Three Very Dull Things, a short story by Rico.Viejo. Date added: 2012-03-28. Times viewed: 1947.

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Intro: A just-dumped young man meets a beautiful, sexy woman who falls seriously in love with him. Everything goes along almost wonderfully until her terrible secret is revealed to him.

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It was generally known around the office that Harry—a nice, quiet guy—had recently been dumped by the girl who'd been living with him. "What happened, Harry?" a sympathetic co-worker had asked him. "I don't know. She talked to me less and less, then she stopped talking to me altogether, then I came home from work one day and she was gone. She left a note: 'Don't call me'." "Jeez, Harry." "Yeah."

 

His friend Bill and Bill's wife Marge were having a party. The party was for Marge's co-workers, but, out of sympathy, Bill invited Harry. The apartment was packed with people talking away at each other. Harry wandered around with a beer in his hand. Bill or Marge would intercept him from time-to-time and introduce him to someone. Harry was depressed, his conversation was dull, he was often on his own again. 

 

They hadn't introduced him to the pale, beautiful girl who was alone at the side of the room sipping on what looked like a martini. People would nod to her when they passed her, but Harry observed that no one would stop to talk to her. And she was so attractive! He asked Bill.

 

"Just go say 'Hi'—no, just go stand within talking distance of her: you'll find out."  

"What's going on?" said Marge, to Bill, taking Harry's place in the crowded room as Harry moved away.  

"Harry's interested in Amy."  

"Oh, God. Poor guy."  

"Why'd you invite her, anyway?"  

"I couldn't not invite her. I invited everyone else."  

"His girl dumped him after giving him the silent treatment."  

"She'll be a remedy for that."  

"That's what I thought," laughed Bill. They wouldn't hook up. Bill wouldn't have liked that.

 

Harry approached Amy. With every step he took toward her she looked more and more beautiful. "Hi," he said. She gave him a shy smile and muttered 'Hi' back. They introduced themselves to each other with the fewest possible words. She was immediately friendly, interested. Harry felt he'd never met—never even seen—such a sweet and beautiful girl.

 

They were being jostled by people "circulating." It was noisy. You could hardly hear yourself talk. "Do you want to get out of here and go somewhere where we can talk?" Harry shouted at her. 'Yes,' she nodded.

 

Marge said to Bill: "Have you seen Amy or Harry?"  

"No, have you?"  

They went their separate ways, searching. When they met again, Marge said: "They're gone. It's amazing what you men will put up with to get into a pretty girl's pants."  

Bill, fighting his jealousy, said: "Yeah. I do have to put up with a lot."  

"Bastard!" Marge said, before giving him a big smile and kissing him.

 

There was a quiet cocktail lounge nearby. They went in and ordered drinks. Harry had to do all the talking. She seemed to approve heartily of everything he said. Running out of things to say to this wonderful girl, Harry spotted a jukebox and asked if she'd like to dance. She would. They went to the exorbitant machine, found a slow ballad, and paid its ransom. 

 

She moved into his arms as if she'd always belonged there—should never have left them. She danced with her body glued to his, her knee pressed between his legs, her chin pressed into his shoulder. He pulled his head back to compliment her on her dancing and she kissed him, giving him just the very tip of her tongue. He got rock-hard. "Do you want to come home with me?" he blurted. She answered by kissing him again, practically licking his tonsils.

 

She had the kind of body a nineteenth-century sculptor would invent for a nymph or slave-girl. And how she used it in bed! They'd wasted no time, rushing to bed, like a guy who had a six-pack of Coors Light in his bladder would rush to the toilet. 

 

They spent the entire weekend, naked, in his apartment. Making love, mostly. Taking care of other necessities—like eating and sleeping—reluctantly. It was like a contest to see who could wear the other out, and there was no winner. The only thing negative—in Harry's mind—was that he couldn't read this delicious girl. He would talk, sometimes at great length, and she would answer with gestures or monosyllables. "Was she retarded?" Harry worried. Bill had intimated there was something horribly wrong with her.

 

Their affair continued. If the following morning was a workday, she'd get a taxi home after they'd made love. If not, she'd spend the night. She didn't say a dozen words to him from one day to the next. She'd get him to ramble on and would attend to everything he said with intense interest.

 

Harry worried more and more about her taciturnity. He could sense she was holding herself back. He believed if she let herself go, they really talked, she'd reveal a dark secret, like she had some fatal illness. Maybe Bill or Marge would know.

 

Harry said to Bill: "What is it about Amy?"  

"Oh, oh," thought Bill.  

"She doesn't talk to me. She's really loving. She wants me to talk to her, but she doesn't talk to me."  

"You're kidding!" said Bill, wanting and not wanting this information. "Talk to you later. Got a meeting."  

Bill promptly grabbed a phone and called Marge and told her what Harry had said. She was as amazed as he was.

 

A short while later Bill got a call from Marge: "I love you, Darling, and I like Harry, so I asked her. Somewhere in the muddle she said she was so in love, so in awe of Harry, that whenever she went to talk to him she got so choked up with love for him she couldn't. I think she's afraid to talk, so he'll know."

 

Bill had Harry talk to Marge directly—he didn't like talking to Bill about Amy: a sick feeling of jealousy would overtake him. He'd made it with the sexy Amy Winters many times, in his imagination; never in real life, as Harry was doing.

 

"I was afraid she was autistic or retarded," said Harry to Marge (on the phone). "I could deal with the autism, I think."  

"She's neither, Harry," replied Marge. "She's our Vice President for Business Planning. My boss! Top management holds her responsible for the company's rapid growth. Just count your blessings, Harry."

 

Harry got used to his shy life with Amy. They'd go out to movies and plays and concerts and quietly enjoy them, holding hands, with occasional soft declarations of love. They'd go dancing, too, but that usually resulted in a sudden pell-mell dash back to his bed.

 

They were in love—really in love. Harry risked proposing to her. She immediately accepted him with reservations: they'd try living together, first, for a while—at his apartment. She moved in. Once her stuff was organized, they went to an expensive night club to celebrate—Amy's treat. They danced. They got frantic. They rushed home. They jumped in bed. They made love all night. Wordlessly.

 

Everything went incredibly well for about three weeks, until one day when she stopped at the grocery on the way home from work to restock. They had a quiet candle-lit dinner with wine and nice music, cleaned up, then went to bed, a little early, to have more time to make love. In the midst of their delightful agony, while she was having her losing battle with all reason and self-control, she spoke, in the dull, relaxed voice you might use in making a reservation at a restaurant: "Harry? I forgot to get you your bread, tonight. Could you use my bread, instead? I don't know how I could have forgot. I specifically wrote it on my list and put my list in my pocket book. In the inside pocket where I keep my lists so I don't forget them and then I went and ..."

Then she screamed: "OhMyGod, Harry! Harry! Harry!!" and moved her hips even faster—this, the girl with the silent orgasms.

The droning, dead voice immediately resumed, like he'd switched, on call-waiting: "That nice Mrs. Foster was at the store. I don't know how she does it all with her walker. She was having a hard time deciding which apples to buy. They had the Granny Smiths and the Golden Deliciouses and they were the same price. To the penny. I suggested she buy a few of each, but that wouldn't do. We talked a long time about it and finally decided to get the Mackintoshes, even though ... Did you know they have ... The salesclerk is so nice. He's from Taiwan, you know ..."

 

In the midst of this verbal onslaught, he thought: "Holy shit! I'm fucking Miss Bates. I'm fucking engaged to Miss Bates!"

 

She talked on and on. Harry abandoned the sex in mid-fuck. She wouldn't shut up. Every detail. Every stupid detail of her shopping trip: how she didn't have a nickel to give them exact change; how someone had stepped in dog poop outside and she wondered if they knew because they could track it in on their rugs, et cetera, et cetera. He tried talking to her, interrupting her, but she was so busy blabbering, she didn't notice. She was still talking when she fell asleep.

 

Hours later, Harry woke up. Amy was asleep, but she was mumbling.

 

When the alarm went off, the torrent of words resumed. Now it was about what some extremely wise talk-radio host had said. Harry skipped his shower and quickly shaved and dressed, while she earnestly, uninterruptably informed him. He wrote a note: "Skipping breakfast. Early meeting," handed it to lovely, voluble, naked Amy, and fled. He had breakfast at the coffee shop in the lobby of his office building and pondered over his coffee until he could go to work at the regular time.

 

Harry looked Bill up: "I found out what's wrong with her, Bill."  

"She cracked, huh?"  

"I don't know what to do."  

"Dump her, Harry, dump her. She needs another lesson. Maybe the next guy will be luckier." Bill was thinking maybe he'd give her a try.

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