SLOT B

"Yep, that's all there is to sex," he mused. "Just insert tab A into
slot B."

Bailey's one of my oldest friends. Sometimes, though, after a few drinks
he gets a tad cynical. Especially on the tenth day of the month, when the
alimony check to his ex-wife comes due.

Now me, I've managed to avoid marriage. At 40, I'm the neighborhood's
confirmed bachelor, and the local eligible gals have long since given up
on me. I hardly even go out on dates any more. Everyone suspects there's
something wrong with me. Maybe there is.

You see, I've found a substitute for women. For real-life women, that is.
I dream.

As a horny and frustrated adolescent I had begun fantasizing about what
it might be like to make it with some of those unattainable cheerleaders,
the cute ones with the high, musical voices and long hair down to the
waist who were much too good for me. Fantasizing was better than nothing,
and soon it was *much* better than nothing. What had begun as ordinary
kiddy daydreams turned into a powerful obsession. The girls, then women
in my fantasies became increasingly realistic.

Over the years, I've had quite a number of fantasy lovers. Marianne,
with the big breasts and round, bouncy ass. Many's the time I bounced
off it as I plowed into her from behind. Ginette, the intellectual, who
liked to talk about English literature and Renaissance architecture,
but was a red-hot maniac in bed. She would climb atop me and ride for
hours, conjugating irregular Latin verbs and pumping me in the same
rhythm. Theresa, the madonna, who swore she would have become a nun if
only she hadn't been overcome with lust for me. Hotly passionate Marissa,
the Spanish grandee's daughter whose jealous family would surely murder
me in gruesome fashion if they discovered our clandestine liaison. Helga,
the professor of Human Sexual Studies at a prestigious German institute,
who taught me all she knew . . . and then some.

Melissa, the latest in my series of dream girlfriends, was my finest
creation. True to life in every respect, from the dimples in her cheeks
when she smiled to the dimples in her bare buttocks when she bent over
and presented herself to me. She even had a personality, and this was
starting to cause problems. Big problems.

She was getting to be uncomfortably real. I'd have to sweet-talk her and
do the kiss-kiss bit before we could get down to brass tacks. Then she
began telling me to "knock before entering," meaning to go down on her
prior to inserting. Sure, that's supposed to be arousing to a woman,
but what the hell does a dream phantom want with arousal? Then she
wanted to try anal sex. Now that's not really my cup of tea, not even
in a fantasy. It turned out to be more pleasurable than I expected,
and it's become a regular part of our repertoire now, but where the
bloody hell did that particular idea come from? My subconscious? The
dark corners of the psyche?

Lately, she's been whispering in my ear, usually after a particularly
steamy interlude, that dream sex no longer satisfies her. She wants the
real thing. She absolutely insists she has a real-life existence. She
wants to meet me in Real Life. Last night she even gave me her phone
number. This whole affair is getting way too bizarre for me.

"Well, lover, why didn't you call me? Does the thought of sex with a
real, in-the-flesh woman scare my little baby? Get this, big guy, I'm
not putting out for you in dreams any more until you get the balls to
pick up that phone. Do it. Wake up right now and DO IT!"

That's all I need, being nagged and browbeaten by a dream lover. Now I
know what married life must feel like. Poor Bailey. He must have caught
flak like this from his ex.

All right, so I finally called her.

"Hello? Is-is this . . . ?"

"Yesss, Charlie, Melissa here. I'm ab-so-lutely thrilled that your
teaspoon-size helping of courage didn't evaporate when you woke up.
Now, haul ass down to my place. I'm hot for your bod, lover boy."

Talk about a letdown. She wasn't half as glamorous in the flesh as in
my fantasies and dreams. She doesn't care for sex nearly as much in real
life ("It's so damn *messy*!"). She comes to bed with big spiky curlers
in her hair and cold cream on her face. She's bad tempered. When you
catch her in the wrong mood, she gets nasty and shrill. She has bad
breath. She farts a lot.

After one particularly unsatisfying bout of lovemaking, I happened to
see an envelope on her night table. A check was sticking out of it. An
alimony check. An alimony check signed by none other than my neighbor
Bailey. Holy Moley, what the hell did I get myself into?

Don't ask why, but somehow I ended up marrying her. Maybe I just got tired
of waking up in an empty bed. Maybe I got tired of wearing the same old
dirty socks a week at a time. Maybe just I needed someone to nag me in a
semi-loving way.

I still see Bailey once in a while when I drive through the old
neighborhood. He looks at me and smiles sadly.

I can't even escape into fantasy sex any more. She keeps her hand clamped
down firmly on my private parts as I fall asleep next to her. It's worse
than a chastity belt. Dreaming just ain't what it used to be.