Almost Credible: The Best Day in Los Angeles Ever.

Marion Cox get’s his ass kicked by a girl, but still wins in the end.

Since arriving in LA I had done the following things: performed an erotic sock puppet show for money, been harassed by airport security and had smoked weed with a 13-year-old whose mother had invited me there to have sex. We were mid-mission of GTA 4 when the boy’s mom, Jessica, came home with her father in tow.

I had seen postage-stamp sized pictures of her from her Skype profile, but had no idea if the information was accurate. What year had the photo been taken? Was it photoshopped? After all, I’d been on the other side of some profile picture duplicity at least once before. But Jessica was quite stunning but I couldn’t help staring at her boobs, until her father interjected.

He was a short man, no taller than his daughter, with craggy features that were the same color and texture as the foothills that surrounded the house. He eyed me with what I felt was suspicion – did he know that we’d been smoking weed in his living room just an hour ago? Could they smell it? Shit; why was I so fucking paranoid?

“Marion?” he questioned in a delightful Mexican accent which made me instantly feel more comfortable. Actually, my name was seemed pretty masculine in Spanish.

“Yes, Marion,” I stood while badly parroting his accent still feeling pretty awesome about how cool my name sounded in Spanish.

He offered his hand across the couch palm downward. Was I supposed to kiss his ring or curtsy? I looked at Jessica whose expression told me nothing about what was supposed to happen next. I took the hand and tried to shake it in a manly fashion. His grip tightened and he pulled me at an awkward angle over the couch into a half hug with me kneeling on the couch while the family looked on.

“Marion!” he repeated laughing joyously like an old friend, or a father reunited with his son for the first time in years. I remained locked in the hug long past what was considered appropriate for men before he released me with his eyes now watery from joyous weeping. Jesus, was I that high?

“Marion,” he said again.

“Yes, Marion,” I felt like Jane teaching Tarzan English.

Jessica was laughing at me, or the helpless look on my face. She spoke to him in Spanish waving at him to release my hand.

“You, hungry?” Jessica asked, “There’s some tuna in the fridge and bread in the cupboard above the sink.”

Zack and I made sandwiches while Jessica and her father talked in the living room. I tried to listen in but couldn’t understand a word, except I think I heard someone say “nachos” once.  I turned my attention to Zack who was asking me about Red Dead Redemption. I told him it looked like Grand Theft Horsey, which might be fun if it was released in 2008 back when people still cared about Rockstar.

We returned to the living room where I spent the next two hours being interrogated about my life by Jessica’s father whose name I learned was Esteban. He would ask a question to Jessica who would in turn translate it into English. I would answer in English and she would turn back to her father and say it again in Spanish. The process took a great deal of time and before I knew it, it was time to eat again.

We had a traditional Mexican dinner of sausage pizza and coke then sat in silence as we digested the greasy contents of our stomachs. Zack went out to ride his bike in the setting pink sun that was slowly descending behind the foothills. Dad went upstairs, Jessica told me he was addicted to online poker but only played on the Sabbath.

Jessica popped a game into the Xbox, I watched her bend over thinking about how good she looked for having a 13-year-old son. She reached behind the console and fished around for something. She looked behind her — I was clearly staring at her butt.

“You play Blazblue?” Sitting back on her haunches, she threw the controller into my lap.

Did I play Blazblue? No.

“Sure,” I lied.

She sat down on the couch next to me. I watched the Xbox logo pop up on the screen. I felt her adjust herself on the couch closer to me. My first challenge was to pick a character. Amongst the preteen girls with parasols and the spiky-haired effeminate boys, I found just one character that was acceptably masculine. Despite his porn name, Iron Tager was the only character that didn’t make me question whether I had too much back hair.

We played a round and I lost badly.

“I thought you played this before?”

“Well I watched a clip of it on YouTube.”

She was sitting closer to me now, and I became aware that our hips touched.

She unpaused the game mid-pummel and my metal beefcake went flying across the screen. I collected my thoughts as I recovered and moved in pushing buttons at random, my character flailing wildly.

“You suck dick.” It threw me off-guard that such a sweet looking woman could be so foul.

“Fuck you!” was my highly original retort.

But to Jessica my retort meant only that she could unleash all of the nasty profanity she’d learned from god knows where. She insulted the size of my penis, attacked my ability to play videogames, and then began to swear in Spanish.

I came to two conclusions: first, I needed ask Zack what “chilito” meant, and secondly I wasn’t going to win in a fair fight.

As she juggled my character in the air with some chain-combo I smacked the controller out of her hand causing it to fall to the floor. My character recovered before she had time to pick the controller up – I destroyed her.

She paused the game and punched me in the shoulder hard (I still have a bruise). I ignored her and unpaused the game hoping to get another round of ego-boosting win. She paused the game again and glared at me.

“You’re dead.” She said flatly before launching herself across the couch at me. I tried to unpause and do some major damage but she reached me first and wrapped her arm around my neck in a sleeper hold. I dropped the controller and attempted to tickle her off me. In a backwards turn of events the characters stood idly while their players wrestled on the couch. The wrestling soon became kissing, then groping.

Soon Blazblue’s music became the soundtrack to our makeout session and if Zack hadn’t come home right then this column would probably read a little bit like some kid’s attempt at erotic fiction.

Jessica got me a blanket and went upstairs for a shower and to sleep. I liked the couch, it was right in front of the TV and she had The Last Man on Earth on DVD. I fell asleep to Vincent Price having a discussion with vampire zombies about communism.

At around 2am Jessica returned for a rematch, and no we didn’t play Blazblue.

Marion Cox is an expert on seducing your mother with fighting games. You can follow him on twitter or visit him here ever weekend.

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