Fifty-Boy
10
Turnpike Pissed
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| She Watched Me Melt |
Every detail etched out a piece of my heart like an awl. It killed me, but I had to know. I finally had her. I thought I had her attention, thought maybe I could get her interested in me again. I kept hearing her say she didn't mean to hurt me. I grabbed onto that. Out of all her words, those were the ones, the only ones I wanted to hear. I'd grab onto anything for a little hope of her wanting me again.
But she knew what she was doing. She had my chin up and my guard down. I stepped right into a left cross that just wrecked everything. She said, "You know it was all your shit that did this."
I said, "Did what?"
"This is your fault." Her nervousness was translating into anger now. "Your forced me to go with other guys."
"What are you talking about? We never went with other guys."
"You know what I mean... Teasing other guys, making me touch them, run my nails over their backs, dancing up against them, flirting..."
I was starting to feel sick all over. "Technically, you may be right, but Moll, you know I was just trying to get a response out of you, something... Something you said aroused you. Some kind of..."
"Asshole. You're a fucking asshole."
I had never seen her look at me with such disgust. The breath went out of me. "But I thought..."
"No, but I should have, and you shouldn't have interfered. You should've let me meet him. You should have let me have the one I wanted instead of forcing me to go teasing a bunch of guys you picked." She was scary calm.
"And another thing while we're at it. I knew it was you... Ruining it for me with the one guy I wanted... So I made a stop today on the way home..."
I couldn't imagine what was coming next.
"I met your friend, Jimmy."
I was disconnecting. "Who's Jimmy?"
"Jimmy!" She shouted. "Chat-room, phone-sex Jimmy!"
The way she was showing her teeth scared the shit out of me. "You met Jimmy?" I was astounded. "You got that much energy around this Ripper guy?"
"Why?"
"Don't worry. I didn't fuck him, if that's what you're worrying about. I just wanted to see him so I could tell him to fuck off!" She screamed.
"You actually met him?"
I was stunned. All I could think to say was, "What did he look like?"
"He was short." She laughed.
"Why'd you go and do that? We haven't had sex in two months and we haven't talked to him in three."
The girl was turnpike pissed. She wouldn't answer.
"You must really love this Red Ripper guy."
"Fuck you, asshole."
Spite was oozing out of every pore in her body. I could smell it.
"You should've let me have him. I don't give a shit about his wife or her goddamn lawyers if you want to know the truth. I'd kick her ass and yours too. I don't know if I even believe you. You think you're so smart. If he sent pictures to me at work, how'd you see them? You think you got it all figured out. You don't know shit. You should've butted the fuck out."
The yellow counter tops were making me dizzy, like I licked a stick of margarine. I wanted to say something, but all I could think to say was, "Who is this Red Ripper guy?" I could hardly make myself say his name.
"None of you business. Don't pretend you don't know him. You've seen him in the chat-room. You wanted me to tease him and have cyber-sex with him, or call him on the phone for phone sex while you fucked me. You started it. Now I'm having him."
She started unpacking her satchel, the thermos I made her coffee in, the Tuperware I made her salad in... All the girls in her office saying, Ooo, it smells so good, get him to make one for me... Out onto the yellow counter tops.
"Now can I get out of these work clothes, please?"
"Him? The guy who didn't want me in the picture? You x-ed me out because of Dale Outlay? Mister Do?"
The Styrofoam ceiling beams were evaporating into my lungs. My head was throbbing.
"Yes, him. He's the one I want. And he's the one I'm going to have. You knew it and you loved it." She pushed past me into the parlor.
"No. I didn't know."
I waited a minute and held onto the wall to gain my bearings.
She was sitting on the hassock taking off her shoes.
"And I don't love it." I said. "What's in that for me, if wants me x-ed out? I only initiated this stuff with other guys to get a rise out of you, cause you were so flat-line, so disinterested... This was the only thing that... And I never went out and got an older woman when you lost interest... Like he did to his wife."
"Bullshit." She said.
"What do you mean? That doesn't make any sense."
"Well, that's your problem, isn't it?" She pulled off her socks.
"My problem?"
I'm thinking, hmm, cute little feet... Shit, why can't I stop it with her? What the hell's wrong with me? She knew I was staring at her toes and her ankle bracelet.
"But you just said you didn't."
"Well, I didn't, yet. But I'm going to."
"So you were going to meet him in Baltimore."
"Well, that's what you wanted, isn't it? You came in the chat-room, you spied, you got what you deserved."
"You know that's not what I wanted."
"That's not how I understood it. Besides," she said, "I never liked it anyway. I just did it cause that was the only way you could get it up."
My mouth opened.
She watched me melt.
I said, "I'm perpetually up, especially for you... Why you putting the horns on me? That could never happend. You can't do..."
She got up and said, "I'm going upstairs to change for the gym."
And that was that. It was that simple. She kicked my ass. All this time I thought we'd been savoring this thing together. But she just handed me my bag and left.
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