248 Days - The First Excerpt from the Worst Erotic Novel Never Written

Fifty Forty Shades Strands of Grey Gray

Chapter One

“So, wait, why am I meeting this lady again?” I said to my roommate, Chris, as I attempted to knot the tie I borrowed from him into a double-Windsor without success.

“Dude, a hundred fucking times I’ve gone over this with you. This is the lady that works out of the San Francisco office of Brown University. She’s the one who decides whether or not you get to go there, remember? This chick is loaded and apparently a pretty big media whore. I was supposed to do an interview with her about Brown’s Undergraduate Teacher Education Program for the Guardian but the paper told me to bag the interview last minute so I could cover the new drag show on Bryant. I didn’t have the heart to tell the old bat so I thought you could go in my place as my... (snickers) assistant and try to schmooze her a little. It can’t hurt, dude. She’s supposed to be pretty hot for an old chick, too, so, who knows, maybe you can doink your way into Brown. Pun intended, of course.”

“You’re an asshole, Chris. An absolute douche. You think this woman – a Brown University spokesperson – is going to believe that I’m the assistant to a newspaper columnist who just so happens to want to get into Brown as a Biology major?”

“No. I think this woman is going to see right through that shit. But, I think this woman is single, forty, and potentially horny, and I actually kind of fucking like you, Tom Molson, so I’m giving you the chance to make enough of an impression on her with either your words or your dick that she doesn’t stamp 'DENIED' on your application in the first thirty seconds of seeing it. It that makes me a douche, then give me a pussy and let me in, ‘cause I’ve got cleansing to do.”

I wanted Chris to be wrong but I couldn’t deny the fact that he made a valid point. He was a womanizer with little to no respect for the opposite sex but fortunately for Chris that fact never worked against him. He knew how to work angles – sexually and professionally – and rarely did that not pan out for him. I trusted that he knew how much this Brown thing meant to me and that this was his way of showing me that he gave a shit about someone other than himself without ever having to say it (God forbid).

“I hate your guts, you know that, right? I mean, I hate, HATE your guts. Not fake-hate. Not faketred. Like, real hate.”

“You fucking love me, nerd. When are you going to wake up and admit it?”

“When you admit you try to catch glimpses of me when I get out of the shower. What am I supposed to ask this woman, anyway?” I said as I slipped on the only sport coat I owned that didn’t have Chris’ dog’s hair on it.

“Here is the list of questions I compiled before SFBG bagged the interview. They’re real questions so don’t screw it up because if I know the paper, they’ll be mortified by my review of the Bryant Street Drag Queens and they’ll have to run this anyway. Here’s my voice recorder. And no, you won’t get either credit or a mention.”

“I don’t give a shit. Just… give me the address, dickwad.”

“You’re meeting her at Masa’s on Bush Street”

“Bush Street. Fitting.”

“And you’re paying. It’s the only way I could get the interview.”

“What?? I don’t have that kind of money!! Are you fucking nuts? I’m a 22-year-old college kid!”

“Yes. We know. And you have a small penis... I have caught glimpses of you getting out of the shower. But when you’re a doctor, and you’re making a bazillion, it won’t matter, will it? Now beat it… off you go now… off into the vagina sunset of life… atta boy… you’ll thank me in the morning…”

And off I went not knowing what to expect or how I would pay for what I got, both literally and figuratively. Off I went into the vagina sunset of life, just me, my hopes and dreams, a list of questions, a hairless sport coat, and my poorly-tied double-Windsor knot, all thanks to Chris.

TBC...