Husband Dot Com

by Ann Dunn

  Soon after arriving in Steamboat, Lynn and I went out on the town. Like most twenty-something girls, our sole mission was to stir up a good time. We found a great brewery in the center of town and soaked up our unknown digs. Across the crowded bar I spotted him, my mountain crush was walking in the door. He was tall with light, brown hair and blue eyes. I thought he was the most stunning male specimen that I had ever seen. The eggs in my uterus jumped for joy when our eyes locked. I had to talk to him—no matter what. Wearing a John Deere baseball cap and a light blue plaid shirt, he walked past me. My sister looked at me and said, “What has gotten into you?” She could tell by the look in my eye that I was fixated on him. So, Lynn walked up to him and lured him over to our table to meet me. His name was Miller and he had me spellbound from his mere presence. That was it—I was temporarily hooked!

  I was on the rebound from my Florida love. I was very much looking to completely forget my life in Florida, like and old scrapbook tucked underneath the bed. Miller had a jacked-up Ford pickup truck that he came and picked me up in for our first date. He drove me around town, listening to country music and showing me the sights. Miller was in his early twenties and still had a lot of boy left rustling around inside his boots. Our romance was more playful than sexual. Although, Miller and I did roll around in the barn a few times—so what if I got a little hay stuck in my hair! I was only trying to keep warm—it was freezing in those flipping mountains! Good thing the stars high above the western sky are pretty good at keeping secrets.

  A few months later the stork did a “fly-by” over my apartment and winked directly at me. When I found out that I was pregnant, I knew that the journey that I had surprisingly embarked on would have me walking alone as a single parent. Let's just say that my relationship with Hope's father was not a one-night stand, but somewhere warmly nuzzled between a few beers, a cowboy hat, and a fling.

  I lived in mountain territory for a few years until I was “over” freezing my ass off. I was also totally homesick for my friends and family. I traveled across the country with Hope and brought her back to South Florida to meet everyone I had left behind. I knew that my time spent in the mountains was to find Hope and bring her home.” She was a beautiful baby, with hair like sugar and piercing blue eyes. I was head over heels in love with my new favorite girl. Life had given me the best gift by far—blessing me with little Hope.

  Even with Hope, my life puzzle seemed to be missing a few key pieces. I was under a terribly misguided impression that I had holes in places of my life that needed to be filled. Even my close friends were nudging me to hurry up and find the right guy. As if my wanting a man should have made him materialize at my doorstep. Everyone in my circle of friends was already married, or divorced by my age. Finding my soul mate was brainteaser that had somehow evaded me. I was left to contemplate why only half of the puzzle was mine? I was way behind the family unit, gas-guzzling SUV curveball— by a long country mile.

  The inception of online dating happened to be a man miracle for me. I could stay home with my daughter and shop for men online from the comfort of my living room. I started the journey of online man hunting back in the dark ages of the late 90s. I think my giant desktop computer may have been carved out of stone—not kidding! That antiquated time was prior to the couch-lounging laptops and tablets that I adore so much today. After a few years of online dating, I had become remarkably well-versed in the vast sea of logging on and finding lust.

  4). Trent

  Meeting Trent was a tornado that blew the doors off my life. I found Trent while I was scrolling through dozens of local profiles. In only six short months we went from first date to getting hitched in “The Biggest Little City in the World”. Our courtship landed us in Reno to begin our eternal commitment to one another. Our dating life was a whirlwind from the moment I clicked the “send message" button. My first email to him was a brief wink, wink—a cyber-flirt, shall I say. He quickly responded to my email with interest. Shortly after we made our connection, we met in person. Right away, I knew that Trent would have an impact on my life. There have been times when I have met people and from that moment on, I knew that my life had forever changed. Meeting Trent was one of those defining moments. At first, I did not know what the change meant in the grand scheme of things, but the world as I had known it had been thrown off its axis—or rather, its ass.

  Trent was a bit of a male peacock from the moment we met at a quaint Italian bistro located in a Coral Springs strip mall. Trent had jet-black hair, extremely green eyes, and well-defined upper body. He dressed nice and I caught a whiff of him that smelled like a cocktail mix of success and Crave by Calvin Klein. His smile brightened him up a notch from just “okay” looking, to skirting the good-looking side of the fence. He worked hard to get where he was in life and he had some expensive toys to show for it. We had a lot of things in common from the second we began unraveling our interests. Spending time with him always had an air of excitement about it. We were quickly wrapped up in a ball of infatuation that was impossible to break free from. We were both in perfect places in our lives to be in a new relationship and start life built around each other. The stars may have been in alignment for us, but as time would reveal, we would find ourselves dancing around in the wrong universe—all the way to Reno Nevada.

  My trampy silver heels made me look as flashy as a Kentucky-bred mare on race day. I pranced across the casino floor, imagining how deliriously brilliant married life would be. I was a little more svelte thanks to my pre wedding, no carb diet, and growling stomach. Going to sleep hungry for a month had really paid off in spades. I had a bit more swagger to my strut going on inside my new favorite size-ten jeans. Something about the lights, the people, and the energy were exceedingly alive that evening. There was a crackle in the desert air that I had never experienced before. I was followed around by a warm, fuzzy, radiant glow the entire evening—well, not quite the entire evening.

  I walked up to my husband-to-be sitting at a blackjack table. He was looking pretty flush with a mile-high, Mack Daddy stack of chips in front of him. I stood quietly behind Trent, watching him play cards. I started to second-guess my feelings for him and it caught me off guard. I felt strangely hollow in the midst of all the excitement. My guts internal, "check engine" light, kept flickering off and on—the bastardly thing would not quit flashing a bright orange warning sign. Unsure, was my state of mind, about the man I intended to marry. I thought that it must be a case of frickin cold-feet. I believed that Trent was the mythical "one"—eighty percent of the time. The other twenty percent of the time, I told myself that the forever love concept is a bunch of malarkey we are brainwashed to believe so that we don't all become an unruly bunch of immoral whores. Since I did not want to eternally smash around in the rouge waves of Trampland, I sold myself on taking the marital high ground. I was knee-deep in the process of convincing myself into some kind of outlandish relationship submission. So there I stood, uncomfortably muffled and frozen on the extremely elaborate casino floor.

  He glanced behind the mahogany high-back chair and noticed my tall shadow lingering behind him. Leaning forward, I softly whispered in his ear that I lost my last twenty dollars to a greedy slot machine. Regretfully, that night I decided to leave my favorite credit card upstairs in the hotel room. I ever so sweetly mentioned to Trent that I was in need of a few bucks to keep playing the one-armed bandit. I wanted to try my luck out a few more times until Trent was finished playing cards. I only wished to spend a bit more time on the lively casino floor before we retired for the evening.

  Trent stopped everything and screamed at me, "No, you are done for the night,” in a loud and belittling tone! I could not believe my stunned ears. The card dealer looked at me with an unsaid expression of dismay that was clearly defined across his brow. Every eye in a stones-throw radius was on me, and yet I felt somehow invisible. I was so ashamed inside that moment to be standing beside a man who treated me like a tiny bug that he squashed under his four-hundred-
dollar patent leather shoes. There I was, feeling like a young girl who wet her polka dot panties on the playground—the only exception was that the playground was for adults only. Everyone was staring at me. I was standing inside my own golden spotlight of embarrassment. My startled brain went numb as his painfully cruel words slowly churned like barbwire in a metal blender. My emotions felt naked and exposed—they needed a dark place to quickly hide!

  My first thought was to pull the fire alarm and run out of the bustling casino screaming, “Trent is a rude, cheap asshole!” I wanted all of Nevada and any bordering states to hear me roar! My face had red hives developing as the seconds went by. I remember staring at the green velour of the blackjack table right before the fury of my rage overwhelmed me. As an automatic gut reaction, I yelled loudly right back in his tightwad ear, “You are not my father!” I placed my pride in my pocket and abruptly headed the other direction—away from his ugly mug. The beautiful glow of the evening had turned pitch black and the shimmering lights that illuminated moments before had instantly disappeared into the darkness.

  I am a strong woman—with a sprinkling of Irish. Thanks to the spunky shamrocks, I also have a red-hot, push-button temper. So, I did not take to well to Trent trying to run my life, or my gambling for that matter. That crazy lunatic had seriously screwed with my good time. I was outrageously pissed off! Running across the casino floor as fast, as my heels allowed me to move without breaking something, felt like an impossible feat. My deflated heart was in shambles trailing behind me like clanking, rusty old soda cans. By a narrow margin of a small miracle, I somehow made it to the elevator—unscathed. My tears of indignation were burning red streaks down my face. The constant ringing in my ears latched onto Trent's words. His presence filled me with chewed-up bits of hate and disgust—in the very depths of my being.

  Storming into room 512, I was a much-wronged woman. I immediately tore off all of my clothes and made myself a hot bubble bath. I just so happen to be addicted to bubble baths and Diet Coke—even more so in a crisis! So there I was, floating around in hot water like a water-logged flower, it was my nonalcoholic equivalent to a huge glass of wine—an instant sedative for a girl on the verge of flipping out! I knew I needed to calm down somehow and at lightning speed. My earthly mermaid-girl solution for every life trouble has always been to immerse myself in hot water and bubbles. Grappling with hurt beyond belief and being furiously derailed by a man who claimed to love me was nothing less than devastating. We were a few days away from our wedding and Trent was treating me like yesterday's garbage. There was no bliss to be found in the middle of the desert on that dreadful evening.

  Moments later, Trent ripped a gaping hole right through my bubble-filled sanctuary. He was livid at me for embarrassing him at the table in front of total strangers. I felt a sharp twinge of injustice because he was mad at me, when I was the injured party in our ruthless matchup. How could that bastardly beast of a man not have understood that? Trent was trying to pin that fight on my almost innocent head! As if asking a loved one for a few measly dollars in Reno would be considered a federal offense. I was simply in my happy place of slots and video poker before that controlling ox of a man took a machine gun to my mood. I was a wet lily pad floating in a bathtub that was overflowing with vicious man-made tears.

  Trent threw a stack of hundreds on the wet bathroom floor. He said, "Here is your fucking money!" Trent must have had me confused with a Fremont Street call-girl who was used up and thrown out of a dirty white limo. Didn't Trent know that the hooker ranch was only an hour up the road? The cheap fricking jerk should have taken a cab there if he was in the mood to throw hundreds at a woman! Then maybe Trent could have had a mind-blowing blow-job thrown in for kicks and giggles. I was so outraged at him. How could he have the audacity to belittle me with money, as if I were some lesser species than he? Things went from horrible to horrendous in a matter of seconds. I questioned at what point Trent falsely assumed that he had the right to employ himself as my gatekeeper, or better yet my tightwad pimp of a fiancé. I was not about to acquiesce to the tight metal dog collar that he was trying to squeeze around my unwilling neck!

  When we first met, I knew Trent was the type of guy who would give me a run for my money. In a depraved way, I had always had a thing for men who were a challenge. Looking back into the rearview mirror of my distant youth, I had the hard-to-get concept incorrectly programmed in my brain. In a backwards approach, I never wanted men to chase me—quite the contrary. I wanted to ferociously chase men to the finish line and win. Like any good huntress, after I had my prey under my beguiling spell, I would quickly lose interest. It took me a few decades to get it right and let men chase me. Although, to this day, I still struggle with letting men lead the way. It has always bored me to tears trying to keep my claws retracted. However, Trent was a tiger that played chicken with me until I caved. He was a quite callous cat to tame. I did not realize in the beginning of our courtship that I was way over my man-chasing head with Trent.

  On our first date, Trent ordered a tiny appetizer for us to share and we were on a dinner date—sans the dinner or dessert. When Trent did not even inquire of what I had wished to order, I should have known what a tight inconsiderate bastard I was dealing with even then. Cheap and rude is what his behavior was in a nutshell. In the South, they affectionately call it “Showing your ass!” Trent's lack of table manners told a bigger tale of how he was planning on treating me in the months to come. Why I did not dash out of that eating establishment like the fire alarm was pulled—I will never know to this day. I must have hit my head on the steering wheel as I pulled into the bistro’s parking lot. Of course, I was in no way surprised that Trent was behaving like an out-of-control toddler on the Reno Strip. I was baffled by who I was more furious with in that hotel room—Trent or myself?

  Being in Reno mere months after our doomed first date was very much like ballroom dancing with two broken feet—never good. Trent looked like a wild boar screaming at me. Blinding me were Trent’s sharp pit bull teeth. He growled at me like a rabid foaming-at-the-mouth dog! Trent's red London-broiled face was going to blow like a two hundred and fifty pound volcano! His crushing and poison-filled words permeated the hotel room and suffocated my heart. I was pulverized to my core at a time that was meant to be total joy. Instead, our time together was overflowing like a tin cup of misery with a frothy venom topping.

  Knowing deep inside that love did not resemble anything like the anger that was swirling around in that hotel bathroom really frightened me. Trent behaved like a prison warden towards me. I would never bend down and pick money off the floor—for anyone! Although, I did have a little birdie in my ear saying, “Hurry, pick up the money, catch a yellow cab and fly home!” My gut was yelling, “Get away from this ghastly man as soon as you can!” Sitting in the airport waiting for the red-eye may have been a better future plan than staying in that love-lost hotel room that was imploding all around me.

  By staying, I had given Trent the green light to rip my heart out. We had an epic verbal bloodshed that lasted until the sun rose over the majestic desert mountains. The gold bands of shimmering light began to fill our room as our battle was losing its steam. We both pretended to be sorry by the time our brutal words had turned to dust on the Egyptian cotton sheets. We finally fell asleep on the luxurious bed from pure mental exhaustion. At that point our rest was only a catnap. The day of lights and excitement had kicked off without us. I woke up as numb as a prize-winning fighter that did not win a thing—except a bruised spirit. The aftermath of the night stayed with us from that point on. I had a hangover of hate that followed me around like a black cloud on a leash.

  We were in need of a last-minute miracle before our wedding day arrived. Our friends and family arrived in Reno one by one. I put on a dull veil of excitement for them. I could not stop rewinding the movie from the night before in my mind. I tried my best to give them a half-assed D-List performance. It was a futile effort to disguise my red eyes and
sad puffy face. During our greetings, I felt guilty that everyone was arriving in Reno to celebrate our new life together and I was so miserable. Everything appeared perfect on the outside, yet our relationship was decorated with a typhoon of negativity. Trent and I had a beautifully wrapped love affair on the exterior. When the precarious gift known as our relationship was finally unraveled, I realized that there was nothing inside the box, except a few pieces of dollar store tissue paper and one demolished heart—mine.

  My super-sleuth sisters could see right through me with their supernatural x-ray goggles. I gave every attempt not to look them square in the face for very long, because I knew they were on to me. I still wanted to pretend that I was swimming in a pool of bridal bliss. I felt ashamed in a fragmented and emotional way. I could not convey anything to them without completely breaking down. My eyes were screaming, "Help me," yet the words failed to transpire. I had become a stranger to myself—unrecognizable. My wedding plans were everything that I thought I had always wanted. By then all I truly wished to do was to hide underneath the comforter in my hotel room. My family and friends spent money and time to come thousands of miles away from home for our wedding. They came bearing gifts and well wishes. Although I was surrounded by loving people, I was standing on a sandy mirage totally alone.