The Rash...and Other Unfortunate Things (excerpt)

Mark Ohoro

It’s an odd experience being the fifth wheel at an orgy. Personally, I do not recommend it. I don’t mean to condemn orgies in general, but if two couples ask you to join in, rest assured the experience will be awkward, unsatisfying, and basically a waste of an otherwise perfectly good Friday afternoon.

That said: it’s an orgy. And if you feel overwhelmingly compelled to join in,
I’d understand.

I first learned this lesson during an after-school special. Power Rangers reruns come on Cartoon Network every Friday at 4 p.m.—not any of that Dino-Thunder crap, but the old Green-Ranger-is-actually-the-White-Ranger classic. Right as an anti-meth public service announcement came on the air, one of my roommates, Roger, asked me if I wanted to add to the coital pileup going on in his room. He explained that a foursome was not technically an orgy, and, for storytelling purposes, they needed a fifth. It wasn’t meth, so I figured it was wholesome enough.

I eased up from my chair, formerly a PowerX exercise bench. After seeing its rusted carcass outside on trash day, I rescued the device and set it up as a recliner in our living room. It was wildly uncomfortable.

I’m terribly sorry if what you wanted to read about was not, in fact, my chair. The reality of the matter is simply that there isn’t that much to say about the orgy. It seemed like a good idea, but as soon as I came in, there wasn’t a whole lot for me to do. The two couples were decidedly paired up and, considering they had entered into an orgy, ridiculously territorial.

Feeling slightly more than usually unwanted, I spoke to the room, “Yeah, I’m just going to go ahead and leave.”

Someone moaned in what I assumed to be acknowledgment. I put on my shirt and left the apartment. All things considered, I’ve had worse Valentine’s days.