LOVE AT FIRST DATE

Chapter 3: The Shower

"No."

"Michelle..."

"No."

"Sweetheart... C'mon."

"No. I'm not doing it."

"Why not? …. Honey, wait…. It'll be fun!"

"What the heck is wrong with you men, anyhow? Are you all, like... out of your minds, or something?"

"Where are you going?... Sweetheart... You've still got shampoo in your hair! … Wait — Michelle, wait up…"

"There's something downright — stop laughing, mister —there's something downright disturbing about your species. Are you aware of that? I mean, how do you guys even come up with this stuff? You're like a bunch of mental patients, every last one of you."

"Aw, c'mon. Don't tell me you've never done it before."

"Look. I'm happy to help you with a new puppy, or an off-road vehicle, or your favorite old sweater. But beyond that? You're on your own. Sorry."

"Okay, look, look. I'll start, okay? … I'll go first… All right?"

"You appear to have successfully missed my entire point. I'm not doing this. I don't even understand why in the world you and your lunatic brethren find it necessary."

"Geeziz, honey, think about it. It has to be changed. You can't just recycle the old one."

"Why not?"

"Well, because ... you know..."

Michelle stopped in her tracks so abruptly and without a moment's warning that Tony literally crashed into her, nearly knocking her over.

"No. I don't. I really don't know. Why can't you just use the same ridiculous one you already have?"

"Because — c'mon, you know why. It wouldn't be right. There would be something — I don't know, immoral about that."

"What the… Okay, you know what? I want to hear this. You tell me how in the world morality has anything to do with it. Explain it to me."

"It's — geeziz, I have to explain this? You can't just reuse the old one, Michelle. First of all, it doesn't only belong to the guy. Half of it is the woman's, since both of them created it. So you can't just go transferring it over from one woman to another. It would defeat the entire purpose of even having one in the first place… If ya did that, there wouldn't be anything special about it anymore."

Michelle stared at him. He was dead serious. She turned and walked away.

"Sweetheart, just — just go back to the shower, will ya? Let me get the rest of the shampoo out, for cryssake.… C'mere... Honey, where are you going? You're dripping all over the place..."

Michelle stormed past him, slapping the comb she had fetched from her purse into the palm of his hand. Muttering something indistinguishable under her breath, she headed back to the shower with Tony in pursuit.

"Look, I'll just get us started, okay? This'll be fun, I promise. How 'bout something like … okay … 'Cobra'? Huh? What do ya think of 'The Cobra'?"

"Don't talk to me. I'm getting psychiatric counseling for you first thing Monday morning... And you stop that laughing or I'm calling a cab."

"Okay, okay, look. Just hang on a second. I have another one..."

"Wait. No. I have one. It's my turn, right? Tell me what you think of this one, okay? 'Penis,' ... as in, 'Oh, look, it's your penis.' Does that work for you?"

"Well ... no, honey, that's too ... clinical. It's gotta be something like, y'know, 'The Sperminator' — get it? Okay, now it's your turn again... Oooowww! Michelle!"

"You're an idiot, Almeida, y'know that?"

"Just hold still…. Geezus, hold still, will ya? You're gonna slip and crack your head open, for cryssake…. How's that? Did I get it all? … Check it."

"Yeah, that's good."

"So now what?"

"The conditioner. Not a lot, though. Just enough to get all the strands. You don't have to saturate everything, like you do with shampoo."

"Got it."

"Just stick a little in your hand and sort of work it through."

"Got it. What's it supposed to do."

"Untangle the knots, so you can get a comb through it."

"Ah. So I was right. You do have to comb your hair."

"Right after you rinse the conditioner out, you comb it while it's still wet. Because if you let it get even a little dry, you can just forget it. Everything knots up and it's a nightmare, and you just have to start all over again, at that point."

"So all these women who've been turning guys down for a date all these centuries, claiming they had to stay home that night and wash their hair, weren't lying after all."

"Not the ones with thick hair, at least."

Tony spent a couple of minutes diligently distributing the thin coat of conditioner evenly throughout Michelle's hair as best he could, considering how remarkably thick it really was, and how unbelievably knotted it had become just from washing it. The conditioner stuff smelled nice, he thought. Like coconuts. He had never used it before — he didn't even realize he had it. And even if he had, he probably wouldn't have known what to do with it. Mrs. Sanchez must've gotten it for him at some point when she was shopping for other things, like shaving cream and toothpaste. He sometimes didn't know what he would ever do without that woman. She took care of everything for him: groceries, laundry, dry cleaning … She would even take it upon herself to replace shirts and sheets and whatever else she felt had seen better days.

"So why can't ya just comb it while the conditioner stuff is still in? Wouldn't it be easier to get the knots out that way… while your hair's all slick? Theoretically, the comb should just slide right through the knots, correct?"

"Yeah. You could do that. That would work, too."

"Doesn't that make more sense?"

"Yes, that's not a bad idea. I've never thought of that, actually."

Michelle passed the comb over her shoulder while Tony searched the back of her hair for the thickest, most matted section he could find, to put his theory to the torture test. Just as he had suspected, the teeth of the comb slid smoothly through the silky conditioner, meeting relatively little resistance along the way. The man was a genius. He should've opened a chain of salons. The job would've been safer, and he'd be a millionaire by now.

"Do you like 'The Sperminator'? You didn't say."

She ignored him. He continued.

"Ya wanna order in Thai food tonight? This new place opened a couple of blocks away. They stuck a take-out menu under the door. It looks pretty good."

"Yes. Definitely. I love Thai food. I never get to have it, either. You're lucky you have so many places around here. My neighborhood's so industrial."

"I noticed that. It didn't strike me as too terribly safe, either."

"Gee, I can't believe that I'm hardly even feeling any snags. This is great."

"Yeah, it's sliding right through... See that? Men aren't thoroughly useless. We come up with a decent idea every now and again. Turn around. Let's see… Geeziz, you look so different with straight hair."

He spent another couple of seconds combing the sides of her hair behind her ears, grinning at the way they stuck out from the volume and weight of the hair pushing them forward.

"How long?"

"Two, three minutes. Then you just rinse it out…. Ummm...?"

"What."

"What was that old one again? The 'mighty' one."

"You forgot it already? Good. I violated the privacy code by telling you in the first place."

"Mighty Joe—Young? Mighty Joe Slung? It was Mighty Joe-something. I remember that much, because I remember thinking that your name wasn't even 'Joe.'"

"That kind of thing doesn't matter. You can take a lot of creative license with these things."

"Did you come up with that one?"

"None of your business."

"I didn't think you did. You're a little more creative than that. You would've at least worked your own name into it… She was blonde, I'll assume?"

"I already told ya we're not going there, so you might as well give it up."

"Are you sure she even caught your name? What was she screaming out in the heat of the moment? Was it 'Tony' or 'Joe'? Do you happen to recall offhand?"

"Enough."

"Okay, then tell me this. But you have to listen carefully to the question first before you answer, because there are certain things I definitely do not want to know, okay? So listen to the entire question first, and make sure you understand what I'm asking for, and then give me only the answers to the specific questions I ask, and nothing else. Got it?"

"God help me. Go ahead."

Tony frowned and reached up to remove the detachable showerhead from its perch, which had suddenly lost at least half its water pressure. He began tinkering with it.

"Okay, first, I'm assuming that basically every man on the planet has a nickname for his 'organ.' Would that be a safe assumption?"

"Probably."

"Okay, then that would mean that basically every guy at the office has a nickname. A 'personal moniker,' if you will. So here's the question. Do you guys —You have to listen carefully to this part. It's important."

"I'm listening, baby. Just go on."

"Okay. So, do you guys all know each other's monikers? Now, stop for a second! Don't say anything yet! This is the part you have to understand..."

"I'm not saying a word. I think I already know where you're going with this, and I wouldn't tell you anyway, so you're safe to proceed."

"Good, because here's the only part I want to know, okay? I just want to know if it's a guy-thing to swap information like that…"

"To tell each other their 'personal moniker,' y'mean?"

"Yes. But I do not want any names or corresponding nicknames, because I would never be able to look a CTU guy in the eye again if I knew what his moniker was. Understand?"

"Got it."

"And you can't even tell me what any of the actual nicknames are, either. Remember that, dear. Because if you mentioned a nickname, like 'Big Daddy,' or something, I'll always wonder which guy in the office it belongs to, and it will eventually drive me insane."

"I understand. The only thing you want to know is if it's common practice and a matter of course for all guys to tell all other guys what their 'personal nickname' is."

"Correct."

"Okay… Then I would say no. Some guys tell other guys, but no, it's not a routine thing."

"So, not every guy in the office knows every other guy's nickname, you're saying."

"That's correct."

"Do some?"

"I don't know… Maybe… Sometimes a guy might bring it up in the context of a joke, over a beer. Or within the context of a direct quote from their wife or girlfriend, or something like that. So maybe some guys know other guy's names. I couldn't give you percentages."

"Do you know any of the other guys' names?"

"I would never tell you that, one way or the other, in a thousand years, because you would torture me for the rest of my life to name names."

"Okay, fine. Then let me ask you this. Have you ever told another guy what your nickname was?"

"A guy at the office? Or over the course of my entire life?"

"Your entire life."

"Yes."

"How about at the office?"

"I'm not telling you, for the same reasons previously stated."

"Fine. That part wasn't pertinent anyway."

"Is that it, then? Has your curiosity been satisfied?"

"Yes, thank you, honey. You were very helpful."

"You don't need to know what the inside of the Men's Room looks like, or anything? I can move on with the rest my life now?"

"Yes. I was just wondering how far you guys took this thing."

"Ya think we're out there introducing ourselves to each other, like, 'Tony the Sperminator Almeida. Nice to meet ya'…"

"It never hurts to check these things."

"So where are we with 'The Sperminator,' anyway? Is that a go, or what? It sounds kinda virile, don't ya think?"

"Doesn't matter, because I'm never gonna use it anyway."

"You'll use it."

"I can guarantee you that I won't."

"You'll come to love it. It'll grow on ya."

"That was lame, dear."

"Yeah, well ... we'll see. I give you a month — a month and a half, on the outside, before you're begging for him by name."

"'Him'?"

"He's hardly a 'her,' baby."

Michelle just stared and shook her head.

"Is there anything you would like to know about women, while we're on the subject, by the way? Like, why we never like to think too long about the disproportionate number of male world leaders, who hold the fate of the planet in their hands?

"Why is that."

"Because it's too frightening. All we can think about is that fateful day when the world finally comes to a catastrophic end, all because Prime Minister Fill-in-the-Blank had been too busy nicknaming his penis to avert the crisis while the averting was still good."

"You chicks just like to worry. We haven't exactly blown up the planet yet, have we."

Michelle rolled her eyes this time and leaned herself back against the wall, wrapping her arms around herself to keep from shivering. The cascading stream of warm shower water was on temporary hold while Tony tried to figure out the water pressure problem. She thought about asking him to just spray her with it, to warm her up, but he seemed so engrossed with glancing up and down between the showerhead and the ceiling that she didn't want to break his concentration.

"Goddamned Steve and Elaina, I swear. It's like they have a device rigged, or something, that automatically turns their shower on whenever this one's running, for cryssake… Okay, well … this is as good as I'm gonna get it. C'mere, baby... No, the other way… Let me know if it's too hot."

"Nah, it's perfect."

Michelle locked her fingers around his waist to steady herself while she arched herself back and squeezed her eyes shut. The hot streaming water, combined with the sensation of his hand stroking all around and through her hair, felt fantastic.

"Ya getting tired?" he asked.

"Yeah, all of a sudden I feel like I can barely keep my eyes open. You?"

"We'll be in bed in a second. Don't worry."

"You still have to shave. I get to watch, remember?"

"You didn't get enough to watch before?"

She peeked through her lids at the same shy smile she had on her own face. She squeezed her eyes shut again, feeling a faint blush warming her cheeks.

"You're an animal, Almeida."

"That one wasn't my idea, baby," she heard him gently remind her with a soft chuckle.

She felt her ears getting warm now, too, and decided to leave well-enough alone.

"Have we settled on 'The Sperminator'? Do ya think you can live with that?" he asked.

"Yeah, I guess. If I have to."

"I think it's kinda catchy, actually. Don't you?"

"Yes, honey. It's very inventive."

"You're not just saying that…"

"No, I mean it. I think it's very creative. It's got the play on words — Terminator, Sperminator — which is very clever. And it's got that twofold virility thing going on, between the Schwarzenegger imagery and the 'sperm' reference."

"Ya can't get much more virile than that, can ya?"

"Nah, that one would be pretty hard to top, I would think."

She peeked for a moment to watch him beam with pride and ingeniousness, thoroughly convinced that his was, by far, the best 'personal moniker' on the planet, certain to be envied by each and every one of his equally retarded male brethren, come Monday. She wasn't buying for a moment that they didn't swap names. She knew he was harboring a good three or four monikers, at the very least:

Definitely that guy Whatzhizname's — the one he was always laughing with, and talking to about baseball.

Maybe Jack, although she wasn't sure if they were close enough. They definitely cared for each other, but still seemed to be going through that animal kingdom ritual, like two bucks squaring off for more power, territory, and buckettes.

Mason was gone now, like so many others, but Tony had probably known his handle. Not that he would ever have wanted to, but Mason was likely one of those guys who'd let it be known in conversation, as Tony had mentioned earlier.

Chappelle. No way.

Hammond? … Eeeeeeewwwww … Eeeeewwww … Ick… Yuck…

"What are you thinking about?"

"Nothing, honey. I'm just thinking how good your hand feels all over my head like that."

"Good," he replied in a warm, quiet voice.

An old adage that her grandmother Dessler used to always say about her grandfather Dessler suddenly sprung to mind. Michelle was a little hazy on the exact words, and struggled to remember them as best she could, because the sentiment just seemed to fit the moment so perfectly:

"Men. You can't live with them, and you can't shoot them."

Or something along those lines.