Putting the Madge in Danna (7 page)

In addition to all that writing, I had two
appointments with the florist. The first was a bust, because I’d
forgotten to bring the scrapbook filled with sample floral bouquets
I’d saved from old bridal magazines. Then I kept changing my mind
about what I’d wanted, because Mom and I did not see eye-to-eye in
this matter. She wants me to carry a gy-normous bouquet with
absolutely every flower known to mankind inside wrapped in baby’s
breath and superfluous ribbon. Naturally, I want something smaller,
like a nosegay around the wrist with tiny roses because my middle
name is Rose. Later, when Zeus and I cyber-sexed, and I told him
about it, he said I had a strong argument with the rose thingy and
that I should stand firm since I had already backed down over the
menu choice.

Greek people don’t seem to like Prime Rib
because they have some sort of weird aversion to meat cooked rare.
But I love it, especially if I plan to drink a lot at the wedding
reception, because it will absorb all alcoholic fluid and keep me
at a quality equilibrium, but no. We’re going to have roast beef or
some other well done steak. I shouldn’t have picked a fight over
food with Mom and Dad since it is their area of expertise. They own
a restaurant after all, the one where we’re having the reception,
of course, and I get that they are about making the wedding
memorable and fun for the guests. Plus I don’t need to eat red meat
at all since it could muck up the smell of my pinkie pinkerson, as
I’ve mentioned. Flowers are not my field of study, of course, but
they are not Mom’s either and I know what I like, and what I like
will not affect the guest’s enjoyment of the festivities. I’m going
to take Zeus’ advice and stick to my guns.

I’m still working at the travel agency too.
I was supposed to go to part-time then take my leave, to do grown
up thingys like raise babies and hopefully still have time for
sexy-sexy, but there’s lots going on there right now. We’re running
a special on cruises to Alaska....

Sorry, this is a sex blog
not a Bridezilla blog. I don’t know why I’m bothering you with all
of this. Without Zeus here, I seem to be using this blog as
a
to do
list of
sorts, when really I should stay focused on the matter at hand and
the reason I’m here – to put some Madge in Danna. I’m getting
married in less than a month, and I still have five strangers to
fuck before I say I do.

I signed on for a free week at that health
club, The Weight Loss Depot. As I mentioned before, it’s in Rome,
New York, near the casino. I’ve been taking the thruway to get
there, no biggie. It’s a brand new facility, a huge aluminum shell
like a modern Dutch Colonial barn painted sage green with a dark
red roof that looks at home with the landscape. It is next door to
a stable where they offer horseback riding lessons.

When I noticed Horseman
Farms and saw that beautiful brown and white Appaloosa grazing in
the field, I was thinking about that sweet man, Mr. Carter - how he
was checking the Paris trip off his wife’s bucket list. Learning to
ride a horse is something I’ve always thought I needed to do before
I died. I want to be just like Julia Roberts in
Runaway Bride
. Just kidding, I don’t
want to run away from my impending nuptials, not at all, but still,
she looked great in a wedding gown on horseback.

I’ve been feeling more adventurous since
this whole thingy started, maybe I will have a go at it. I have
only ever ridden donkeys on my way up the hill to get to my
grandmother’s house in Mykonos. Riding a horse must be a similar
experience, although in Greece a man in a fisherman’s cap always
directs the animal so he doesn’t freak and buck you off.

Am I too young to start a bucket list? I
wonder if Madonna has a bucket list? Her mother died of breast
cancer. Does that run in her family? There is no cancer in my
family. We all just die of old age, I think, but I’m not sure
exactly, because nobody is dead yet. My great grandmother is going
on one hundred, which I attribute to the Mediterranean lifestyle,
including yogurt, folk dancing, lots of Ouzo and sexy-sexy. I need
to remember to keep my pop-idol in my prayers so that she can stay
as healthy as we Elinopoulouses. She is my sanctuary.

The first time I walked in
to The Weight Loss Depot, I noticed it was full of that new house
smell, mostly of leather from all the Cybex machines’ seats, rubber
from the floor mats, and that kitchen pipe smell as in all the
metal. It was kind of a quiet place, except for the sound of heavy
metal music coming from within the I-pods of the muscle heads
(mostly very short men with gy-normous biceps that reminded me of
inflated Munchkins). The whole place gave off an animated vibe the
way Munchkinland does when we first see it in
The Wizard of Oz
– from black and
white to Technicolor.

As I investigated those machines, I felt
that sensation that I would have good luck there. The adductor and
abductor were my favorites. I love having my hooey stretched by a
large piece of apparatus allowing my hips the flexibility they need
to sustain a fucksy of an elongated duration should Zeus make one
available to me. I could have an orgasm just thinking about that
last time, after Dad’s party and before Zeus’ flight to Japan. Good
times.

I moved through the busy body-building free
weights area like a female Super Mario Brother, hoping I wouldn’t
get crushed by a dumbbell along the way. It would have been a
terrible tragedy had that falling weight landed on my toe
preventing me from dancing at my wedding. The guy who dropped it
didn’t apologize, he just said, “Get out of the way.” So much for
chivalry in Rome, I thought.

No partition separated the aerobics room
from the rest of the gym, only a step up that had been painted a
bright yellow, so you couldn’t miss it. The dance floor was made of
a highly polished oak. Three women taking a Zumba class that first
night fought for supremacy with the one-on-one yoga class going on
in the corner. The dancers finally finished up and hit the showers.
For some reason, I kept thinking a house might fall on top of the
yoga enthusiast. Not sure why that made me laugh, but it did.

Floor to ceiling mirrors
lined the entire room, which I liked very much. I could see how
silly I looked laughing like I was, so I tried to get serious the
way Zeus and I had practiced in case we get so drunk at the wedding
that we start laughing during the speeches or, god help us, if we
giggle through the marriage ceremony. I saw a bride do that once
on
America’s Funniest
Videos
. Shameful.

I’m all about seeing myself from all angles
like the three dimensional person that I am. It really helps to
check your form when you’re exercising I think, otherwise you might
get caught in a slouch. I have caught myself doing that twice in
the last few days, by the way. I imagined what that would look like
if I did it in my wedding gown and it wasn’t pretty, my friends! I
looked pregnant, which would be quite scandalous if true to be
honest. Even in this new millennium, if I appeared shot-gunnish at
my nuptials, it would be worse than if I laughed through the
ceremony, I think. The Orthodox contingency is way too conservative
for that. It would cause a pandemonium.

Once I finished my tour, the very fit, young
guy behind the front counter greeted me. He had been busy
personally training someone when I first walked in but had since
taken a shower, and changed into jeans and a black T-shirt with a
faded silkscreen of Woody Woodpecker on the front of it. His long,
silky black hair was the type one would attribute to Indians or
geishas, with matching dark almond-shaped eyes. I liked his smile.
His teeth appeared very white against his tanned skin.

“
Hi, I’m Zeke Feathertoe,”
he said. “What brings a pretty thing like you here?”

I said, “I prefer thingy.”

“
What?”

“
Thingy,” I repeated. “I’m
Dannika Elinopoulous, soon to be Zepkos. Call me Danna. I’m getting
married next month and I need to get rid of my jiggle.” I grabbed
at my slight imperfection through the anorack jacket I was wearing.
“I heard your ad on the radio and thought I’d check you
out.”

You and I both know I like
my jiggle the way it is, right? I felt a little like a method
actor, though, as if everything I was doing was so
real
. And I was lying! I
mean, this other me, the flirty one created by Madonna’s words,
seemed to really come alive the farther I ventured from home. I
think I’ve said more inappropriate thingys to Zeke during this one
week of Carlos Leonifying than I had ever said before and that
includes the day I thought I saw Justin Timberlake at Price
Chopper.

Zeke took all of my pertinent information
and made out my temporary pass for the free week. We had a
formidable entry interview – that was what he had called it at
least. He was so gung ho about getting me to see results from my
workouts. Very hard sell, which made me think he was on commission
or something. But he was cute, so I didn’t mind. And I kind of
thought we had a spark between us, a sort of flirtatious banter
that reminded me of Gina’s first meet and greet with Vince Romano,
at least the way she had told the story. Since Zeus and I have
always been friends, we had never had that first meet jitters
thingy, but I suspected that this, with Zeke, had the same feeling
that you would get if you liked someone as a potential boyfriend. I
liked the way his first name was similar to Zeus’ – that whole
starts-with-a-Z-and-has-only-one-syllable thingy. It was an
omen.

Turns out, Zeke is an Oneida Indian pure
blood. He said he’s part owner of the gym with his father. He’s a
personal trainer, as I mentioned. He’s in great shape, of course.
Not soccer player sexy like Zeus, but he does play lacrosse in an
American Indian league and they play without helmets. I admire the
toughness of that mixed with his friendly personality. Coupled with
ethnicity, it’s like a fusion of the masculine and feminine
mystiques, which I think is exactly the type of quality Madonna
looks for in a man. Like Carlos Leon, I think he is the perfect
exercise man to fucky-wuck!

He’s only twenty years
old, so it gives me the added bonus of being a cougar
(
meow!
). That
part was unexpected, because I had tentatively picked another lover
for my cougar experience. But so what? I am about to be so much
like Madonna that it’s scary.

I’ve met Zeke every night this week. I don’t
get to the club until 8:00pm and since the gym closes at 9:00pm
we’ve been alone in there after hours twice so far. Nothing has
happened, just a little flirty-flirt. He seems really interested in
my wedding plans and even more interested in my fascination with
Madonna. He showed me a bunch of things I could do for my abs so
that they could look more like Madonna’s.

Like earlier this evening, I was hanging off
this bar with my armpits shoved into stinky fabric rings, and I had
to lift my lower half up so that my body formed an L-shape. He made
me do this like twenty-five times, I mean three sets of
twenty-five. It kind of reminded me of the way I feel when I’m
wrapping my legs around Zeus while the big kazoo is locked and
loaded into my hooey barrel chamber and we play the Mount Olympus
cling. When we do that, I must keep my abs tight and hold myself up
without the use of my arms. He sort of twirls around the room, like
a soaring eagle. I always end up wrapping my arms around Zeus’ neck
before he dives onto the bed and we fall into missionary man bliss.
This was what I was thinking about, I guess. I was huffing and
puffing, trying desperately to maintain the position without
breaking a sweat. I didn’t want to fail and yet my mind went to
that soaring eagle – my man is so much like his mythological god
doppelganger…and then - and let me say thank the lord that no one
else was there to see it - I had an orgasm! My hooey shook like a
Kansas tornado, all hot and wet, and full of dark, dreamy
thoughts.

I moaned loudly the way I do when I’m with
Zeus, at least it sounded super loud as I do with Zeus, because he
can be very quiet in comparison.

“
The equipment likes you
too,” Zeke said.

I took a deep breath and said, “Funny.” As
much as I wanted to be, I could hardly be witty at a time like
that.

“
Now you won’t need your
fiancé to take care of your sweaty little dreamcatcher,” he said.
“Not tonight, anyhow.” I was certain I’d heard him right, and I
liked that I didn’t have to be the aggressor this time. I knew I
was right on track to get this party started.

I replied, “Zeus is out of town. He’s in
Japan on business.”

“
You’re engaged to a
deity?”

I laughed, because I had just been silently
making that same comparison. I said, “I guess, right?”

“
You know,” Zeke said,
unmistakably flirtatiously, “the name Feathertoe represents a long
line of spiritual shaman. And our spirit men can smoke rings around
mythology.”

“
Really?” I asked, hoping
for a more specific ring – hooey, nipsey-russells, lips or back
end? I thought, maybe he meant all of them, like a four-ringed
circus or something?

“
What can you teach me, oh
great one?” I said. “I bow to the mighty Shaman in you, Mr.
Feathertoe.” It was all I could manage. I know, lame. Hey, what did
you expect? I had just had an orgasm for fuck’s sake. I was still
hanging by my armpits, in what will now be referred to as the fuck
harness. It was hard to play über-sexy and cool Madonna protégé
while dangling from the precipice of a non-pricker wham-bam that
felt like the big kazoo. But anyhow, it worked. A little more
sexy-sexy banter and guess what? Zeke’s taking me to a local beach
tomorrow night after our work-out so that we can sit American
Indian style...and perform a sexy power pow-wow.