Adventures in Self-Copulation

It had been a week without his car, an inconvenience that irked Greg to a great degree. He had been getting a ride from a roommate, Anton, for the time being. Anton was still perfecting his English and talked a lot to try to pick up more of it. For his part, Greg tried to use simple words when speaking to him.

"How was work today?" he asked Greg when he got into the car.

"Fine. It was slow. Not much to do."

"Yes. Me too. Very boring."

"Yeah, I was jerking off half the day," replied Greg, for a moment not realizing that Anton might not know what that meant.

The next day, Anton picked him up again at the usual place and time.

"How was work today?" he asked.

"Fine. Busier. You?"

"It was okay. No more masturbating today?" Anton added with a laugh. "You know, even in Europe we do not talk much about these things."

Greg was caught off guard, shocked. "Er...what?"

"You know, 'jerking off'? Like you said yesterday."

"Oh," Greg said, the connection dawning on him. "No. That means like screwing around."

"That means the same thing, yes?"

"Oh. No, no, no. That's another saying. It just means wasting time. Procrastinating. Just being lazy."

"Ohhhh. Makes more sense."

"Who told you about, you know, the other thing anyway?"

He responded with a quizzical raised eyebrow.

"You know, the masturbating thing."

"Alice helped me."

"Alice? Our Alice!?" Greg's eyes went wide. She was the roommate that completed their trio and a good friend, but hopefully more. The last thing he needed was for her to think he played with himself all day, even if it was a joke.

He called her and she answered on the first ring.

"Alice? Hey, I'm talking to Anton and he said he asked you about--"

A bout of uncontrollable laughter preempted his explanation.