Futures and Frosting

I wiggle my hand and try to push my finger in further. Her throat has to be in there somewhere. If I can just get back there far enough I'm sure she will puke.

“Come on, Claire. Open up wider. I can’t get it in.”

I grunt with the effort of holding her up and trying to get the knuckle of my first finger past her teeth.

“Don’t bite me. You’ll feel much better after this is done, I promise. I’ve done this a bunch of times, just let me in.”

Either she isn’t hearing me or she doesn’t care. I move my hand around her mouth and try every angle I can but she just won’t open her mouth so I could reach her throat. Her tongue presses against the tip of my finger preventing it from moving.

“Claire, don’t be difficult,” I groan. “I need to do this deeper.”

Claire bites down on my finger at the same time I feel a hand slap down on my shoulder.

I yank my finger out of her mouth and whip my head around and up to find George towering over me with his hands on his hips and a glare on his face.

“Carter,” George greets.

“Hi, Mr. Morgan,” I say as cheerfully as possible, considering he's looking at me like I'm a bug he's getting ready to squash under his shoe.

“Have you seen my shotgun?” he asks.

I gulp loudly and try to remember all of the reasons it would be bad to piss my pants right then. Under normal circumstances, I'm quite used to the death stares and silent threats I receive from Claire’s dad, but this seems a little excessive. I'm trying to save his daughter’s life. How can he possible be angry with me about that? He had been asleep on the couch two seconds ago. He must have opened his eyes and seen me...

You’ll feel much better once this is done. Don’t be difficult, I need to do this deeper. Just let me in…

Oh sweet Jesus. He had probably looked across the room and saw just the back of me trying to force something in his daughter’s mouth.

Why the hell couldn’t Rachel have been the one here tonight? She would have woken up and cheered me on, probably even booing me when she found out I was only trying to make her daughter puke instead of forcing my penis in her mouth.

“I am NOT into Necrophilia,” I state firmly to him.

“There is something wrong with you,” he mutters.

“I just wanted her to throw up,” I complain.

“I really don’t want to know about the weird, kinky shit you’re into.”

“Yo, Mr. Morgan, you’re awake!” Drew exclaims as he lounges in the doorway. “And Carter, dude, it’s called Poutiphilia. You just told Claire’s dad you weren’t into banging dead people. Which is a good thing, but probably not what you were going for. Poutiphilia is a person who enjoys sexual relations with people who are passed out.”

Drew is a walking, talking Urbandictionary dot com.

“I was NOT trying to have sexual relations with this woman!” I shout.

“Slow your roll there, Clinton,” Drew says as he came further into the room and squats down next to me.

“HOW ARE YOU DOING, CLAIRE?” Drew yells, talking to her slow and loud like she doesn’t understand English. “DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?”

He snaps his fingers in front of her face a few times. She finally blinks and looks up at me.

“Make it stop,” she whines.

I'm not sure if she is referring to Drew or whatever is in her system. I decide to err on the side of caution and punch Drew in the arm.

“What the f**k did you give her?”

“Just some cookies. My mom makes them for my uncle all the time and he loves them,” Drew tells me.

“Did you guys get food poisoning or something? Why the hell is this place such a disaster and Claire is almost comatose?”

I briefly wonder if I should try again to make her puke, but I'm a little afraid George really does have a shotgun hidden somewhere in the room.

“Claire wanted some help coming up with some new ideas for things to cover in chocolate. It was a process. A creative process. You wouldn’t understand. It’s an artistic thing,” Drew explains. “Chocolate covered carrots were a bust, but we might have something with chocolate covered gummy bears.”

This still doesn’t make any sense. I'm obviously missing something.

“So you guys ate some cookies and brainstormed. What kind of cookies did you eat? Were they undercooked?”

Maybe Claire has Salmonella poisoning. Is that contagious? Does she need to be vaccinated or have her stomach pumped? I feel like I should know the answer to this since I have a kid. What if Gavin eats some raw chicken and I don’t know whether to give him mouth-to-mouth or Pepto Bismol? Is he even allowed to have Pepto? And where the f**k is he getting raw chickens from?!

“Dude, I’m not Betty f**king Crocker or anything. I don’t know what was in the cookies. They were mocha coffee nut something or other. Wait, maybe it was the nuts. Is Claire allergic to nuts? She might be going into anal flaccid shock,” Drew says nervously.

Oh my God. It’s like he shares a brain with Jenny.

“It’s Anaphylaxis Shock, dumbass, and no, she’s not allergic to nuts,” I say with a roll of my eyes.

“My uncle begs my mom for these cookies. Seriously. They actually STOP him from getting sick so this makes absolutely no sense. My mom makes them for him every couple of weeks before he goes in for chemo.”

I stare at him blankly and repeat in my head the words that just came out of his mouth just to make sure I'm not hallucinating.