Notes from the Upper West Side. A Novel by Dan Wrench. Chapter 66 The Newby School A couple days after I began doing the old dick exercises, the mancagles, I started getting really sore in my cock. And the day after I started experiencing that glorious sensation, the rest of my body got sore, deadly sore, like I was made of paper mache and some giant stepped on me and did that grindy thing with his heel.
That morning, the morning I started to feel sore all over, that was also the morning the wife dialed up the online credit card statement and saw the charge for my newly bought and until that moment's secret payment to the Equa Balance Corporation. At exactly the moment she did that and completely by accident I was staring at the computer screen over her shoulder and when I saw the gym charge scroll into view I sort of froze. I was afraid to breathe for a sec. She calmly put Sammy down on the floor, oh yeah she had Sammy in her lap and stood up without looking at me.
She sighed and said, yes I see it. And went into the kitchen area and put her coffee cup in the sink and split for work. It took her a few minutes to actually split because to go outdoors she had to wear this head to toe overcoat. Remember back when I said junior and the wait staff of the restaurant at Moheum were getting dressed as Egyptian slaves because the museum's main exhibit was Egypt at the time of the pharaohs?
Well, they were still doing that. So junior had to wear this overcoat on the subway to keep squares from giving her casual feels disguised as accidental brush-ups. Oh excuse me. But once she was all covered she strolled out wordlessly and locked the door behind her.
The man let her footsteps fade in the outer hallway. Then he jumped up in the chair as she'd been sitting in and stared at the monitor with the credit card stuff still on it. What did you see daddy? He asked.
Uhh, lists of stuff. I said. I calmly logged off the online account and dialed up the Disney homepage before he could get his fingers on the keyboard. He climbed down to the floor and dashed off.
Time's up. He cried to Harry who was still in the boys' room. Maybe Harry had drafted Sammy into acting as his alarm clock that morning. I still don't know for sure.
I never followed up. All I could think about right then was junior saying I see it and immediately walking out. What did it mean? Did it mean I was in for a shitstorm later that night when she got home after stilling about it all day?
Did it mean another six months of dead eye stares and one word sentences like... Again. And... Yup.
And the occasional... Awesome. ... with the eye roll.
Or did it mean she'd finally gotten used to the idea that I was now and then going to spend money on myself without asking her first? Then the boys piled out of their room and began pounding each other with bats made of smurf. I think. See, in my memory of those days and many days before I don't actually picture the boys in any specific place in the apartment, I picture them flashing through the entire three-dimensional space like subatomic particles in a jittery wave.
So, I let them vibrate like that for maybe ten minutes then I made them put on their pants and took them to school. Once they were sitting behind their desks and I had wandered back to the apartment to take the nap I expected to last maybe three hours, I took some of those generic ibuprofen and called up parp to ask him why the Kegels were making the admiral feel like he'd just been beaten up by a bigger, nastier admiral. It's just like any other muscle. He said.
You start out. You overdo it. You think a couple days later you feel like you can't clench without crying for my me. So, you're saying cut that?
Because I'm doing these every time I'm on line waiting for a cashier and whenever I'm in the shower, I think I'm feeling it get, you know, bulkier. If it were up to me I'd just say keep doing whatever it is you're doing. Said parp. The soreness will go away.
Keep on going no matter how much it hurts even after you think you've got results. Don't worry about that, I said. I'm committed. I was serious.
The soreness from my shoulders to my biceps to my dick to my legs all of that was saying Paulie, this is change. Can you feel it? Fuck. Yeah.
Of course, I couldn't tell Junior about the penile discomfort but the pain I could tell her about. The pain Terry made sure lived like fire in every other waking cell of my body. Junior was pretty sure it was my come up and it's for the illicit gym expenditure. She didn't say anything about it when she got home that first night.
She just sort of left me mystified. Or maybe she wanted to see if I had the stones to bring it up myself. But the very next morning when I was struggling to pull on my shirt she said. I guess this marks the end of your commitment to physical fitness.
Why? You're really going to keep it up. You suddenly have to discipline to expose yourself to physical pain every day. Yes, I said like a man.
I suddenly do. Well, I'm going to start taking classes at the newbie school. She announced I've already signed up. You're going to have to take Sam and Harry on your day off.
What? Wait. You joined the gym. I joined the school.
Sounds fair to me. She said. She started bustling around the bedroom and I think looking for a purse. As soon as she found it she stomped down the hall to the boys room to look in and say goodbye for a split second while I wandered out to the living room to lie down on the sofa.
Then she left the boys door open and stomped her way to the front door. It slammed and she was gone. Hey, I thought. Where's the slave girl costume?
Notes from the Upper West Side is a work of fiction. The people depicted in this work do not exist. Notes from the Upper West Side copyright 2013 to 2019 by Dan Wrench.