my life that I can’t
tell anyone about lest they take away my sex icon status.”
“Of course. That was just filler.”
The sex icon goes home and writes a new poem,
entitled, “I saw you at the supermarket and you told
me you hated the poem that I secretly wrote for you.”
Then he reads it, the tip of one index finger between his gnawing
teeth.
“Gnaw, gnaw, gnaw… hmmmm,
Gnaw, gnaw, gnaw… hmmmm.”
The sex icon decides his poem is not all that
good. He puts it into a blue envelope and sends it to her. He
signs it ‘annonymous.’ He takes the afternoon off.
The next day, he goes back to L.A. and starts
filming a new movie called “All the women were in awe
of his gyrating hips and pectoralae.”
