Last time I saw Krystal Summers we were at Jomancy’s salon in Golden, and everyone was saying their goodbyes at the end of the night. Krystal was giving everyone big hugs. Like ya know wide open arms, her body really pressing into someone else’s body, face mushed against jackets and sweaters, little mmm’s seeping out as they embraced for several good seconds and maybe gently patted each other a couple times on the shoulder or back.
When she got to me tho she made sure to stand a couple feet away and only extend a single knuckle which I then reached out and tapped with a single knuckle of my own.
This was not some kind of spurning on her part, but actually an act of conscientiousness, cuz months earlier she’d heard me ranting on at another party about how much I hate hugs.
Something like:
“Yeah, I’m a shitty hugger and it’s costing me valuable social opportunities, but I don’t care! Hugging ackkkk!”
Why did I say that? Do I have some kind of condition of the nervous system? Does my body helplessly reject oxytocin? Do I truly recoil in disgust at the touch of another, even if it’s someone close?
Or is it because I actually like hugs too much…. And I’m afraid that if someone like Krystal came too close she would find herself sucked into… The Cuddle Zone.
Only a few know firsthand about The Cuddle Zone. Some exes may have survived to tell the tale. Childhood stuffed animals. My dog Teddy.
Oh man, does Teddy ever get caught in The Cuddle Zone. He’ll just be minding his own business trying to find a fresh napping spot on the couch, when suddenly something will trigger inside of me, I’ll get a psychotic look in my eye, clench my teeth, draw my claws and pounce, wrapping both hooks tightly around his furry little poodle body, mashing him firmly into my chest, and squeezing as hard as possible until the juice comes out.
The whole time squealing out EEEEEEEEEE!
There is no escape once he’s in there, he just hasta take the Loving until I get my fill, and he knows it, cuz I’ll tell him… “Just take the lovin baby little baby dog baby eee cute squeezable. It was your own cute fault you got too close to The Cuddle Zone.”
And who knows how long it will last, sometimes I feel like I have so much backed up smushtential that just hasta surge out with maximum intensity no matter what. Good thing dogs live to serve their owner’s every intimacy-absence compensating impulse.
But imagine if Krystal The Human had been subjected to my true animal vicegrip madness. Her tiny body absolutely swallowed up in the clutches of the affection monster, her screams unheard as she’s absorbed and disappeared inside The Cuddle Zone’s stinky moist loveless core.
“Where’s Krystal?” someone might ask, “I didn’t get a chance to hug her goodbye yet”
And I’d just have to shrug while she tries to fistbeat her way back out of the evil chamber of needy urges, lest she be trapped within for eternity.
Jonathan Bluebird Montgomery 