It’s Not a Ron Jeremy Thing

My cat will lick your feet. That’s what he does. I tell this to anyone who visits—well, my mom when she drops by to yell at me for playing Nintendo all day, or the smoker from 3b whenever she borrows matches or soap or a couple of Adderall. They both know the drill. Put on the tube socks I keep by the door, the tall ones with three stripes—blue, red, blue—that go up almost to the scars on 3b’s thighs. It’s a Friday night when she asks if they’re a Ron Jeremy thing. Link’s rubbing against her calves and doesn’t try to lick her, not even after she takes off her top. This gets me nervous, and I die two more times, just as I reach Princess Peach’s castle. And 3b’s still going on about Ron Jeremy as she takes off her knit shorts and underwear, about how he always wore socks in his pornos, how he looked like Mario except fatter and nakeder and with bad hair. And maybe she’s crying a bit, I can’t tell—a Koopa Troopa just knocked me into some spikes—but at least she’s stopped touching my leg. He should wear a hat like Mario, I finally say, and 3b laughs and wipes her eyes on her wadded-up shirt before slipping it back on, saying maybe she oughta go, but she doesn’t. Not even after I lose my final life, right in the lava, like always. Link settles into her lap, begins to purr, and 3b says, How ’bout we watch a movie instead, but I’ve already pressed Start. I’ve already selected New Game.

Joshua Jones Lofflin’s writing has appeared in The Best Microfiction, The Best Small Fictions, The Cincinnati Review, CRAFT, Fractured Lit, SmokeLong Quarterly, and elsewhere. He lives in Maryland. Find him online at jjlofflin.com