My dick, her period, drugs. You name it
she’s on it.
Her legs are snaked out the window, the wind blowing the loose cotton of her skirt up to a mid thigh peek. Her face in a scowl while she holds her bare and bloated midriff, whining that her very last Midol had yet to kick in that we were in the middle of nowhere. Whining that she had smoked the last of my weed.
“It’s like a vengeful army in here, they are marching on my pelvic bones and sloshing boiling water around. It’s like slicing a dry knife through cold turkey, across the grain. That ‘eeee eeee eeee’ vibration up through the knife handle and into your wrist.” As if I had asked.
I want to hear her bend words around a better sensation. I wait for it. When we were still new to each other she said nice things all the time, and I was catching joyous sentences like fireflies. But lately it’s as though she is on a mission to classify only gross and painful things, if it’s loathsome she will go on at length, until I’m right there with her, throwing harsh all over mellow, wondering why she had ever led me there.
I think I know why. It’s research. I squirm. She watches my reactions like I’m some chimp on LSD. She tries not to smirk or get caught, but if she could carry around a clipboard and get away with it I know she would. My only hope is that she is using me to fuel some great work of art. She can write, which is how I met her and why I put up with so much crap. My entire role here is fuck buddy and muse. She is beautiful and too intense for forever, so it’s not a bad gig.
The road hums along until my ass falls asleep, my ankle frozen over the gas pedal, eyes dry from too much wind. I squeeze her thigh.
We are on our way to a wedding for some people I have never met. Some college friend of hers, so I have a tie on, loosened for the ride. We are both wearing toe pinching shoes. My dress slacks are tighter than they were for the last wedding I attended.
“Do you think they are really happy together? I mean REALLY. Like, will they take care of each other in old age, or is this wedding thing just about a heap of gifts and a big party?”
How should I know? I don’t know these people. I just want some chicken and free drinks, maybe some dancing with this long legged woman. They are her friends after all. You would think she’d be more upbeat about it. I can tell she is probably not going to be much fun, she might even be working on a big scene when we get there. She loves to do that. She is sighing a lot, fidgeting.
“I fucked the groom. He was a lousy lay.”
Charming. Too bad she did not save that for the receiving line. So, there you have it. I am her date and she is a vengeful and bloated volcano, on the way to smirk at a man she once fucked while pretending loyalty to her dear old friend. She grows less lovely with each passing minute.
She turns on the radio and flips loudly through static, staying too long between stations. She knows that is my pet peeve. I feel like we might be gearing up for some kind of state of the relationship talk, and I am prepared to tell her it’s all just temporary. I grit my teeth and wait for her to find something that comes in clear. She picks some stupid Wham! song, and then she starts singing.
“Wake me up before you go go…” blah blah blah. I know from past experience that when she is in one of those moods it’s best to remain silent, that if I point out how annoying she is she’ll just kick it up a notch. Sit there all smug with her invisible clipboard. I know, unequivocally, that I am sick of being her chimp.
“God, I am so sick of this. I just want something to HAPPEN.” She fishes around her bag for a smoke, then tries to light it, struggling with the wind but not rolling up the window, a perfect example of how she invites strife. In a sudden bout of clarity I can see that I am just a regular guy and she is 100% fucked in the head. Everything is dramatic because she can not relax.
After an endless sea of dumpy farmhouses and cornfields we hit the booming metropolis of Nowhere Town, a gas station, a fruit stand, a food mart. We are still nowhere near the wedding, but I could use a break.
I pull into the food mart parking lot. Playing nice guy I tell her she should go get some Midol. Since I have said little else the whole trip she gives me a fierce look, narrows her eyes, flairs her nostrils like a bull. Bitch vibe, through and through. She wants to fight, she wants me to say something about how she’s a bitch on the rag, but I don’t because it’s not that. She’s a bitch anyway. She has a heap of hearts on a platter and she’s not getting mine.
I watch her walk in, hear the little bell on the door. Suddenly I’ve got my breath back. I’ve been released from her gravitational pull. I go from a smile to a chuckle to a full on guffaw, put the car in reverse and peel out in a cloud of dust, throwing her bag out the window.
Whizzing past the impossible green of cornfields, I take off my tie and hold it out the window. It curls out and flaps in the wind. I let it go. I am free.