There was never anything sweet about my high school sweetheart. What teenage girl is into sweet guys anyway? I certainly never was, and none of my friends were either. I was the luckiest girl in school back then, at least within the cool crowd. Steve was the hottest and baddest and meanest boy we knew. He was tall, of course, with broad shoulders, of course, and always wore his long, blonde, straight-as-a-frat-boy’s-ass hair in a ponytail. Because he wore a Raiders football team cap and coat, the other cool guys did too. Same for his oxblood Doc Martens and the Grateful Dead patches on his backpack. They called themselves the Gangsta G’s. G, for Jerry Garcia. And we girls were their Gangsta B’s. B, for bitches. All the Gangsta G’s marched behind Steve in their Raiders kit and hippy accessories like an identity-confused cocaine train. Once, when Steve wasn’t around, I told the boys that I doubted Jerry Garcia was into football, and they told me to keep my trap shut about things I knew nothing about. Fucking retards, I told them. I was cool enough to talk to the Gangsta G’s that way. I was Steve’s girlfriend. There was no limit to my smart-ass mouth when Steve wasn’t around.
But I couldn’t talk to Steve like that. No way. Once, when we first started going out, I told him, in front of everyone, that he wasn’t as smart as he thought he was. He laughed and ruffled my hair and put me in a playful headlock. But after school, back at his place, he dragged me down the basement stairs and shoved my head in the toilet. He told me if I ever made fun of him in front of his boys again, he’d kill me. I never spoke to him that way again, but he still shoved my head in the toilet when he was pissed off. I figured he didn’t know any better. He certainly never learned anything about how to treat a girl from his mean old daddy; his mama had more black eyes than a family of raccoons. I felt sorry for him. He’d cry after he hurt me and tell me he was suffering, that I was the only girl he’d ever loved enough to make him cry. And then we’d have the sweetest kind of sex. I called it our rainbow sex. After the storm. There was a drama in it all that turned me on. I guess that’s what happens when your first orgasm happens just hours after you get punched in the stomach.
He was mean to lots of other people at school, too. Especially the geeks and the special ed kids. There was this one kid named Joe who had Down’s Syndrome or something like that. Joe had red hair and was real chubby and laughed a lot. Steve would pretend he was Joe’s friend and get him to sing “If I Had a Million Dollars” super loud in the parking lot. Steve would clap, so everyone else would clap, and Joe would laugh and think he’d done something wonderful to get so much attention. Steve made Joe smoke cigarettes sometimes, which always made him gag. It was awful to watch. But no one dared tell Steve to knock it off.
Eventually, I stopped feeling sorry for Steve, but then it was too late. I got knocked up in grade twelve and had to marry the guy. Everyone was happy for me, even my friends, who knew he threw me around. My mom was thrilled, too. Steve’s family owned one of the biggest Dunkin’ Donuts franchises in town, so I was marrying into money. One less mouth to feed for a single mum of three on disability. It was something to celebrate.
We got married in May. I wore a pale yellow maternity gown with a long train with pink plastic flowers attached to it, and Steve wore a suit with his Doc Martens and Raiders cap. I was so pregnant that it felt like the baby’s head was popping out of my vag, but I let a very drunk Steve screw me against his k-car anyway. My big belly made him extra horny, and I didn’t dare tell him to knock it off. Plus, despite the pain, I couldn’t resist him.
Steve’s parents helped us buy a little bungalow right down the road from their place. Compared to the trailer I’d grown up in, the house was a mansion. I loved it. It had three bedrooms, a basement, two bathrooms, and a shower. It had a backyard big enough for a fire-pit and an above-ground pool. And a dog. I’d always wanted a pool and a dog; water and animals made me happy. Steve agreed to the fire-pit, but said the pool was a waste of money and space. And he hated dogs. He said if I ever brought a dog home, he’d shoot it with his crossbow.
We had the after-grad party in our backyard. I wore my wedding dress with the train cut off. The grass wasn’t in yet, which was lucky, because over two hundred people came trampling about in their Doc Martens. It rained at some point, which caused a mudslide. One girl, a geek named Cheryl, got so drunk that she passed out by the fire-pit and Steve encouraged everyone to spit on her. I remember it clearly because my water broke, four weeks early, at the exact moment some guy hawked-a-loogie right on her muddy face. Steve laughed and said I’d pissed myself. I believed him, too, and was shitting-myself embarrassed. It wasn’t until I passed out that someone thought to call an ambulance.
The birth was smooth enough, thank God, but Steve Junior came out one angry baby. He never stopped crying! From the very beginning, he was as cranky and unpredictable as his daddy. Once we got home, the two of them were like angry wasps that kept pissing each other off. Junior would cry, so Steve would start stomping around, and then Junior would squeal louder, and then Steve would stomp louder. It never stopped. No matter what I did, one of them was always buzzing around me threatening to sting and begging for extra attention.
The first three months were the worst. All I wanted to do was rest and tend to my tits cause they hurt so bad from all of Junior’s sucking, but Steve was as greedy for them as the little guy. One time, he grabbed my chapped nipple and twisted it as hard as he could. “Oh, yeah, big mama,” he said, as he pulled me around the room like a dairy cow. When I told him I wasn’t into it, he pushed me on the bed and titty-fucked me anyway. Right in front of a screaming Junior. “Shut up, ya little pest. It’s daddy’s turn.”
With all the sucking, you’d expect Junior to be one of those round, rosy babies. But, unlike me, who was packing on the pounds from trading my ciggies for cookies, he was as scrawny as a stick of macaroni. So I switched the boob for formula, and that’s how I got preggers again. My doctor tried to talk me out of having it. He told me I had choices. But he was full of bologna. I had about as many choices as any other financially-dependent-desperate-teenage-mama married to a bible-thumping-when-he felt-like it-mean-mother-fucker-like Steve who would never agree to cough up the cash for me to go all the way to a big city to kill the fruit of his loins. Really, that’s what he told me.
“There’s no way you’re gonna kill the fruit of my loins.”
“I had no idea you knew such fancy words,” I replied (my smart-ass mouth came back after the birth like a postpartum depression).
Then he shoved my head in the toilet.
I don’t remember much about being pregnant with Luke. I know I cried a lot. And ate a lot. And I finally fell in love with baby Junior, which was a relief ‘cause I was worried I never would and that I was some kind of loveless freak of a mama. I’m pretty sure Steve was cheating on me during that time, too, cause I didn’t see much of him, which was great. He was the manager down at his family’s Dunkin’ Donuts, and lots of the staff had crushes on him. Never a shortage of fresh brew and girls turning into badass hotties at Dunkin’ Donuts. I should know, I worked there on and off, too. I heard a rumor that one of the bakers gave him Boston cream hand-jobs in exchange for day shifts. Better her than me, I thought.
Unlike Junior, Luke was the easiest baby in the world. He was so quiet, I often thought he was dead. I was a nervous wreck, hovering over him while he slept and everything. Eventually, I figured he was just a really, really smart kid. The little guy must have learned while he was in my tummy that the best way to keep his daddy calm was to keep his mouth shut. So that’s what he did. He never asked for anything. And because I was so busy kowtowing to his brother and daddy, that’s exactly what he got. It was heartbreaking when you come to think of it, but at least he was never on the receiving end of Steve’s fist. Unlike me. Unlike Junior.
That year with a newborn and a toddler was a real shit show. I spent more time cleaning up shit than I did brushing my teeth and washing my hair combined. I was exhausted and miserable and smelt like a diaper pail. The only things that brought me any joy were our daily walks down to the convenience store for junk food, and the babies’ afternoon nap. I’d bundle them up in the double stroller and walk thirty minutes to pick up whatever I felt like binging on that day––Wonder Bars, Wagon Wheels, Ketchup Chips, penny candy––and come back in time to put them down. While they slept, I cleaned up shit and stuffed my face like a dog that barely chews. I was a ferociously hungry bitch.
Steve hated how fat I was getting. One day he caught me binging on a big box of donuts he’d brought home, and he made me strip and stand in front of the mirror while he called me every name his pea-sized brain could come up with. Lardass, Fatso, Heifer, Bubba. “Hey,” I said, trying to make light of the situation in front of the babies, “what about Two-Ton Tilly?” For days, Junior ran around calling me Tilly.
I didn’t much mind my new body. I got a certain satisfaction out of knowing how much Steve hated it. It was like an extra layer of protection. He still humped me like a rabid pitbull in his sleep, but he was clearly less into me otherwise. I knew because he’d lost a bit of the you’re-so-sexy-I-want-to-screw-you-and -kill-you look he used to give me when I was forty pounds lighter and the hottest Gangsta B. in town. The look that would come out of nowhere and accuse me of acting like a whore before banging the hell out of me. I guess it was his way of owning me. Or breaking me in. Or pissing all over me.
His obsessive mind-fuck games stopped for a while, too. Before the babies came, he was so obsessed with the thought of other guys wanting to get with me that he’d force me to describe, in detail, all the times I’d ever fooled around with someone. I’d try to get him to stop, but he’d sit on my chest so I couldn’t breathe until I told him what he wanted to hear. No matter what I said, it turned him into a monster. No matter what I said, it turned him on. He wouldn’t even wait for the rainbow to start banging me. I called it our storm sex.
I guess his sexual jealousy was replaced by an obsession with my housekeeping. He wanted everything to be done like his mama did it. Spick and span and neat as a school girl’s pleat. And the meals! He was forever on my case about the meals. He’d sit in his leather La-Z-Boy throne that nobody but him could touch and say that I was free to feed my fat ass with Pogo sticks, but he and the boys would only eat classy stuff like scalloped potatoes and shepherd’s pie. I learned his mama’s ways quick enough, but he still said my cooking tasted like trailer trash. Once he rubbed a fistful of mashed potatoes in my hair because it was too salty. Another time, he poured my cheese sauce all over the kitchen floor because I’d used Velveeta instead of real cheddar. His parents were there that evening, and his Mom got down on her knees to help me clean it up. She kept saying she was sorry, over and over again. I’m not sure if she was saying it to her son, or me.
I’d be a liar if I didn’t say Steve was a good dad sometimes, though. The kids were scared of “bad daddy,” but they were equally attached to “good daddy.” That side of him sparkled like a Wal-mart Christmas tree, all colorful and exciting and ready for a good time. That man sure could light up a room, my mom used to say. The kids followed him around like little elves to see what kind of mood he was in, and when they felt all was safe, they’d jump on him for some love and roughhousing. Particularly Junior. He would’ve traded a hundred Christmases for “good daddy.”
Steve liked to take them out and show them off. When Junior was four and Luke was three, he bought them matching Raiders helmets and leather coats so he could take them ATVing with the Gangsta G’s. He’d sandwich himself between the boys and a cooler full of beer, and off they’d go into the woods for the day. It scared the hell out of me, but it was the only time I ever got to myself. My mom could barely leave the house with her oxygen tank, my mother-in-law couldn’t handle them on her own, and Steve refused to let me get a babysitter. I hated him, but he was all I had.
That’s how the accident happened. While they were out ATVing. I was deep in a dream with River Phoenix when I got the call. I heard “lost control” and “hit a tree” and “not sure if he will survive,” and I thought my world had come to an end.
How the boys survived the accident, I’ll never know. Maybe God does exist. Junior broke his arm and collarbone, and Luke got a nasty cut on his head. Otherwise, they were totally fine. But Steve broke his spinal cord at C2. Snap.
He spent a year in the hospital. I went in once a day, but I could never stay very long, because of the kids. That’s the excuse I told everyone. With the insurance money, I hired a housekeeper and a babysitter. I had time. But I hated going in. The smell made me want to puke. And seeing him unable to move, with a breathing tube stuck in his throat, totally freaked me out. He could talk, but, because he was so doped up, it was only in grunts and squeaks. Sometimes I thought he was trying to yell at me; sometimes I thought he was begging for help. It was like watching a dying rat. I felt sorry for him, I really did, but there was also a part of me that wanted him dead.
When he finished rehab he insisted on coming back home, and because there was nothing wrong with his brain, he got his way. The alternative was a nursing home, which, for him, was worse than death. It was decided that we’d have care come in twice a day––to bathe him and put him to bed in the evening, and to get him out of bed and dress him in the morning––and we would keep the housekeeper and babysitter. He got an adapted van for me to drive him around in, and an electric wheelchair that he controlled with his chin. The boys attached a cape to the back of his chair and called him Superman.
But he was no Superman to me. He was the same mean-mother-fucker who had controlled me for years. And now that he was totally dependent on me, he treated me even worse. My food was more disgusting than the hospital’s. My ass was fatter and uglier than any nurse’s he’d ever met. I was too weak, too rough, too fast, too slow. Nothing I did was good enough. He wished it was me, rather than him, who’d broken my neck.
I thought about leaving. With all that money, I could’ve packed up the kids and moved somewhere else. Or sent him off to a nursing home. But leaving scared me. Being on my own scared me. Being that mother who took her kids away from their dad scared me. Cause no matter how much shittier he was with me, he’d become the sweetest dad in the world. Our boys were the only thing that made him smile. He lived for them. And they couldn’t get enough of him, either. The accident, I thought, had killed “bad daddy.”
One day, I figured out a way to survive. While I was feeding Steve his mashed potatoes, and he was screaming at me again because they were too salty, I leaned into him, pretending I was gonna clean him up, and rubbed a fistful in his hair.
“How do you like them taters, eh?” I said.
“You’re gonna die, bitch,” he howled.
“Oh, yeah?” I said. “I got two words for ya, Steve: Nursing. Home.”
Then I ran out of the room and bawled for hours. From down the hall, I could hear him crying, too. But, afterward, I felt like a million bucks.
From then on, we ate Pogo sticks and fries and KD and whatever the heck me and the kids wanted. If Steve didn’t want it, well, he could starve or wait till his mama came by with something else, ‘cause there wasn’t nothing he could do about it. If he wanted to keep living with us, I was the hand that fed him. I was his hands. His everything. Period. So if I wanted to let the kids eat on the couch, I would. If I didn’t want to do the dishes, I wouldn’t. If I wanted to serve him toilet water, I did. If I wanted to paint the goddamn walls in mud, I could’ve. I’m not proud of it, but the feeling I got from doing whatever he hated was worth having had my head shoved in the toilet a hundred times. I guess it was my way of owning him. Or breaking him in. Or pissing all over him.
I got an in-ground pool put in. And I bought a puppy. A floppy, hairy, drooly Saint Bernard puppy that turned into a ginormous shedding machine. I called him Gangsta D. D. was a naughty puppy. He’d jump all over the place and piss everywhere and whine all night. Sometimes, when the whining got to be too much, I’d lock him in with Steve. I let him sleep on Steve’s La-Z-Boy, too.
Then I got back in shape. I’d leave the kids with the babysitter, and spend the day at the gym with the girls. I called the stationary bike River Phoenix, and rode that stallion like a porn star. Me and River got my ass as tight as it had been in grade ten. To celebrate the new me, I had a little butterfly tattooed on one side of my lower back, and everything happens for a reason on the other.
That first summer, I had pool parties every weekend. Steve would wheel out onto the deck and shoot the shit with the boys. Playing like he was cool with everything. But I knew from the way he refused to look at me, and his bulging neck veins, that he was raging inside like a caged bull. And I played that bull for all he was worth. Strutting around in my red bikini, flashing my long nails, bending down right in front of everyone to pick up pool noodles and floaties. If he’d been mobile, he would’ve dragged me inside and slapped me around with his boner for acting like that. But he wasn’t mobile, and he couldn’t slap me around or get a boner anymore.
I did all kinds of mean, messed up shit to him that first year. I sold his car. I made out with his best friend at a Dead concert. I left food on his face when visitors came by. I kept his bedroom window open in the winter. I left the kids’ toys on the floor so he couldn’t get around. I ran into Joe, the Down’s Syndrome guy from high school, and invited him over to hang out with Steve while I went out all afternoon. And, as messed up as it sounds, it totally turned me on.
When I started bringing guys home, I realized it was turning Steve on, too. One day, after I’d picked up some Dick or Harry and dragged him back to our place to bang as loudly as possible––knowing full well Steve could hear me––I received a dozen red roses. The little note, attached to the top of the bouquet like a flag planted on the moon so everyone would know who owned it, said, “Call out my name next time. Love, Steve.”
I almost passed out in the delivery guy’s arms when I read that. It scared me how excited I got. Kinda like the feeling when you are the only one in the world who knows someone’s filthy secret. But that filthy secret was mine, and his, and ours, and all of a sudden it hit me how screwed up we were. And I had no idea what to do about it, because my first orgasm happened just hours after I’d been punched in the stomach, and that’s the only kind of love that felt real. Sending me those flowers was the sweetest thing he’d ever done.
Every month or so, I received another bouquet of flowers, each one with a different note attached. “Videotape it. Love, Steve.” “Bring a chick home. Love, Steve.” “Bring two guys home. Love, Steve.” I have no idea who he got to call the florist for him, and what the hell whoever it was, and the florist, thought about it all. But I did know that it meant he’d be expecting me the following evening. His demands were loud and clear and hot and dirty, and I did exactly as he ordered.
We continued as usual outside the bedroom, but the things we got into on his hospital bed would knock you sideways. We’d turn on the videos I made of my lovers, and I’d sit on his face, and he’d munch away like the paralyzed man who’d been starved of his favorite dishes for the past two years that he was, and I’d cum like the confused and abused twenty-four-year-old screw-up that I was. I called it our sweet and sour sex. Cause even though it was so, so good, afterwards he’d hurl the worst kind of insults at me. Dirty slut. Home wrecker. Shitty mother. And I’d run out of the room and bawl. From down the hall, I could hear him crying, too, but I no longer felt like a million bucks.
Then one day, while the boys were playing in the pool and I was lounging on the deck contemplating the state of affairs in my little corner of the world, I caught Junior holding Luke’s head under the water.
“Die, trailer trash!” he screamed. The look in his eye was the spitting image of his maniacal namesake.
I managed to drag him off his little brother in time, but, instead of backing down, he lunged at me like some psycho-gerbil and started trying to bite my arm off. As I was screaming, and Junior was going at me with his brand new adult teeth, and Luke, curled up in a little ball beside us, was pulling at his hair, crying no, no, no, I looked up and saw Steve. Watching from the window. Smiling.
I’ll never know what Steve had been telling the boys. At that point, I was only sure of two things. One was that Steve had been spot on about me being a shitty mother. Since the accident, all I’d cared about was shaking my ass around town like a two-dollar tramp and destroying my quadriplegic husband. The kids were out of control; I had to hire a second babysitter. Social workers had already been sniffing around the house twice, digging up dirt to throw back in my face. The second thing was that I had been wrong about “bad daddy” being dead. He might not have been mean to the boys directly, but if I didn’t figure out something, me and the boys were never, ever gonna survive his wrath.
The idea came to me as one of my girlfriends was going on about how the French call an orgasm La petite mort. So I waited for the next bouquet, waxed my nest nice and clean, cranked up “Friend of a Devil,” and squatted like a mama hen right on his face.
It only took ten minutes to kill him, three if you minus the build up and time it took me to cum. I know because there was a clock on the wall in front of me, just to the left of our wedding picture where my eight-month pregnant self, cheered me on. Moaning, it’s about fucking time.