Sex Criminals #8

"Robert Rainbow"
written by Matt Fraction
art by Chip Zdarsky

It's a terrible name.  A wonderful, terrible name.  Laid back, covered with a green "Sexual Gary" hospital gown, legs splayed wide, Suzie meets Dr. Rainbow, her fill-in gynecologist.  And he's fairly devastating.  Good-looking, well-dressed, quick-witted, generously easygoing about potentially awkward sexual health questions, and unusually admiring of Suzie's perfect cervix.  It's no wonder, then, that Suzie quickly takes to fantasizing about the fine doctor stripping down out of his well-tailored clothes.  It's also no wonder that she, newly semi-single after a tumultuous taking-a-break fight with Jon, invites him to coffee.  It's far more surprising that Robert Rainbow is an old friend of Jon's, and they stumble into one another—Jon in some fairly spectacular running gear—outside that very same coffee shop.

There's a history there.  It turns out, being dismissed by Robert Rainbow on the very same KISS-clad Halloween that landed him egged in the woods was Jon's first experience of rejection, as he remembers it, insulted and stood up by a friend.  But Rainbow's evening had been quite eventful: the discovery of his parents engaged in moderate bondage, mild S&M, and play with penetrative toys.  His slightly traumatized, mightily embarrassed response was startlingly mature:  "I'm sorry.  I don't know what I was doing.  I should've knocked.  You and mom don't have anything to apologize for" (Sex Criminals #8: 11).  Between that and his older brother's hot girlfriend's insult to his KISS face paint, it's not surprising he bailed.

Jon, meanwhile, meets his next shrink in the food court after his longtime therapist proved an ineffectual nitwit.  Two homework assignments:  exercise and make a friend.  Enter Robert Rainbow back into his life.  It's no wonder Suzie was instantly attracted to Bob; he and Jon are two peas in a pod.  But any potentially rivalry or competitiveness is cut short when Suzie and Jon find the Sex Police demolishing Suzie's library.  Whatever they are, whatever their idea of their mission is, they are not above being petty.