"Why Sex Therapists Hate the Simpsons", "Sweet Stuff" & "Rocket Mom" by Claudia Monpere
- Roi Fainéant
- 5 hours ago
- 5 min read
Why Sex Therapists Hate The Simpsons
You’d think being a sex therapist would be stimulating. (Pun intended. I long to be a writer.) But it’s soooo boring. Same old, same old. Infidelity. Fear of sexual intimacy—yes, ex-husband #1, that’s you with your computer and spreadsheets after making love—difficulties achieving orgasm, mismatched libidos; now you’re up, ex-husband # 2. As a Scorpio you should have been in heat 24/7 but noooo by our second year of marriage it was excuse after excuse, but you showed your Scorpio colors when you hired that detective to spy on me and my horse ranch lover which I discovered only because the detective got gouged on the barbed wire fence and his howls disturbed us in our nest of fresh laundry. WAY more interesting than anything that goes on in my office, where another wife whines about her husband’s porn addiction. You’d think I’d hear mesmerizing stories from clients discussing compulsive sexual behaviors, but THEY’RE ALL SO PREDICTABLE!!! Not like you, ex-husband # 3; when you taught The Tempest, we had to role play every combination of characters fucking: Caliban and Ariel, Stephano and Trinculo, Prospero and Antonio. And when you were obsessed with The Simpsons, you could only come when I was Marge Simpson wearing that godawful blue wig moaning, “Homer, Homer.” And omg, that time you decided my orgasms should peak at 11 seconds. If I was still climaxing, you’d shout, Alexa, play “Disco Duck.” Oh, how I wish you’d been my client.
Sweet Stuff
Jason loved whipped cream and sex. He licked it off Maureen’s breasts, had her lick it off his balls. Maureen was a librarian. She wanted to prove she wasn’t a prude. But the whole thing made her gag. And everything got so sticky. “Hey, the end is always sticky. Right?” her husband said. “You know I love you, sweetie.” He slapped her ass playfully, turning to the T.V. to watch The Dallas Cowboys.
***
Maureen loved whipped cream and sex. But Jason hated it—it was downright weird. Especially since she was a kindergarten teacher! But he loved Maureen so he put up with it once a month. Now, however, Maureen wouldn’t make love—actually she used the “F” word, which made Jason cringe—unless whipped cream was involved. Then she insisted they go to Good Vibrations and browse. She wanted to buy a vibrator and other things Jason couldn’t even say out loud. He shuddered.
***
Maureen and Jason loved whipped cream and sex. They were both artists and what was more artful than sex? They experimented with whipped cream bikinis topped with cherries, nipple strawberries. She had multiple orgasms when he licked chocolate sauce off her upper thighs.
***
Jason loved whipped cream and sex. Maureen hated it, especially since he decided whipped cream was getting boring and now wanted her to lick maple syrup off his body. Honey. Warm pudding. She could say no. She was a VP in tech, in charge of hundreds. One day she did say no. “You fat bitch,” said Jason. He unzipped his pants and smeared his cock with caramel sauce. “Suck it,” he commanded. She did. On his birthday, she surprised him. New negligee. A gift box with delectable treats. Seductive smile. She tied his hands with silk scarves. She painted him with honey, molasses, sugar. He moaned more intensely than she’d ever heard. “The pièce de resistance,” she purred, opening a jar, pouring. The fire ants spilled out.
Rocket Mom
After Mom leaves and Dad grows more obsessed with model rockets, Elle and I are no longer content to play our five senses games, like tasting rain and smelling stones. Instead, we write Mom into Elton John’s song “Rocket Man.” In “Rocket Mom,” we make her destruct for all kinds of reasons. Her launch lugs bleed into her body tube. Her thrust and burn rate increase too quickly. She slashes her parachute line. In other versions of “Rocket Mom,” her launch is seamless, and she shoots all the way to the exosphere, mingling with aurora borealis, those green swirling ribbons of light.
I could go on and on and on, rewriting our song. But my sister grows bored. She goes with Dad to a model rocket exhibition one day. Dad helps her start a model rocket club in her fourth-grade class.
I start middle school. I watch Elle and Dad build and launch their first rocket with a plastic body tube and a bright red nose cone. They name it Rudolph. I watch them build and launch Skywalker, Falcon, Phoenix, Starfire. I start high school.
A boy. Older than me. Drawn by the rockets my father is small-time famous for now, but soon drawing me in charcoal. My hands, my face. He explains that drawing charcoal is made of willow branches or grape vines. I tell Dad and Elle this, but they are deep in a discussion about fiberglass vs. quantum tubing.
The boy draws my breasts in watercolor pencils. He teaches me about tones and shades, smudge factors. For my birthday, he paints me in a forest of rockets, flowers growing from their nose cones. He calls me beloved.
Mom fires back into our lives. Words explode between her and dad, tangled rebar and pulverized concrete. Debris pelts us.
I tell no one about the baby growing inside my 15-year-old body. Only the boy. Who is tender and lullabies me with his plans of flight for us. I lie in bed, stroking my belly. Elle’s steady breathing, rain tinkling against the window. I think of how we used to tilt our heads up to the sky and name the flavors of rain.