by Brian Wood
My wife, Roberta, I don’t even recognize her anymore. Her behavior grows stranger everyday. Just last month she got her clitoris pierced. She didn’t tell me or anything. I had to discover it myself. She had just showered and had her foot on the sink. As she was drying off I saw it glinting there between her legs, a metal stud big enough to hang a towel from. Out of nowhere she does this. And where she got the idea, I don’t know.
I said to her, “Is there something you’d like to tell me?”
“No,” she said.
“How about that,” I said. “That thing, hanging from your clitoris there.”
“What, this?” She tickled the stud. “This is called the hood, Curtis, not the clit.” And with that, she wrapped the towel around her head. Conversation over.
A week later—out of the blue—she bought a motorcycle. She went down to the dealership and drained our entire vacation fund. I was out edging the yard when she came rumbling in with this black beast of a thing shaking between her legs. I stopped what I was doing and watched her park it on a sprinkler head. She swung her leg around the gas tank and lumbered into the house.
Twenty years we’ve been married and she’s a stranger to me now.
One night, coming in from a ride, she said to me, “Curtis, you have no idea.” She went to the kitchen table and slouched in a chair.
“Dinner’s ready,” I said. “There’s a plate in the microwave.”
Roberta pulled at her bangs. “It takes so much concentration—I’m telling you—it’s a miracle I don’t lay that bike down. Every time I roll on the throttle I feel it growl against me. It’s like a thousand fingertips touching me.” She leaned deep into her chair. “All over my body there’s this … electricity. To the ends of my toenails.” She let her mouth twitch like she was savoring the last moment of a secret.
For the third night in a row I warmed her dinner. I sat across the table and watched her exert an amazing effort to eat. She lifted her fork like it was a paint can. After each bite she would exhale loud through her nostrils. Even then, I could tell she was thinking about that motorcycle.
After that, Roberta started cussing. The Roberta I knew never cussed.
It began at the art walk. Like always, we were at the mall to buy a pretzel and a lemonade, to stroll around and browse the window displays. And we were there for the art fair. Someone at work said there was nothing like seeing a real painting, one on canvas, with brushstrokes pushed into the oil. I’d heard when you dimmed the lights on a painting like that, the landscape would fade. But if the artist painted light in the windows, they would still glow with life inside.
Just beyond the food court was a booth with pastel paintings of oceans and flowers. “Have a look here,” I told Roberta. I made her stop and look at a canvas called Seaside Cottage. There was a cottage on an ocean cliff. Moss grew on the roof and a twist of smoke spilled from the chimney. Roberta had a kitchen calendar full of prints like this. Cottages and cabins. Lakes and sea spray. For our anniversary I wanted to buy her a canvas painting. I wanted to hang it over our mantel and install a dimmer switch.
I put my arms around Roberta. “Wouldn’t it be nice to have a little home like that? Just the two of us with all that peace and calm.”
Roberta leaned toward the painting and squinted. “I don’t know.”
This caught the artist’s attention. He got out of his chair and stood next to us. “You’ve got a good eye,” he said. “This is one of my favorites.” He dimmed the light above the painting and like magic, time had passed and the cottage was eased into that good light. But the light in the windows somehow still flickered bright. He stood back and let us take in what he had done.
“That’s incredible,” I said.
Roberta tilted her head.
“What do you think?” he said.
She made a face like she wanted to spit. “You’re joking, right?” She looked dead straight at the man. “What kind of dipshit would want this?”
On the drive home Roberta had the windows down. What her hurry was I didn’t know, but she drove reckless. Her head was halfway out the window and she let the car drift out of her lane.
I tried to roll the window but the child-lock was on. “You mind?” I said. “I’m catching a draft here.”
Roberta closed her eyes as her hair flapped on her face. “Jesus, Curtis. Live a little.”
“Would you watch it?” Up ahead a lady pushed her baby into the crosswalk and Roberta wasn’t slowing. I grabbed the dashboard. “Take it easy,” I said. “There’s people.”
Roberta waited for the panic to hit my eyes before she mashed on the brakes. The tires chirped and the nose of the car stopped short of the crosswalk. The mother startled. She glared at us before staring at me like I had something to do with it. Like I was supposed to control the woman next to me. She was leery, moving past the front of our car. As she rolled past, the wind kicked up and spun a diaper from the stroller.
“Jesus,” Roberta said. “Look at this.”
With one hand on the stroller the mother stretched to collect the diaper, but a gust tumbled it beyond her reach.
“What is this, amateur hour?” Roberta gave a tiny shrug. “Can we go already? Seriously, who does this?”
I dropped in my seat. “Please, Berta. Just let it go.”
As the mother stuffed the diaper in her diaper bag Roberta honked. The woman snapped her head to look at us. More startled or appalled I wasn’t sure.
“Come on, Roberta. She’s got a baby.” But before I could do anything, and before the woman had a chance to move, Roberta had her head out the window.
“Move, you fat cunt.”
I watched the mother’s face burn from a shade of embarrassment to a deeper kind of red. She marched the stroller to my side of the car and Roberta honked the horn again. Twice. Three times she honked at her. She looked at me and laughed as she honked again at the woman.
“Christ, Roberta. The hell is wrong with you?” I tried to roll the window again but Roberta still had it locked.
“Watch out, Curtis. She’s a live one.”
The mother was at my ear, spittle hurling from her mouth. “Shit, Roberta. Roll it up. Drive already.” I shielded my face as the woman began slapping at my head. “Sorry. We’re sorry,” I said. “Please, Roberta, just go.”
Roberta kept laughing. “I don’t know, Curtis. She looks fired up. Better do something.”
I wanted to scream. I wanted to tell her that Roberta hadn’t been herself lately. But I kept finding myself yelling sorry, pleading for her to stop, begging Roberta to drive.
That night I met my friend Perry for beers. I had a hard time explaining it to him and he didn’t seem to believe a word. As I told him about it the edge of his mustache kept pulling toward his ears.
“She kept hitting me until, finally, Roberta drove off,” I said.
He glanced over his shoulder. “She called her a cunt?”
“No, Perry. She called her a fat cunt.”
His mouth puckered like he’d just swallowed a whiskey.
“It’s more than that,” I said. “You add in the motorcycle clubs, the late nights, and body piercings. What are you supposed to make of all that?”
Perry tilted his chin to the bartender. He waved two fingers between us. “Bourbon,” he said. “Look, I’ve known Roberta a long time. There’s got to be some variable to the problem. Might be a reaction to something.”
I didn’t like the way he said problem. It made me want to punch him, square in the nose.
“If you had to guess—just throwing it against the wall here—you noticed anything strange?”
The only thing I could think of was a few months back, before I caught her staring. Roberta and I had been making love, same as we always do, but this particular night I got a tickle in my nose. And while I was still on top of her I sneezed one of those toe curling, whole body sneezes. And with me still inside her, my body pitched way in, like never before. Roberta screamed. She called out so
sharp I thought for sure I had just done something terrible. I got off her and wiped the hair from her face. “I’m sorry,” I said. “You alright? I’m so sorry.”
“Yes,” Roberta said and with both hands she grabbed me. “Get back here. My God, yes.”
A month later she had metal hanging from her lady parts and a hog between her legs.
“Honestly, Perry,” I tore at my bar napkin, “I have no idea.”
Perry shrugged and raised his bourbon. “Well it’s like my daddy always said, If you can’t get them filthy rich, might as well get them filthy.”
I gave him a look. “Jesus, Perry. That’s my wife.”
On Wednesday night I made popcorn. Wednesday we leave all the pillows on the bed so we can sit up and watch Law & Order. I brought the popcorn to our room. Roberta had the bed turned down, the pillows strewn on the floor.
“What are you doing?” I said.
In a sad catlike impersonation, she crawled across the bed. She took a DVD from under the mattress. “I want you to do this with me.”
“It’s Thursday. I made popcorn.”
“I want us to do everything they do.”
“On Law & Order?”
Her voice got low and throaty. A voice that belonged to a cartoon villain, an evil queen. “Just turn it on. Play with me.”
So we watched it together. And this is what passed for smut these days: five minutes in, the man with the waxed scrotum had his way with the girl. A young thing with spindly arms and giant breasts. He patty-caked her breasts with his dick. She moaned and twisted her nipples. Then he squeezed her throat until her eyes teared up. Black makeup spilled down her face. He stuck his fingers in her throat. He pried her mouth wide open.
“Do it,” Roberta said. “Spit in my mouth.” She positioned herself beneath me. She opened her mouth full.
“I can’t,” I said.
“Just do it,” she said. “Pull my head back. Spit in my mouth.”
“My mouth is dry.”
Roberta pushed her fingers against the back of my tongue. I gagged, and my mouth filled with spit. “Now do it.”
The camera was looking down the man’s chest now. His point of view. And I was happy to not look at his balls slapping against the girl anymore. But now he was thrusting it in the poor girl’s face. He had her on her knees and it looked like her jaw was about to give out. But he ignored her cries and the mascara smearing down her face. He kept pumping at her mouth until her eyes were bugging from her head.
“Here,” Roberta said. “Like this. Do it rough.” She took my hands and pressed them against her throat.
“What is this?”
“What I want.” She tightened her fingers on mine. “Keep going. Just like that. Tighter. Don’t stop.”
I freed my hands and put them on her breasts. But she grabbed me again and made me choke her. “Tighter,” she said. Her mouth fell open and I could hear the air struggle to get in. Her forehead filled with blood. “There it is.” She clasped my wrists. My hands went tighter, deeper into her throat until I felt her pulse throb. Then I felt a different thing. The metal stud quivering between her legs, and I felt her come like never before. Her whole body was shuddering uncontrollably.
When we finished she collapsed on the bed.
I went to brush the hair from her eyes but she knocked my hand away.
“Don’t touch me. Not now.”
“Let me get a towel.”
“Leave it,” she said. “We don’t have to clean up yet. Just leave it alone.” She twisted herself in the sheets. I stared at the ceiling and listened to her sleep. The ceiling fan creaked. It looked like it might spin off the ceiling, any day now, and come crashing down on us. I thought about how I might fix it.
In our backyard, next to the grill, Roberta sat in a lawn chair. It was the kind of day when it was good to be outside so she rolled her sleeves to her shoulders. I handed her a bottle from the ice chest.
“Happy anniversary,” I said.
“This is fucking nice.” She leaned her face back to take in more light. She curled her toes into the lawn. “We should move, you know. Just pack a bag and leave it all.” Her voice sounded drugged.
“Where?” I said. “What about the house?” But she didn’t answer. She had just come back from another ride and was spent.
As she slept in the sun, I went inside to get the meat. On the refrigerator I saw a picture of us from decades ago, our honeymoon. There were palm trees behind us and past that was an ocean. Neither of us looked at the camera. We both looked at something just out of view. And for whatever reason we smiled at what we saw. Roberta with her hair, feathered and wavy, framing the length of her face. Roberta with tinted lenses the size of orange slices. That quiet, mousy Roberta, faded and grainy, held in my arms. And there I was. My stupid shaggy hair. Me and my high school mustache that would never fill in all the way. I’m right behind her, holding my girl tight like my life depended on it. I believed we were happy then. And I wondered if we could go back. If I could get her to sell that bike, even at a loss, would we have enough to get us back there? To take another picture with her in my arms.
I set the meat next to the grill. I brought out the buns, too, so I could toast them the way she liked. While I waited for the charcoal to ash over, Roberta slept. The sun was hanging low now, and it cast that magic light on our home. The smooth light made it seem like a sad thing. The sprinkler head, busted and weeping, in the corner of the yard. The gutter sagging from the edge of the roof. How could she sleep so peacefully while everything around her was falling apart? As I watched her chest rise and fall I wanted nothing more than to wake her with the feeling of my hands coming down tight on her throat. What I’d give to hold her there until the lights went out.
Instead, I slapped the hamburger into patties and threw them on the fire. I watched the smoke swirl around Roberta. Her drink had begun sweating in the sun and was slipping from her fingers. It tilted from her hand. The bottle threatened to tumble on the ground, to shatter and make a mess of things, but I didn’t move. I let it stay as it was.
BLOCKBUSTER
I had made up my mind to leave Doug. It’s these Thursdays. They’re killing me.
Thursday is date night. Every Thursday we go to Outback Steakhouse and start with one of those fried onions. First course, Doug tells me how they have the best croutons here. Then he asks our waiter what all the different sauces are and what’s in them and still orders the sirloin. I complain when my salmon comes out dry. After we share the molten cake it’s off to the video store. Then we go home for popcorn and as the credits start to roll I wait for Doug to make his move, pressing down on my shoulders, holding his breath with the hope I’ll give him a blowjob.
The only variety on date night is the movie. Being civil adults and all, we have joint custody of who gets to pick. On my weeks, I’ll spice it up with a foreign film, or something classic that won a bunch of awards. But this is Doug’s week, which means we’re getting something stupid.
I went my own way at the video store. I didn’t care to be around Doug as he was picking out his movie, so I browsed the romantic comedy section. All the titles had covers with women frozen in silly poses. A lady leaning over and laughing so hard all her teeth were showing. Or another with a couple holding each other, but the girl is pulling away and making this face right at the audience, telling us she has commitment issues. There were rows of them. All those faked emotions, everything painfully staged.
“Think I got a winner,” Doug said. He came up behind me, tapping a video case in his hand.
“Let me guess. There’s a situation and some agent comes out of retirement for one last job.”
He looked at the back of the video. “Nope.”
“Is there Justice or Executive in the title?”
He showed me the cover. A man held a pistol next to his face and squinted at some unseen danger. Marked for Vengeance.
“Great,” I said.
“You might like it. See, he�
��s a DEA agent and his partner gets murdered. But the twist is, his partner was a K-9 dog.”
“Can a dog get murdered? Isn’t murder reserved for people?”
Doug shook his head. “He’s an officer of the law. People get life for that.”
As we waited to pay, I thought about those dumb pictures on the movie boxes. It reminded me of when Doug and I got engaged. We had to take engagement photos and the photographer told us we should go to the woods. He took us to a place where the trees fell away and there was a clearing. We stood there and laughed and kissed. All the while the photographer snapped away with his camera. The whole time all I could think was, why I am in the forest wearing my best party dress? And who in their right mind would stand in a field making these stupid faces? The photographer kept shouting at us, “Yes. Yes.” Then he’d adjust my posture. “More of that,” he said. “What a perfect looking couple,” he said, when he didn’t know a thing about us. The whole time we were out there the brush was scratching my legs to hell. But I had grinned through it all.
“This is going to be a bad film,” I said.
“Like you know.”
“This won’t end well.”
“It’s a movie,” Doug said. “You don’t have to get all uppity.”
“We’re watching it together.”
“I sit through your week too, you know. That black and white bullshit. That foreign shit.” Doug set his jaw. “You think I want to read subtitles while I’m trying to watch a movie?”
I thought of a thousand things I had done for him and hated. It made me mad enough to spit on him. But we were in public and I wasn’t sure who was watching. So I gave the store an easy smile.
On the way to our car I saw a mix of teenagers hanging their legs off the edge of a truck bed. One of the boys passed a bottle to a girl. She leaned away but he pushed it on her anyway. As she tilted the bottle, the group cheered and the boy slid his arm under her breasts and around her ribs. He ensnared her and licked at her ear. Liquor spilled down her chin. She gagged a little but kept at it. For her effort they cheered even more.
