Ask The Author: Christine Fadden

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From the February Issue, this great little piece from Christine Fadden, “Little Rubber Houses.”

1. What food would you sit on naked?

My boyfriend is cooking swordfish in mango sauce right now, so off the bat, I’d say mango. Maybe mango sorbet, in the middle of the summer. Definitely not fish. He’s suggesting Jello. In the novel I’m currently writing, my ten-year old protagonist tries to move a mattress by herself and she compares it to a one hundred pound slab of Jello. Naked on a bed of Jello, hmm. It’d probably be a lot like Slip and Slide, which is fun. But there might be a lot of weird noises.

2. What color do you prefer your showers?

Purple. Like Purple Rain.

3. How are you the female Seinfeld?

I’ve always got at least five boxes of different cereals in rotation. If I’m staying somewhere and they have Lucky Charms, I’ll eat the entire box in two days. Those marshmallows are kind of slimy in your mouth, you know what I mean? But I love their psychedelic colors. That cereal is so fake. I don’t allow myself to buy it. And Cap’n Crunch will scour the roof of your mouth until it bleeds. It’s the sandpaper of cereals.Cereal: That’s about the only thing I have in common with Seinfeld.I don’t have the balls to do stand up, but people do laugh at me.

4. What is the most inappropriate question you have ever asked? What was the answer?

In the early 90s, after a drunk sorority girl at a bar in Eugene, Oregon knocked my beer off the table, I said, “Are you going to buy me a beer to replace the one you just spilled with your fat ass?”We were sharing a large picnic table on a weekend night. She was loud and awful before she spilled my beer. She said, “Fuck you,” and then bought me a really crappy beer. But even in my undergrad years, I was a beer snob so, I insisted she go back to the bar and buy me the proper pint.She said, “Fuck you” to that too.My friends and I left for a reggae show at another bar. Peace and love and no Greek kids, right? Well, in walks that girl with her boyfriend.

My friends try to keep me on the far side of the dance floor. We watch as the boyfriend gets beat up by someone and leaves with broken eyeglasses. I approach the girl to tell her the world needs fewer people like her. She points in my face and says, “Fuck you.” I bend her finger backwards, she grabs my hair, and I punch her in the jaw. The circle of onlookers forms. Bartenders pull her away and shove her out the door. Right at this time, a friend of mine I hadn’t seen since high school (this was only a few years after graduation) comes in and says, “My God, Fadden. You just beat up the biggest bitch at U of O.”

I had no idea, I went to Portland State.

5. How much research did you do to write “Little Rubber Houses”? How much of you is in it?

Ha! My workshop-mates brought lemon meringue pie to class the day this piece was up. I wouldn’t recommend serving pie from the Ingles in Asheville, NC. Too much sugar. Not enough tart. But of course, I loved my friends for teasing me with food.

Truth is, I was inspired by some soft-core HBO show I randomly clicked to. A bunch of naked Brits got together in a warehouse and had a food orgy. I was disgusted and intrigued at the same time. I mean, naked Brits… eegads! They’re as pale as plucked chickens.

In reality, I’m a lot more conventional than the gals in this piece. I think if my boyfriend and I ever did have sit-on-food-sex, we’d be laughing our asses off. Which of course, is sexy as hell!

6. Does every corner of a house really invite sex?

No. And I think sex in the shower is totally overrated. You get water in your eyes.