Bananapants: A Bonkers Romantic Comedy

“Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.”

— Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)

I didn’t have to pretend to be a morning person with the two guards who’d slept over at my place. Curtis was a morning person enough for all three of us. Jacob, like me, was salty as a sailor in the morning, especially before he had coffee.

“I can’t think without coffee in the morning,” Jacob said, clinking his mug against mine. “I don’t know how those non-coffee drinkers do it. How do they find the motivation to go to work without caffeine?”

“It should be called inspiration juice.” I yawned, covering my mouth with the back of my hand. This was my second cup. I usually only had one cup in the early morning and one right before noon, but I couldn’t seem to wake up today.

My sister had called right before I’d gone to bed and I’d told her everything about me and Des—not anything related to his job, but everything related to us since I’d propositioned him on Sunday night—and she’d called it “relationship limbo,” told me it was dangerous for my self-esteem, and said I was nuts. I was nuts, but I was also determined.

Several hours after the call with Grace, as I tried and failed to find a comfortable position, I’d decided I would no longer spend time second-guessing my decision to be with Des for these next few weeks. I would stop allowing myself to be sour about it. I would trust him, be honest with him, and simply enjoy myself.

Basically, I could either live in dread of our eventual ending or fully appreciate our during. If I chose the latter, at least I’d be left with lovely memories of our time together. That would have to be enough.

Jacob, Curtis, and I left my apartment on time and then my phone chimed about five minutes into the short commute. When I glanced at my screen and saw it was Des, I encouraged the happy butterflies. Butterflies are fleeting and yet their short lifespan doesn’t make them any less beautiful.

Look at me! Deep like the ocean.

Smiling contentedly and determined to live in the moment, I read Des’s text.

Des: What do I do if I want to see my girlfriend during the week?

No longer overthinking like yesterday, I responded.

Ava: You could ask her what her plans are for lunch, dinner, etc

Des: What are your lunch plans??

Ava: I have to work through lunch. There’s an evil meeting

Des: Why is it evil?

Ava: Because it could be accomplished with an email

Des: I’ll bring you some holy water

I grinned. Another text came through almost immediately.

Des: Do you want me to call in an exorcist? I know who the exorcist is for the Archdiocese of Chicago. It’s usually a secret

Ava: Why is it a secret?

Des: We Catholics keep the identity of our exorcists a secret for their safety from both people and demons. But the Vatican approved the translation of De Exorcismis et Supplicationibus Quibusdam, basically the handbook on exorcisms, in the 2010s in order to clear up misconceptions. Do you want to read the handbook? I’ll send you a link

This made me chuckle, and a sudden wave of nostalgia pulled at my heartstrings. This exchange of messages reminded me so much of our back-and-forths as teenagers. Des, like his mom, knew the most random information, and I loved this about him. We never ran out of things to talk about.

I was just about to put my phone away when it buzzed again.

Des: What are your dinner plans?

Ava: Leftovers. Why? What are you doing?

Des: I was hoping to make dinner for my beautiful girlfriend and then convince her to let me spend the night

I stared at his last message, heat rising to my cheeks and spreading elsewhere. I wanted him to spend the night, but he’d told me Tuesday morning that we should wait at least five days before being intimate again. Had he changed his mind?

This didn’t seem like a conversation to have over text, so I called him.

He picked up before the first ring ended. “Bunny.”

I lifted my eyes to the ceiling. “Des.”

“No Daddy?”

“Des,” I repeated, lowering my voice so I wouldn’t be overheard by Curtis and Jacob in the front seat. “Aren’t we—are we—I thought we were waiting until this weekend to—to⁠—”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Settle down, Pinky.” I heard a sound like sheets rustling. He must’ve still been in bed. Great. Now I’m thinking about Des in bed.

“I’m just offering to make you dinner, not take over the world,” he said. “If it helps my cause, consider it the boyfriend lesson you owe me.”

I surrendered to my laugh, feeling embarrassed but also relieved. “Okay. Then yes. Come over and make me dinner.”

“Butter chicken?”

I sat up. “Oh! Yes, please!”

“And how about a movie? Or do you need to get up early tomorrow?”

“Yes! What movie?” Glancing out the window, I realized we were just a few blocks from my office.

“We should do a Lord of the Rings marathon at some point, maybe this weekend? But for tonight, I was thinking something funny. How about Clue?”

“Clue is good. But ever since the barbecue at my parents’ house, I’ve been wanting to watch Happy Gilmore.”

“Let’s do that.” More sounds of sheets rustling from his side of the call. “And we’ll wear pajamas?”

“Pajamas?”

“Do people who date wear pajamas together? Please say yes.”

I had to think about how to respond. “I mean, yes. Eventually, yes.”

“Not right away?”

“Uh, n—no . . .”

The sheet rustling went abruptly silent. “Why’d you say it like that?”

“Because I know it happens, but I’ve never done it. With anyone. That I’ve dated.”

“But we’re dating and you’ve done it with me.”

We were just one light away from my building, so I grabbed my bag and suit jacket. “But we weren’t dating when we did it, we were little kids.”

“Little kids, big kids, and then teenagers. Let’s do it tonight. I’ll be your first in more ways than one.” His voice held the lovely, deep tenor that made me feel things. Good things. Shivery wonderful things.

Lord help me, but if he did come over tonight, I’d probably try to seduce him.

“Ava? Still there?”

“I’m still here.” I glanced at the front of the car, meeting Jacob’s eyes in the rearview mirror, and I nodded to signify I understood we’d be pulling up to my building soon.

Meanwhile, Des was talking in my ear. “Think of it like a bonus first time. You get two firsts with me for the price of one. A BOGO. Everyone loves a BOGO. The only way people would love BOGO more is if it came with a bananas Foster—on fire!—or were a palindrome. Also, biggest disappointment of my life, the word palindrome isn’t a palindrome. Why is that? It doesn’t make sense to my brain. Who are these people assigning meaning to words? Someone slept on that. I wanna talk to a manager.”

At first I giggled at his stream of consciousness randomness. Then, as it kept going, I really laughed.

Because I was laughing so hard, I didn’t realize he’d stopped talking until I sniffed, wiping the tears from beneath my eyes, and he sighed into the new silence, saying tenderly, “I love your laugh.”

Oh my heart.

“I love that you make me laugh,” I said with an uncontrollable grin, unfastening my seat belt and turning to face the door as Jacob opened it.

Jacob fell into step beside me as I walked to the building and I tangentially noticed two other guards join us. They must’ve been waiting for our arrival.

“Promise me that you’ll never change your laugh,” he said with a dreamy-sounding sigh. “Fifty years from now, I want your laugh to be exactly the same.”

My happy expression slipped at his mention of the future. I suffocated a spike of bitterness, holding a pillow of sunshine and rainbows over its cranky face in order to come across somewhat cheerful as I responded, “I’ll see what I can do.”

Des surprised me by already being inside my apartment and in the middle of cooking dinner before my arrival. Assuming he didn’t break in since the dead bolts showed no sign of tampering, he must’ve obtained a key from somewhere. Probably one of my parents.

My money was on my father.

“How—when did you get here?” I asked his back as I set my bag down on the breakfast bar.

Doing a double take, Des turned from the stove and wiped his hands on the pink apron. “You’re home.” He grinned.

I wanted to press him about how he’d entered the apartment but the smell of my most favorite dinner combined with the sight of Des making it stole my breath. He wore a tightish black T-shirt, frayed-looking blue jeans, and gray socks. He’d also put on the only apron in the apartment, a pink-and-white gingham with white lace and plastic pearls around the pockets. The apron ties around his waist and at his neck were arranged in bows.

I hadn’t yet recovered when he walked to me swiftly, planted a kiss on my lips, and stepped back, holding out what looked like a cocktail. “Vodka gimlet.”

Glancing between him and the cocktail, I opened my mouth to respond, but no words arrived. When we were teenagers, he’d cooked butter chicken for me all the time. The recipe, which he’d obtained from Uncle Alex’s former employer, was my absolute favorite. Tonight would be my first time having it in over ten years.

This moment was like something out of seventeen-year-old Ava’s fantasies.

His grin wavered and one of his eyebrows inched upward. “Are you okay?”

Discovering I’d been holding my breath, I exhaled and nodded. “Yes. I’m—I’m fine. And how are you?”

“Great.” He stepped closer, gazed at me, then kissed me again. “I missed you today.”

Lightheaded from the sight of him, the smell of the food, and his sweet words, I unthinkingly took a sip of the glass he’d passed me and immediately winced as the liquid burned down my throat. “Ah! Wait. What is this again?”

“Vodka gimlet.” He took the glass. “You had vodka at the bar, so I thought you’d like it.”

Using my thumb to wipe my bottom lip, I admitted, “I don’t actually drink very often, or very much.”

“Oh.” He set the glass on the breakfast bar next to my bag. “What do you like? Or what do you usually drink now? Soda? I’ll have that next time.”

I couldn’t stop my smile and I poked him lightly in the stomach. “Are you sure you’ve never dated anyone before?” I teased. “This is best-practice boyfriend behavior.”

His smile widened and my heart fluttered uncontrollably. Oh God. It was the smile. The goofy, cute, addictive smile. Now I was smiling and likely looking at him like he invented cheesy popcorn.

While we stared at each other, Des slid his hands in his pockets.

He took a step closer. “What do you want to do while we wait?” His addictive, goofy smile became something else, an adorable yet lethally sexy curve of his lips echoed in his eyes.

“Uh, pardon?” I was trapped in the tractor beam of his gorgeousness.

“Everything is finished, except the rice. We have some time.” Des lifted a hand to my arm and gently wrapped his fingers around my elbow. “What do you want to do?”

“Umm.” For some reason—likely related to how he currently stared at me—my voice pitched oddly high. “We could put together a puzzle.”

He took another step forward, which necessitated I take a step back unless I wanted him to bump into me. Do I want him to bump into me? He gave me no time to answer the question, taking steps forward and forcing me to back up until my legs connected with the big chair in the family room, the momentum causing me to sit perched on the arm.

And he still approached. His other hand withdrawing from his pocket, he placed both on my knees and stepped between my legs. Des leaned forward, slightly over me, necessitating that I lean back.

“Ava.”

“Yes, Daddy?”

He closed his eyes and held very still, like he needed a minute. He looked slightly frustrated. I had to roll my lips between my teeth to stop my laughter because his cheeks had turned pink and the tips of his ears were red.

The moment of humor helped me dispel some of the tension between us. It hadn’t been bad tension, but it had felt uncomfortably ripe. I was afraid, if I hadn’t dissipated it, I might’ve jumped him at some point and ripped his clothes off. Likely within the next three minutes.

At length, Des composed himself and his eyes cracked open, ensnaring mine. And just like that, the tension reversed polarities and was fully undispelled and most assuredly uncomfortably ripe.

I swallowed.

“Ava,” he whispered.

“Yes?” I croaked.

“I’m so hungry.” He placed an index finger under my chin. His thumb lightly caressed my bottom lip, tugging it down.

“Do you want a sn⁠—”

“And dinner won’t be ready for a while.”

“I can make a—a—” I shivered, biting my lip instead of finishing my thought.

Des used his fingertips to lift my skirt higher, and the light touch sent goose bumps racing over my skin.

“I know I said we wouldn’t do anything. Feel free to say no, but don’t talk yourself out of it,” he said, and I almost laughed. Almost.

His eyes were an entire dissertation on the art of seduction. I couldn’t remember ever seeing him so intense. So interested. So . . . focused. I couldn’t look away. And, obviously, I didn’t say no.

Instead, I managed a strangled, “Okay,” despite suspecting where he was going with this. My heart took off at a gallop when he inched my skirt so high, my underwear became visible.

Since he’d positioned himself between my knees, they were spread wide and I couldn’t immediately close them without pushing him back. But pushing him back was the last thing on my mind. Using a light touch and only his knuckles, he brushed up and down against the small scrap of fabric between my open legs, the action making my heart stutter along with my breath. The answering reaction of my body, how I felt myself grow wet, how I strained for his touch, it would’ve embarrassed me if I weren’t already so primed for him, for his attention.

“I’ll be very gentle,” he said.

“Des.” I hadn’t meant to whimper his name, but I did.

“You don’t have to do anything.” The hand beneath my chin moved to the first button of my shirt and, if I hadn’t been so captivated by absolutely everything about him, I might’ve been impressed by how nimbly and swiftly his fingers unfastened the row. “Just sit here and let me taste you.”

“I’ve never done this before.” My confession was infinitely quieter than his request.

“I’ll make sure you like it.” Holding my eyes, he nodded as he spoke. Now both hands coming to the waistband of my underwear, he encouraged me to lift my backside so he could remove the fabric.

I did. I’d stopped thinking about anything except him and now. How much I loved the way he looked at me and the words he said and how he touched me. I felt like I was in a trance and wanted to exist only here. With him.

Since I didn’t know where to put my hands, I gripped the blanket that lay draped over the arm of the chair beneath me while he slowly pulled my underwear down my legs. Where he put them, I had no idea. I couldn’t stop staring at his face. Especially when, still holding my gaze, he pressed a finger against the hook of my front-clasping bra, undoing it with an effortless-looking flick of his fingers.

His gaze strayed to my breasts and he licked his bottom lip, but his hands lowered to my knees, his fingertips once more trailing up the inside of my thighs. In a smooth movement, he knelt before me.

My legs started to shake. He’d barely touched me and the twisting, coiling liquid heat already built, my breath already labored. I was just about to say something—I didn’t know what—when Des’s attention dropped to the apex of my body.

As he lowered his mouth, he whispered, “How can you be so beautiful everywhere?”

In the next moment, he used the flat of his tongue to lick me and I almost died. My eyes rolled back, my fingers twisting in the blanket, and I think I said something—probably nonsense, maybe I was speaking in tongues, I have no idea. All I know was that what he did made me feel so good. So good. And his mouth was the gateway to heaven, unlocking secret parts of me that I didn’t understand existed.

Of my own volition, I spread my legs wider, shifting forward toward the edge of the chair arm, whimpering, “Please, please, please,” reaching for and kneading his shoulders insistently. I didn’t know what I wanted, but I knew I wanted more.

The languid strokes of his lips and tongue were driving me to madness. I ached, I hurt, I needed, and still he kept everything so light and soft and slow. But the sounds. The sounds of his mouth and tongue where he licked struck me as excessively carnal, messy. Wet. I loved them. Again, my legs started to shake. In a fit of desperation, I grabbed fistfuls of his hair and tugged.

He groaned, his gaze lifting to my breasts first and then to my eyes. At that precise moment, he slipped a finger inside me, and I died. Or I came close. I blacked out for sure, only returning to consciousness as everything splintered apart and my legs instinctively tried to close against the overwhelming sensations. But he wouldn’t let me. He pushed my knees wider.

The waves kept coming and crashing. Violent, making me whine and plead. Twist and release, intense satisfaction, a feeling so deep, blurring the line of pain, holding me captive. I think I might’ve screamed.

Actually, I know I did, because Desmond surged upward, and covered my mouth with the hand not still inside me, drawing out and demanding every last second of my pleasure.

He stared at me, watching, angling his head to the side so he could see how his fingers moved between my legs, and my open shirt baring my chest and torso.

“Fuck,” he said on a breath, adding on a mumble, “I can’t wait to fuck you like this. You’ll get loud for me again, won’t you?”

My body tensed once more in response to his words and my chin came up reflexively, straining against his hold. Little uncontrollable whimpers, mewls, and moans arrived, muffled by his palm. His hand at my mouth grew lax, lowering. His gaze fastened to my mouth, as though transfixed by the noises I made. I was coming. Again. Not as intensely as before. Instead of a free fall, it was like tripping and knowing strong arms would be there to catch me, to carry me.

I grabbed the front of his shirt for balance and he hooked his finger, pressing upward on something made of rainbows. My lashes fluttered shut under the weight of this prolonged bliss, my whole body vibrating. Instead of the wave violently crashing over me, I rode it, air trapped in my lungs. Letting myself go, I fell, and I trusted Des’s strong arms would be there.

They were. He wrapped an arm around my back, another beneath my legs, and he carried me. Bringing my chest to his chest, holding me tight while my arms wrapped just as tightly around him, I buried my face in his neck. I couldn’t catch my breath. I felt so tired and good and satiated and fragile. The combination of everything all at once made my eyes sting.

“I think I—” I started, but then stopped before I admitted too much. My chest felt tight, like it might burst.

Laying me on the bed and stretching out next to me, Des kissed my lips lightly. “What? What is it?” His hand came to my breast, caressed it, then bent his head to lick my nipple. “Do you want to come again?”

I shook my head, turning toward him. I wouldn’t speak. I wouldn’t tell him this wasn’t about orgasms and his tongue’s insane level of talent. This was about embarrassing emotions and vulnerable feelings. I didn’t want Des to worry when he left me and I didn’t want him to stay because I was in love with him. Though I doubted he would stay no matter what I said.

I was in love with him. I’d probably been in love with him every moment of every day for the last ten years, and even before that.

What I felt was too big to swallow. Lifting my head, I kissed him, not caring that I could taste myself on his lips. I kissed him and kissed him, until he was on his back, and my hands were tugging at his T-shirt, needing the feel of his bare skin, needing his warmth, wanting to fuse our bodies together. Just for now.

Maybe we wouldn’t be forever, but as he obediently removed his clothes and allowed me to touch him anywhere I wanted, however I wanted, I was convinced a lifetime of heartache would be worth this moment.

Heartbreak would be worth it, if heartbreak meant I could have him now.