Excerpt From Mostly Human 2 By D. I. Jolly
Fredrik took a long drag of his cigarette, a sure sign to Mork that he was fast approaching the point where Norwiglish was about to become the language of the room, and shook his head at Greg who was saying,
“Well a friend of mine said that you know, if you buy her some nice soaps and bath oils and things as like a gift, that’ll encourage her to use them.”
Fredrik turned his attention to Cassandra and gestured at Greg as if to say ‘can you believe this?’ then turn back.
“No, no, no, for starters what self-respecting man actually knows what stuff to buy? And besides doing it in the first place is a mistake, because you’re misunderstanding the whole situation.’
He takes a long swig from his beer and leans a little closer to the boy.
‘If you want to get her to make herself beautiful you’ve got to take her somewhere she’ll be seen. She no longer has to impress you, because you were dumb enough to move in and tell her you love her, for her. So she relaxed.’
He leaned back and took another pull on the cigarette before stumping it out.
‘Honestly hairy legs is the best compliment a woman can give a man. It means she is happy spending the rest of her life with you. If she suddenly shaved them, then she’s cheating on you. But if you want her to shave them for you, and make herself pretty. Here’s what you do. Friday around 10 o’clock in the morning you call and make a reservation at a really nice and fancy restaurant for Saturday night. Then at eleven before she takes her lunch break at work, you call her and say that you’ve decided you want to treat her and you’ve booked a table for just you two at this nice restaurant, Saturday night. Because you think it’ll be nice to do something different and get all dressed up. Maybe even say something like “you can maybe wear that dress I love you in.” But only do this if you know she thinks it still fits. Otherwise, you’re fucked. But now she has enough time to go buy her own nice oils and things during lunch and all of Saturday to make herself beautiful for the people at the restaurant who are going to notice her. And you play your cards right and you get to take advantage of her freshly shaved body when you get home.”
Greg looked on at him in wonder, wanting to start making notes so that he’d remember it in the morning. Fredrik pulled another cigarette from his pack and lit it before finishing his beer. Cassandra who sat opened mouthed for a moment managed to pull herself together enough to say,
“That’s genius, and so true, how did you figure that out?”
Mork closed his eyes and let out a slight whimper and Fredrik glared at him,
“I just understand women, I know how they think, I’ve been inside their minds and it was beautiful.”
Cassandra chuckled,
“You’ve got sisters, don’t you?”
He smiled and tapped his nose with one finger.
“Only boy and youngest of five.”
At which point Mork let out a laugh and almost said “and I thought one was bad,” but stopped himself in time, but not before his enthusiasm for the evening slipped away. He took a long breath in and quickly stood up.
“Alright folks, I think we’ve done ourselves a great honour in surviving this long. Now I think it’s time for bed.”