09 Orgasm Addict
Delilah never knew where she stood with Adam, but, really, she didn't even care. He would be a jerk and a villain and she would just shrug it off. But then the next time she saw him he would be so charming and disarming that she wouldn't have any reason to be mean to him. He was just a little too intense for everyday use.
"So will you be entering the Silver Conference, then?" he asked her one day, as they sat in the bleachers in a tent to see a show put on by a children's circus camp that Irwin volunteered for. Irwin had invited Delilah, who had happened to be with Adam at the time, so he had come along for lack of any other plans.
"I guess so," she said. She had received a dratini at the Blackthorn Gym, so she had six pokémon now. Which was convenient. "There's like a preparatory training retreat thing for it, on the fifth, so I guess I'll go to that."
"That sounds interesting," he said. "Maybe I'll go."
"Can you? I don't know if you can, if you're not entering the Silver Conference...I mean, you're not a citizen, right?"
"No...actually we're leaving Johto and going back home, in May."
"Oh," she said.
"Hey, you guys," said Irwin, who was walking around before the show started, selling clown noses.
"Hey," said Delilah.
"Hello," said Adam.
Irwin indicated his basket. "Clown nose?" he asked, opening the question to the bleachers in general. "They're a dollar."
"No, thanks," said Adam.
"Yeah, you'd need two of them for a nose that size, anyway, right?"
Delilah laughed, and so did the people around them, probably assuming that they were good friends. Adam gave him a look of such witheringly amiable condescension that Irwin jumped at the opportunity to turn away when a woman came up to buy a nose.
The show was cute, even though Adam complained the whole time about the sun and wasn't happy until he got a snow cone to shut him up at the intermission. After it was over Delilah wanted to hang around and wait for Irwin, and Adam deigned to wait with her. As they sat in the empty bleachers she let out her vaporeon, Farley, to walk around and play, and Adam let out his gengar.
When Irwin came out again he said, "Hey! Did you guys like the show?"
"Yeah, it was a lot of fun," said Delilah.
"Oh, I like your necklace," he said, pointing to it.
"I like the setting," said Adam, leering unapologetically into her plenteous frontage.
Irwin pursed his lips in distaste, but Delilah laughed. Farley came up to her and walked into her lap, and then Adam's gengar joined them as well.
"What's its name?" asked Irwin.
"Sheets," said Adam.
"Sheets?"
"Yeah, you know, sheets. Like a ghost."
"Knowing you," said Irwin, "that thing'll attack me at the slightest provocation."
"Well, that's a bit of a silly accusation," said Adam. "My father was a gym leader. My pokémon are trained impeccably. Speak, Sheets."
Sheets made a creepy vocalization like a giggle.
"Good. See?" said Adam. "Roll over."
Sheets lay down and rolled onto his back, going over Irwin's foot.
"Owww!" said Irwin, even though Delilah didn't think it could have hurt very much. "It crushed my foot!"
"Oh, no!" said Adam, rubbing Sheets' forequarters. "Look, Sheets! You hurt Irwin! Give him a kiss!"
Sheets jumped onto the bench next to Irwin and licked him sloppily. Irwin, who had four voltorbs, which were not historically affectionate animals, grimaced and said, "Thanks a lot! Gengar saliva is toxic!"
"Oh, go on," said Adam, letting Sheets step on his legs. "If it were that dangerous, do you think it would be permissible in pokémon matches? It'll only hurt you if it bites you. That's why biting moves are illegal for gengars in battle. Don't you think I can control my own pokémon?"
Irwin did not dignify this with a response. "Gengar saliva is like Botox," he said later as he drove Delilah to the pokémon center. "I'm lucky I can still talk. I probably can't smile properly anymore."
Delilah rolled her eyes. He was frowning pretty deep so she doubted it was that serious.
"I don't know why you even hang out with him," he said. "I mean, you can't actually like him, can you?"
"Of course not," she said. "I never want to see that stupid hot jerk ever again."
"Come on, Delilah, be serious."
"What, do you think I'm an idiot?"
"Oh, no," he said. "I hope you get married and it lasts a hundred years. A good man is hard to find these days."
She laughed skeptically. "You don't have to let him bother you," she said. "I don't like him either, but I don't let it upset me..."
"If you don't like him, why do you hang out with him?"
"I don't know, I think he's funny..."
He snorted indignantly, but didn't say anything.
"So, were you guys okay, during that movie?" she asked. "How was that, it wasn't that bad, was it?"
"It was...I don't know, it was...weird," he said. "He was wearing his sunglasses the whole time, with the 3-D glasses on top, and he kept on, like, talking to this making-out couple, like, 'hey, you guys want some candy? isn't this a great movie?' and like with all these glasses on...it was weird..."
She laughed, but he didn't.
"Oh, he is such a moron," he said disapprovingly. "Why, he acts like the letter R doesn't even exist."
"Irwin," said Delilah. "He's English."
"Uhwin," he said. "The lettuh Ah. It's Adam Hahlow, dahling, suhtainly you've huhd of me?"
She laughed. "Well, he uses R sometimes," she said. "Sometimes he calls me 'Deliler'."
"Deliler," he repeated. "Mount my stallion of desi-uh, Deliler, and ride, ride, I say, into the sunset. I'm irresistible, if you wuhn't shuh."
"Now you're starting to sound Southern," she said, laughing.
"Southuhn? Not at all! If I wuh Southuhn, I'd be able to pronounce yo' name, Deliler. Puh-haps you ought just to change it, 'cos Adam Hahlow is nevuh wrong. Too rich, you know. Chim-chim-cheree."
She was laughing so much she had to cover her mouth in case she started to drool.
"Really, Deliler, I say!" he said. "Fohsooth, and verily, gehls undress at my command, you know, so let's have a go at each ovuh, righ' heah. You might not like it the fuhst time but ahftuh sixteen mo' you'll be addicted, I swea'!"
"I'm dying!" she gasped. "Oh my God!"
"Well, see, there you ah, you're an addict now. Cahn't live wivout me, cahn ye? Doctuhs prescribe me, you know. There's a racket fuh my semen. Pow'ful stuff, pow'ful stuff. Potent. Makes MDMA look like bloody shugah pills."
"Oh, I can't breathe!"
"No need, my deah. I'll give you mouth-to-mouth, I'm generous. Why settle fuh plain old ecstasy, when you can have euphoric rapturous blissful Adam Hahlow o'gasmic rhapsody." He broke, and laughed. "Mayhaps you didn't notice, but my initials? AH." He exaggerated his face, writhing around and making a noise like a woman in the throes of passion: "Ah! Ah! Aaaaaaaahhhhh...!"
In this Cockney/Southern/Australian brogue, she couldn't really understand a lot of what Irwin was saying, but she laughed so hard her head hurt.
"So you see, even women who have nevuh huhd of me end up saying my name whilst they climax, pip-pip and tallyho!"
She thought she was going to die, she was laughing so much. "I'm going to pee! Oh, God!"
"Not to worry, Deliler, my fecund pleshuh blossom. That's only an o'gasm, it's a bi' of awll righ', and it's puhfectly nowmal. Aftuh all, you ah sitting next to me, it's only natural."
Maybe it was Delilah's problem, not Irwin's. There was nothing wrong with Irwin. In fact, wasn't he what most girls wanted in a boyfriend? Irwin was nice, and attentive, and cute. Why didn't that appeal to Delilah? Why didn't she have any desire to interact with Irwin beyond the scope of friendship? He was reasonably attractive, so why wasn't she reasonably attracted to him?
Maybe Delilah was missing something, some big thing that everybody else had that allowed them to feel natural emotions; why didn't she have one? Why couldn't she have normal relationships with other people? But maybe Irwin didn't like her in some special way. Maybe there wasn't something there that she didn't understand. Maybe the idea of "like-liking" somebody was utter invention.
It wasn't that Delilah didn't believe in love—she loved her pokémon, and she probably loved her family or something—but she was a bit leery of the validity of romance. On the one hand, most songs were love songs, so apparently somebody believed it—if not the artists, then the listeners. But on the other hand, arguably the most powerful thing in the world was money, and money was just green paper—the only reason it was of any value was because people wanted to believe that it was. Was it the same thing, a mirage on a pedestal?
Delilah just didn't understand what people actually did when they liked each other or when they were in love. If she became Irwin's girlfriend, or if they started dating, how would that change their relationship? They would have sex. They would kiss each other and hold hands. But people didn't have to be in love to do those things; lots of people had sex or sexual relationships with their friends. What was the difference? And why did it matter? What was the point?
Adam did end up going to the prep retreat; when Falkner and Eusine came to pick her up, he was sitting in the backseat with a bag of trail mix that Falkner had brought.
"Hey, guys, can you hand me an Oreo?" asked Falkner, holding out his hand without taking his eyes off the road.
"No, sorry," said Adam.
Falkner laughed. "What? I don't think you are sorry."
"I'll be eating all of these Oreos," said Adam, putting his arm out to stop Delilah from handing Falkner one of the mini Oreos from the trail mix. "This is my private magazine of trail mix."
"What—dude, just give me one," said Falkner, looking back and trying to get one himself.
"Falkner, you need to drive," said Adam. "Leave me to build four chins, in a graceful cascade down to my navel. I'll eat until my shirt looks like a bra."
Eusine laughed, which encouraged Adam to continue.
"I'm abusing the ground I'm walking on. My bingo wings go down to my thighs," he said. "My thighs go down to HELL..."
Delilah covered her face as she convulsed in laughter.
"I'm playing pat-a-cake with my breasts," said Adam, opening another Oreo and scraping the icing off with his teeth as Delilah wiped tears from her eyes.
Falkner held his hand out between the two front seats and said, "Seriously, guys, can I have an Oreo?"
Adam caught Delilah's eye. He unwrapped some gum he had apparently been chewing and stuck it between the sides of the Oreo.
"Thanks," said Falkner.
Eusine turned up the radio. "Aretha is my life," he said.
"Augh! Adam! Fucking asshole!" Falkner laughed, rolling down the window to spit his chocolaty cud into the wind.
Everyone who would be entering the Silver Conference was given a sort of questionnaire, asking questions she didn't know like why she was entering and what made her want to be a pokémon trainer, and they all began to get on the buses.
She was sitting by herself and struggling with these difficult questions when Adam strolled up and asked, "Would you mind if I sat here?"
"No, go ahead," she said.
"What are you doing?"
"I have to fill out a form," she said.
"Well, if there's a thing you can do right," said Adam as he took out a book, "it's fill out your form."
The organizer started to pass by them as he walked up the aisle from the back, and then he tripped. He looked at the backpack on the floor and gave Adam a dirty look.
"Could you not keep your stuff in the aisles?" he said with a glare before walking on.
"Whatever," Adam muttered, and went back to reading.
This lack of concern for others did not really shock Delilah, but it did surprise her that he wouldn't do something when directly asked.
When he got to the front of the bus the organizer made sure everybody had gotten forms who needed them and said a few words about how proud he was, and then the buses began to move.
Delilah had finished half her survey and was mindlessly pushing back her cuticles with her fingernails when a man started walking up the aisle; he tripped, as had happened to the organizer, who hurried down the aisle and asked, "What happened?"
"I tripped over this goddamn backpack in the aisle!" said the guy, standing up and nursing his elbow.
The organizer let him pass and then bore down on Adam. "Look, kid," he said, pointing at the backpack. "That man could have been hurt thanks to that backpack."
Adam looked unconcerned. "Oh, dear. It would suit him to be more careful in future," he remarked politely.
"Now, listen, punk," he said, getting angrier. "If that thing's not out of the aisle when I count to three, I'm going to throw it out the window!"
"You had better not," Adam snorted. "It would only be trouble for you."
"Oh, yeah? I organized this whole thing and what I say goes! If that backpack doesn't disappear, it's gone!" He stuck out his index finger. "One!"
Adam looked at him blankly.
He put up another finger. "Two!"
Adam still didn't move.
The last finger went up. "Three! Okay, then, if that's how you want to play!"
He picked up the backpack, leaned over Adam and Delilah to push the window down all the way, and dropped the backpack through it. Delilah turned to watch it whiz away before falling to the ground and rolling sadly out of sight.
"That'll teach you a lesson," he said firmly.
"It certainly did," Adam agreed. "I'll always keep my things out of the aisle."
The organizer looked sort of awkward and guilty. "Hey, you're a good sport, buddy," he said. "I'm sorry I took such extreme measures."
"That's all right; I really learned something," said Adam. "Anyway, it wasn't mine."
Adam talked to people like they were dirt under his feet, shrugging off friendliness with an aloof arrogance, such that it was difficult for people, she supposed, to feel anything but affronted or resentful.
That wasn't quite how Delilah felt, however. She certainly didn't feel compassion for Adam, but she was really just sort of amused by him. Delilah never invested very much in people, and so she mostly felt a great deal of detachment from her relationship with Adam, meaning that she just had never cared enough to be insulted.
When they got off the bus Adam went looking for a vending machine, saying he had a headache because he was reading on the bus. She stood there watching the other people around her when a man walking by whistled at her.
"Hey, gorgeous!" he said. "Need any help?"
"Help with what?" she asked, unsure if she should be insulted by the implications of this confusing line.
"Anything you want, sweetheart!" he said, and gestured to the guy behind him. "My friend'll get lost if I tell him to."
"Maybe so, but will mine?" she asked as Adam came strutting back over like a waltzing cockerel.
The guy squawked an apology and hurried away with his friend.
Adam watched them go, twisting open a water bottle.
"What was that about?" he asked, as if oblivious to his frightening appearance.
"He thought you were my boyfriend," she said.
"Was he trying to chat you up?"
"I guess."
"Don't worry, Delilah," he said, but it came out sort of wrong around the cigarette in his mouth. "I'll be your guardian angel."
"Well, I hate to bring it up, but that leer on your face is barely angelic," she said.
"Delilah, there are two things that I do better than anybody," he said. "Scaring away undesirable parties"—he blew smoke directly into her face so she squinted—"is the other one."
She felt like her skin was inside-out, like her underwear had melted right down her legs. "You know...you're not really supposed to smoke within twenty feet of a public building," she said, ignoring her sympathetic nervous system kicking in.
"You know, it's also quite bad for you?" he said.
Adam knew how other people were affected by him. He fully understood the repercussions of his actions; he just didn't care. And while in a way she found this dubiously admirable, he was still a thoroughly unpleasant person. He and Delilah had fallen into a swing of putting each other down, but neither of them took it seriously enough to be hurt.
Besides, he was very good-looking and emotionally unavailable with money and a swoony accent; just because she acknowledged his unsavoriness didn't mean she was immune to his questionable charms.
Inside they listened to people talk for a very long, boring time; finally they were given a number of sheets of paper and told to find partners to answer the questions.
Delilah was about to turn to Adam next to her to ask if he wanted to be her partner when a girl came up and tilted her head at a certain angle and smiled and said, "Hi! Do you want to be partners?"
"No," said Adam.
She blinked. "Oh," she said. "Well, okay."
Adam did not even have the courtesy to wait until she was out of earshot before he turned to Delilah and asked, "Do you want to be my partner?"
She did want to be his partner, but she felt tacky accepting the invitation when the girl could hear, so instead she said, "That was shitty..."
"It was true," he said, glancing at the back of the poor girl, retreating to her group of friends. "You're the trainer I've had the most trouble battling. Why wouldn't I want to be your partner, then?"
"I'm just saying. Do you know how much courage it takes to approach you?"
"She could at least be honest about her intentions, as well. We can still have sex, but there's no reason why we should be partners, too."
She briefly made a face that artfully blended amusement, disbelief, and scorn. Then she stood up and looked at the first question. "What do you think is the best hold?" she asked, looking for the first time at the way she held a poké ball. How much difference did it really make? Was she doing something wrong, that made her look like she didn't know what she was doing?
"This one," said Adam, sliding his hand around her hip.
She froze up for a second, not sure what to do. "Well, I'm glad you like my form," she joked with desperate corniness, "but you're supposed to be helping me, not helping yourself."
"I'm going to go find the toilet," said Adam. "I have a headache."
"I think that's my line," said Delilah.
He went off to find the bathroom and she sat down with her dratini, whom she had named Dovima. Eventually Whitney came over to her and asked, "Don't you have a partner?"
"He went to the bathroom."
"Oh, okay. Anyway, sorry I couldn't drive you this morning, I know you had to go with Falkner and Eusine, hopefully that wasn't too horrifying..."
She laughed. "Nah, it was fun," she said. "They're funny."
"God, Eusine is so fricking annoying," said Whitney. "I mean, he's funny, but he's so whiny and annoying...I'm really kind of starting to hate him..."
"Yeah? What does he do?"
"Well, just...he and Morty are just, like, so stupid, I can't even get over it. I mean, Morty has, like, hit Eusine. Like, he's beaten him up."
"Really?"
"I know, right? Like, you totally wouldn't expect that, but it's because they're drunk! I mean, all of their problems are just because they drink! A few months back, I set up a tent in the backyard, for sleepovers, and Morty, Eusine, and Falkner were all over, and I was already in bed, actually, I don't know what they all were doing. According to Eusine, he fell asleep in the tent, not knowing that Morty was waiting for him for like two hours, so Morty came in like, 'why did you do that' and just started beating the crap out of him in the tent."
"In a tent...?"
"I know, right! In a tent! Like, what a lame fight, but I could hear it all because it was right outside my window, and oh my God I was so scared...but so then I hear Falkner go out there, and I thought he was going to break it up, but no, he just sat there, and watched. And I'm like...Falkner...what are you doing. I don't know, maybe he was drunk too. So they both left and Eusine's all crying, like, 'I don't want to be with him, when he's like this,' and I'm just like...if you guys would just stop drinking, this would not be a problem! I don't know, it's so fucking stupid."
"Does that happen a lot?"
"No, not really the fighting stuff, but they have all kinds of weird, dumb, gay drama, like they're always breaking up supposedly. But then they just have sex and are like, 'oh, we're in love, we're totally fine and we don't drink anymore,' and of course that lasts like two weeks before they drink again. It's so stupid..."
Adam came back in then. Adam's walk usually said quite clearly, "Stand aside, dull peasants! Sadly you will never know what it is like to enter a room bigger, hotter, and fiercer than anyone who might try to tell you to shut up."
At that moment his face was very red. She thought maybe he had gotten a terrific sunburn, but then he turned green, and then a chalky white. Clearly it was Cinco de Mayo. Then he fell down.
Falkner hurried over to him and said his name a few times.
Adam frowned, his eyes still closed. "Is my nose bleeding?" he mumbled, touching his face.
"No, are you okay?"
"I'm going to be sick," he said. "I'm going to be sick..."
He didn't throw up, even though he kept saying he was going to; eventually somebody called an ambulance, and he was carried away like Cleopatra in a sedan chair.
Morty went in the ambulance with him and Eusine said, "Somebody should call his parents."
Delilah was unfortunately the closest to Adam's backpack, so this responsibility apparently rested with her. She dug past his passport, poké balls, cigarettes, and a few hundred dollars before finding his BlackBerry; however, there were five different numbers labeled "Daddy": there was "Daddy", "Daddy 2", "Daddy 3", "Daddy HO", and "Daddy SC", right above "Delilah Peerenboom" and somebody named "dumb bitch".
She threw up her hands exasperatedly, and Whitney took the phone from her and picked one of them.
"Hi, Mr Harlow?" she said in a businesslike tone that Delilah had never heard her use. "This is Whitney Delwyn of the Goldenrod Gym, I'm at the Silver Conference Prep Retreat where Adam just fainted. He's fine, but we thought we should let you know that he felt sick and he passed out, but he's being taken to the hospital right now so don't worry."
There was a pause as she listened to Adam's father speak for a moment.
"Well, he's in the ambulance," she explained. "They're taking him to the hospital."
Adam's father spoke again, his voice rising enough that Delilah could hear it, but not enough that she could understand it.
Unfortunately nobody knew what hospital Adam was being taken to. This caused Whitney great suffering until tears were rolling down her cheeks and Mr Harlow was screaming, "WHERE IS MY SON?"
This went on for a crucifying length of time before Eusine had the sense to call Morty and ask him, and Whitney lamented Eusine's being the most intelligent person in the room.