FFF: Even White Boys Got to Shout

I failed at 250 words this week. Is anyone surprised? Lots of house and yardwork to do today, so I decided to post a too long story rather than try to edit it back or write a new shorter one. I managed to include 4 out of 6 wildcards.



Paul was still in the shower when his cell phone began to ring. I was lying in bed, watching grey wisps of early morning cloud part to reveal pure blue sky. Any New Englander, born and raised, knew what that sky meant. Summer had arrived in full force, and with it, humidity. In two days, that sky would be clouded over again, pregnant with the season's first thunderstorm. I had already begun to feel the tickle of summer sweat on the backs of my knees and the insides of my elbows. Paul's thin cotton sheet clung to me as I grabbed his phone from the nightstand and looked at the caller ID.

"Becky calling," the screen announced. I collapsed back onto the bed and fumed, mentally reviewing every woman I knew Paul talked to. By the time Paul walked into the bedroom, hair wet and dressed only in a towel around his waist, I had worked myself into a jealous panic. "Who the hell is Becky?" I demanded. "Why is she calling you so early? Why don't I know about her?"

Paul cocked his head and raised an eyebrow at me, frowning. "Seriously?"

"Of course seriously! Who is she?"

"I don't believe this," Paul muttered, reaching for the rough leather belt he kept looped through a dresser drawer handle. "Roll over. You are being ridiculous."

The sight of him nearly naked, belt in hand, had made me more wet than the onset of humidity, so I did as I was told. Immediately, the belt whipped across my bare bottom. I clutched my pillow but didn't cry out. The belt struck again and it stung like hell, but I was still upset and didn't want to give him the satisfaction of my pain. He continued to punish me, belting harder, trying to make me react. By the end of two dozen strokes, I was quietly sobbing against the pillow. My backside burned but I resisted reaching back to rub it. I sobbed louder, out of relief, when he rubbed my sore flesh for me.

"Baby," he began soothingly, sitting next to me on the edge of the bed. "I love this ass." He squeezed my right cheek, making me squirm. "But you know I can't help but check out other asses when they pass me on the street. It's my nature." I nodded my head. That had never bothered me. I did the same thing. "Well, Tom likes asses too. We have a code when we're out and want to tell the other one to take a look at someone's butt. You know what it is?"

"No," I grumbled, not sure what Paul's best friend had to know with some random girl calling at seven in the morning.

"We say to each other, 'Oh my God, Becky.' Do you know why?"

The phrase was familiar. He smacked my tender backside twice, once on each cheek. "Come on. You know why."

All my anger dissipated into laughter as I realized what was going on. Becky wasn't a random girl, it was Tom, programmed into Paul's cell phone as an homage to Sir Mix A Lot's classic 1992 hip-hop ode to big butts everywhere, "Baby Got Back."

Paul and I looked at each other and simultaneously quoted the opening line of the song. "Oh my God, Becky. Look at her butt." He stood up, grabbing belt again and folding it into a loop as he did so. "Well, what do you say? Do you want another dozen before I hit the road?"

I wiggled my own big butt and grinned. "You know I do."

A still from the video for Sir Mix A Lot's "Baby Got Back"