Naed Pizza

My wife is stoned.

I'm not the intuitive type. I don't see the tiny nuances of body language that would hint at her insobriety. I'm not even what you would usually call 'observant'. I'm typically fairly self-absorbed and intrinsic. It has even been suggested that I'm a bit of an aloof prick sometime. But, call me Sherlock fucking Holmes, the woman is staring at an onion. She has been for longer than it took for the Seven O'clock News to finish.

"Darlin?"

"Ya?"

"You doin?"

"Hahahahaha."

A thousand tiny glass wind chimes jingle then shatter every time she giggles. I've laughed before simply because she is laughing. It's the kind of sound you would imagine fairies dream of making when they laugh but can't quite achieve, leaving them feeling kind of less than perfectly fairy like; a bit of a fraud in their wings and tutus prancing around amongst flowers thinking, "Fuck it, I'll just be a leprechaun or something."

"I'm looking at this onion."

"I noticed."

"Heh, it's layered."

"Have you been watching Shrek again?"

"No. I was going to make pizza."

Oh god I love this woman. Pizza!

"Pepperoni?"

"Nah."

"Ham and pineapple."

"Nah."

"So..."

"So I was thinking what is inside an onion?"

"What?" Now, I seriously doubt I'm going to get pizza. Our tangents diverge.

"You know, when you get all its layers off. What's inside?"

"Nothing."

"No shithead, there's got to be something."

"Look, I'm gonna order out." She's been in the kitchen for more than half an hour. We were going to have pizza and movies night but I think she's found my 'Green Dragon' pot liqueur.

"Don't you ever wonder?"

"I'm wondering Hawaiian or Mexican?"

"Shithead... you're killing my tangent. Just order what you want, oh grr... and garlic bread. Lots of garlic bread. Fuck it, forget the pizza just get garlic bread."

"Haha, you're a messy kite."

"Fuck you. You're an onion."

I call Domino's and place an order for a pepperoni with extra jalapeno and two rolls of garlic bread. They promise it will be here in half an hour and clarify my address. The movie we've chosen for movie night is 'Avatar'. Jen loves it.

"Babe?"

"Yeah."

"You get garlic bread?"

"Yeah."

"I love you."

"I love you too Darlin'."

"Fucken liar. Onion Liar."

"What?"

She sits beside me on the couch smelling like soap and shampoo. She has a towel curled up like a turban on her head and has stolen one of my t-shirts again; my new Steel Panther t-shirt.

"Hey, that's my new shirt."

"Haha, it was lonely and afraid in the drawer so I gave it a home." She pats her boobs gently. "Poor widdle shirty wirty..."

"Hff..." I probably can't ever wear it again now, its overtly sexual and rebellious tones thoroughly ruined by 'widdle shirty wirty'."

"Ok then..." My emasculated shirt and I sit in silence.

"Hey so..." she shoves me with her foot. Her long legs flash flesh at me and I can't blame my t-shirt for wanting to go and live on her gorgeous tits.

"So..."

"So... you're an onion."

"Wha..."

I don't know what she means. I'm a bit annoyed, she's off on a road trip without a map and if experience serves me, my only option, and usually the most enjoyable one, is to jump on board and ride along.

"So... Each ring the onion has, it put there. It made that shit. Out of dirt even." She sounds incredulous at her own analogy, "It made a wall or clothes or a mask or something that it wanted the world to see instead of the little tiny onion soul inside and over time changed until it looked nothing like what it really was inside. Until it was nothing like its true shit, it's true soul."

She stares absently into space for a moment lost in internal philosophy then continues, "So now it was just an ugly brown onion so I cut it open to see inside."

"So there was a happy little brown round dude and you stabbed it? Fuck...."

"No, I cut it." She shoves me with her foot again. I like her legs . "I cut you!" I make a stabbing gesture and ham it up.

"Drink! I hate you straight when I'm a pipe cleaner."

"Pipe cleaner?"

"All twisted bent like a little pipe cleaner doll. Did you ever make a pipe cleaner doll?"

I shake my head, she butterflies from thought to thought; I love her but she confounds my sobriety. I take the tall green drink she's brought me and slug a good mouth full down. She natters about the movie for a little while and I nod and trace the path of drugs through my body. My mouth tastes first the mint, chocolate and raw alcohol flavours; my stomach warms. In just a moment, I can feel the alcohol surge through me like a flash fire. A few moments later, the THC slides over me like a favourite old winter coat and I can feel my mouth twist in the corner like a playful thing waking from a week long sleep at work.

"Hellooo... Friday night."

"Ha... It's good right. Shut-up, I like this bit."

I ride the buzz to a peak. It hits smoothly, and woah... It mellows sweetly to a body buzz.

"Hey..."

"Yeah?"

"So onions?"

"What?"

"You were talking about onions."

"Don't be ridiculous."

"You were... Layers... or something. I was listening but I was hungry."

"Oh yeah." She pounces on me. "You do listen sometimes."

Her soft arms are round my neck and she hugs me intimately and close.

"So..."

"Yup..."

"Want to play a game?" she mumbles coyly into my neck.

Her lips move against the skin of my throat and I think my dick responds, "Hell yeah!" before I do.

"Kay, so... clothes are like layers too right?"

"Guess so."

"So, you take off a layer, I take off a layer... capiche paison?" She tries on a Mafioso face and puffs a pretend cigar, her playful mischief written in naughty twinkles in her eyes.

"Mmhmm?"

"You volunteer a thing that changed you, that made you grow a layer. Show me how that layer grew and help me know you more and I remove a layer."

"Sounds fairly one sided. I have to tell you my deepest darkest things to get your gear off?"

"Hmm. Fair point. I'll sweeten the pot." She thinks a little pointing out stray things in the movie.

"Fuck, look how tall they are. Have you ever fucked a chick that tall?"

"They're ten foot tall aliens. Do you know any ten-foot tall alien chicks? I'll try anything once."

"Oh yeah, hey... I've got it. Quid pro quo and a layer of clothes. So if your story tells me something I didn't already know about you, I remove a piece of clothing then I have to tell a story and if you already didn't know it then you have to get some gear off."

I quickly do an item count. That one that you learn to do in early teen games of truth or dare and strip jack. Neither of us is wearing much anyway so it should be fair and fun.

"So... you first." She shoves me with her foot again.

"Let me think a bit, I can't just vomit something profound up just like that."

"Okay, well I'll go."

She gets comfortable and fluffs cushions, like she is mentally gathering papers on a podium. I see nervousness underneath the ritual, "You know how you always ask about my baby photos? There are none."

She waits for my attention and when I hold her eyes she continues, "I was kind of an ugly duckling teen. You know, gangly with a too big head and no boobs, funny teeth. I always felt ugly. Kids at school would tease me about my ears, my braces, my eyebrows. You know what they are like."

"When I was eighteen, nineteen I started filling out, learned a bit more about grooming, plucked my caterpillars, got my braces off, was suddenly normal. Not pretty but not ugly, and I made friends easy cause all those years of getting bullied grew me a personality."

She sips her drink, "I was horrified that people would find out what I used to be like so one afternoon I gathered all the photographs I could find at home of me as a child and burned them in the incinerator."

"Fuck really? Beth and Bill would have loved that."

"They spewed. I was in so much trouble. I kept one picture. It's in an old year book. I kept it to remind myself that I was ugly once; to keep me humble."

"Pff... You can't have been that ugly. I get gangly teen, I was the same. Took ages to grow into myself."

"I'll show you, I kept it." As she walks to the bedroom I try to objectify her appearance. She is not tall, not short, five foot six to my five foot nine. She's fit but deliciously curvy, has nicely shaped everything, especially her arse which waggles under my t-shirt as she walks away. She has shoulder length hair that keeps changing colour (it's currently red) and she has a pretty heart shaped face with big brown eyes and well maybe her nose is a bit big but she fits together well into more than averagely attractive package. She has to be exaggerating her self-loathing. She could never have been truly ugly.

She returns and plonks down on the couch. Launching from a few feet away and crashing onto it like a sullen teen. She's removed the towel and brushes her hair as I stare at the yearbook she drops in my lap. I flick through, "St Mary's High 1993." Try as I may, I can't find any pictures of her.

"Here." She snatches it away and flicks to a page near the back. "Where?"

She points at a picture of two kids holding a trophy. I must still look confused because she taps one of the girls on the face and says, "That one."

She is watching my face for reactions and she finds them. "I told you so."

"Fuck, wow, those ears..." I don't want to be shallow and harsh but I don't want to be dishonest either. She was truly unpretty. The child in the year book is tall and skinny, flat chested, and mostly like every other teen except she has ears that stick out sideways like car doors. Not big ears just they point the wrong way. Her nose is overly big for her young face and her front teeth look like a rabbit that has run into post. Her eyebrows meet in the middle and are really fuzzy and thick.

"It's ok to be shocked. I wouldn't have shown you if I wasn't prepared for that."

"But how did..." I gesture at her beside me now. "All this hot..."

"Mum and Dad gave me surgery for my eighteenth birthday. I had my ears pinned, see..." She leans close and pulls an ear forward. I can see a tiny scar behind it. "...and my nose tidied up a bit. My teeth took until I was about twenty to sort out completely. Mostly it was just correcting the bite and my face growing to fit them. And well, that eyebrow... Just a matter of learning to take care of my appearance."

"Far out, you don't look anything like that now."

"But it's still me. Inside, I'm still that ugly kid sometimes. Inside, boys ignore me, girls make fun of me and I hate me. The new me, I like. Just sometimes I'm the old me for a bit."

"Well, that's definitely a layer I didn't know about." I peel off my shirt. It's warm and I'm more comfortable without it anyway.

"Well your turn now."

"Hold up 'fugly', I'm thinking."

She belly laughs and punches me, "Arsehole," as she goes to make more drinks.

We're at that part of the movie where Jake is promised surgery in exchange for information and she tells the flat screen, "Don't trust that arsehole, Jake. Haven't you seen the ending?"

"Haha, the ending hasn't happened for him yet."

"Well it's out on DVD, rent a copy fucker!" she yells at Jake.

"That's it. That's a layer I can give you."

"What, the DVD. I own it already."

"No..." She's so literal to my metaphoric. "I don't trust men. My layer. My thing. I don't trust men. That's why I don't really have any close mates."

"You are one, a man. How can you not trust them?"

"Coach... When I was at uni my coach abused me."

"Like molested you or something?"

"Something like that."

"Fuck... how. You were huge as a young bloke." She mocks flexing her arms.

"At an end of term football party. It was some sort of initiation or hazing thing. They did it to all the rookies. Coach wore a strap on dildo. We all had to bend over and he stuck it up our bums while the older players laughed and cheered. Worst part was I got a boner. I thought that meant I'd liked it; made me gay or something."

"Holy shit."

"So, now I hate football and I don't trust men." I shrug as if I don't care.

"You should have made a complaint or something."

"It was easier to run, just fuck off. I quit my scholarship and joined the army."

"You trust my Dad though right, you guys go fishing and stuff."

"That's different, Bill's like my dad."

"Oh... wow." She is quiet and gobbles popcorn, eyes glued to the television while I imagine I can actually see her mind ticking over.

"Great. So I bare my soul and you're more interested in giant blue bitches."

"Shh..." She frowns at me. "I like this bit."

She does some sort of epileptic python dance with her arms under her t-shirt and produces a bra. Still watching the screen, she hands it to me. "Happy?" I take it, looking at it strangely. This is acceptable currency for knowing my deepest shame? It's lacy and I figure I can't be too cut up about her dispassionate response, because I seem to be getting a boner. Still, I've kept this thing locked in a tiny box in the recesses of my mind for millennia as it shames me so deeply. It can't really hurt me anymore, all the sting has gone out of the memories but... Well, really, I can't think why I ever kept it from her. It seems like a useless layer now. Perhaps this game has merit.

"I think I feel a bit raw."

"Like exposed?"

"Yeah."

"Good raw? Bad raw?"

"Like it doesn't really matter raw."

"Like you forgot to put a shirt on but it doesn't really matter because you're at home anyway?"

"Yeah something like that."

She puts some popcorn in her mouth and scootches a little closer on the couch. Her right arm reaches round my shoulder while her eyes never leave the television and she pulls me a bit closer.

"I love you anyway you gimp fucktoy."

It's my turn to belly laugh embarrassment off. A euphoric wave of acceptance and gratitude, babbles out of my mouth in a series of ape-like sniggers.

"You have the shittiest laugh. Seriously, don't ever laugh again." She puts a hand over my mouth and nose, "Just be sad or angry or something ok."

"Horny count?" I mumble.

"Ooh... I like horny."

The doorbell rings.

"Pizza O'clock!" she claps.

"Hang on buddy, I'm coming." I shout to the door.

"I'll get it." She stands and grabs her purse from the coffee table.

Almost to the door she stops and turns.

"Hey..."

"Yup."

She makes real eye contact and bites her lower lip before saying, "That really was a substantial layer. Thankyou for trusting me." She pulls off her shirt (my Steel Panther shirt) and throws it to me.

I catch it and watch her open the door and pay for the pizza.

In nothing but her undies and socks.

The pizza boy is a spotty kid. Old enough to have a licence, vote and drink but too young to have a proper job or by the looks of things a girlfriend. He's all open mouth and fumbling hands, wide grins and 'holy fuck' faces. Jen is just so matter of fact. I love her. I am going to fuck her hard for this. She's such a shocking tease.

She fumbles far too long with her purse and counting change, making sure her tits jiggle with each coin she passes from one hand to the other. She smirks as she watches him blush and dart his eyes back and forth from her tits to her face and then the floor and the tits again, but mostly the tits. Eventually, he relents pretending and just stares openly at her breasts. He takes the money. She could have counted cornflakes into his hand and he would not have known. He musters courage and breath to speak.

"Thanks for ordering Dominos and hey," he nods to her tits bouncing just a few feet from him, "thanks for the tip."

She bridges the gap too quickly for him to shrink away and hugs him tight, pressing her lovely breasts into his shoulder and cheek. "Drive safe now honey."

The door closes and she does a gorgeous little wiggly jig of naughty happiness and self-satisfaction. This kind of showing off is her bug powder dust; her drug of choice.

"Haha," I shake my head, "You fucken pricktease, you made that kids night."

"He deserves it, they pay those kids shit." She looks me up and down, stopping to gaze at my crotch. "Looks like he enjoyed the show too."

"Ha. What's not to love."

"Well." She interrupts her sudden seriousness, to put the pizza and garlic bread on the coffee table. "My showing off for one thing. How do you cope sometimes. I am such a fucking slut."

"I kinda dig it."

"Seriously? Like sometimes I can't believe myself." She has a stern face on now, some mercurial flip from flirty to sullen.

"Pizza boy is one thing, a bit of fun, but I'm relentless, you know it's like I need the constant attention from men to show me I'm not that buck toothed, flappy eared, mono-browed, beaver-caterpillar-elephant hybrid anymore. And you let me do it. Is there something wrong with you?"

I open the garlic bread and offer her the crusty end piece.

"See, just like that. That selfless shit you do. I know you love those bits."

I think on this as I look at her enjoying the garlic bread. Her eyes roll in almost orgasmic bliss as she savours the taste and textures. I take the other end of the loaf and say, "There's two ends to a loaf."

"What?"

"Two ends. You know, you love the attention, it re-affirms your attractiveness and gets you off somehow but I love it too. I get the other end. I get to know that those men wish they were me. I get to watch their faces while they watch. I get to see their jealous wives, their dropped jaws... For a short moment I'm not the 'mail room guy', I'm 'the guy with the hot wife'."

She just watches me strangely. I can see cogs turning back in her eyes.

"Hey also, you're fucking hot and I get to watch too."

She reaches for some pizza, taking the slice I had been eyeing off. The skinny piece with lots of pineapple and really browned crispy cheese. She's watching me intently while she does it and as she bites the perfect piece she mumbles with her mouth full, "The perfect slice."

"What?"

"You. The perfect piece of my cosmic pizza."

"Fuck off hippy, you're stoned."

She shoves me with her foot and smiles at me with her mouth full. "Thankyou for letting me show off. When they watch me, it's like they are my high school friends who teased me. I am making their boyfriends want me, I am prettier than them. I am hot and I am pretty and I can have any one of those boys I choose. Payback bitches."

"So technically, that counts for a layer?" I ask.

She shrugs in reply.

I offer her my underpants.

She spits bits of her pizza out in muffled laughter.

"Seriously, you are shit at these games. You're still wearing a watch and socks. You should have taken one of them off first."

"I know." I say, "I can see how this is going to end up anyway, no point avoiding the inevitable."

"Oh, so you think you can get my pants off? You can't have any more secrets Mr perfect! What did you do, kick a puppy?"

"Well, give me a moment."

She rolls her eyes and sighs. "Fine, how long do you need to make something up?"

"Oh I could make some shit up but that wouldn't be fair would it? Let me finish eating, maybe I'll think of something."

"Kay then... Just so you know, I'm down to my knickers..." She snaps the elastic of her cotton undies. They are daggy grandma pants with little flowers on them. It's very 'girl next door' for a self-confessed exhibitionist, but that's part of her allure. She's not a façade of make-up, Victoria's Secret and a false persona. She's just Jen. When we are out and she shows off, it's the fact that she's just another normal woman in the street who is displaying parts of herself out of context that make it so intensely arousing as opposed to the sensationalised efforts of attention whores with their special costumes and choreographed public 'oops' moments.