Men, Women & Children: A Novel

by Chad Kultgen

  Danny said, “I know,” and thought about Brooke.

  Chris rode home with his father, who attempted to convince him that he’d done everything correctly. There just wasn’t enough time to win the game. Chris said, “Dad, it’s cool. It’s not that big a deal. Seriously.” Chris didn’t care about the game. His thoughts had already refocused on how he could take advantage of the belief, now held by his entire class, that he was no longer a virgin. He wondered if it would make it easier for him to find a girl willing to engage in some of the stranger sexual acts he found himself interested in. If not at Goodrich, Chris thought, certainly once he got to high school he would be able to find at least one girl who had similar sexual tastes, and who had seen enough Internet pornography to know how to indulge them with some proficiency. Football was the last thing on his mind.

  His phone vibrated and he saw that Hannah Clint had sent him a text message. He was surprised to be hearing from her at all. The message read, “Hey, know anything about websites? I’ll make it worth your while. We can do whatever you want.”

  Across town, Chris’s mother, Rachel Truby, found herself licking Secretluvur’s anus as she stroked his penis. She had never been commanded to do anything similar by any of her sexual partners, and she found it enjoyable. She knew that her son’s final game of the regular season was happening simultaneously, but she found it difficult to care. She had no regrets about missing the game in order to meet up with Secretluvur, and she wondered briefly if this made her a bad mother.

  As Secretluvur ejaculated all over her face and hand, she thought less about her son and about her husband. They were becoming increasingly ghostlike to her. In the bathroom of the hotel room, Rachel cleaned Secretluvur’s semen from her hand and face. She knew she didn’t want a divorce. It would be far more trouble than it would be worth. Chris would be eighteen soon enough. She assumed he would go to college. She hoped it would be out of state. In the past month or so it seemed that Don’s attempts to have sex with her had diminished. Rachel knew he was a decent husband and pleasant enough to be around. As long as their relationship could exist without a sexual component, Rachel could see herself staying married to Don for the rest of her life. She would even have sex with him a few times a year. That seemed a small price to pay to avoid the turmoil of a divorce, of moving to another house, of trying to find another man. Rachel knew that logically she didn’t need a man in her life in the capacity of a husband, but she had become used to it, and she had to admit that she would feel like something of a failure if she were to get a divorce.

  She turned off the light in the bathroom and went back to Secretluvur, who was sleeping in the bed. She ran her fingers though the coarse hair on his chest, and for the first time she wondered why her husband’s attempts to have sex with her had subsided. She wondered if he had simply given up, or if perhaps he had found a sexual release outside of their marriage, as she had. She reasoned that the latter was far more likely, and she found that she didn’t care. She knew that she would never ask him if this was the case, and as long as he was good about being secretive, she couldn’t fault him for doing the same thing she was. This was the last thought that went through Rachel Truby’s mind as she fell asleep on Secretluvur’s chest with the faint smell of his semen and anus still in her nose.

  chapter

  twenty-five

  Kent Mooney was angry with his son, and he used the time it took him to drive home from the football game to think about the game, and about his son knowing that his ex-wife was getting remarried, and about his son telling the people he played World of Warcraft with about it, but not telling him. That anger soon grew into rage. His son, Tim, would have made that tackle. He had no doubt about that. And somehow, if Tim had just been there to make that tackle, everything else could have been forgiven. But Tim wasn’t there to make that tackle.

  He walked into his house to find Tim sitting on the couch watching America’s Best Dance Crew. Kent said, “So, your team lost tonight because the kid they replaced you with got run over on basically the last play of the game.”

  Tim said, “That’s too bad. Do you know what happened to my Warcraft account?”

  Kent said, “Yeah. I, uh—I canceled it.”

  Tim said, “Why?”

  Kent said, “Because I wanted to. I pay for it and I can cancel it whenever the fuck I want to, Tim.”

  Tim could see that his father was beyond angry. Tim wanted to find anger in himself, but he couldn’t. In the same unfeeling tone he’d become accustomed to using over the past month, he said, “I still don’t understand why you would do that, though.”

  Kent said, “You don’t have to understand. I guess it’s kind of like how I don’t understand why you wouldn’t tell me that your mom is getting remarried.”

  Tim tried to deduce how his father could have known this. He said, “I thought Dr. Fong couldn’t tell you things like that.”

  Kent said, “So you told all of your little video-game pals and you told your fucking psychiatrist?”

  Still not raising his voice above a normal speaking tone, still unable to feel fear in the face of his father’s rage, or anger in response to his father’s actions, Tim said, “How did you know about my guild knowing?”

  Kent said, “I logged on to your account, Tim. Nice group of people you play that game with. They had some real nice things to say about how they wanted to have sex with your mother and about black people.”

  Tim said, “You don’t know them. They’re not really like that. It’s just jokes.”

  Kent said, “Well, it’s jokes you’re not going to be hearing for the foreseeable future.”

  Tim said, “It doesn’t make sense not to let me play.”

  Kent said, “Tim, you didn’t tell me about your mom getting remarried. Why?”

  Tim said, “I don’t know. I guess I just didn’t want to talk about it. She didn’t even want me to know about it, either, if it makes you feel any better. I found out about it through her Facebook page by accident.”

  Kent said, “I don’t give a fuck how you found out about it. You should have told me. We’re all we’ve got, Tim. Your mom is gone. It’s just you and me, and that’s the way it’s going to be, probably forever.”

  Tim said, “Okay, but how does taking away Warcraft change that?”

  Kent said, “Fuck that stupid game, Tim. It’s a waste of time. You should be playing football like you used to. I don’t know what happened this year, but you belong on the football field. And next year you’re trying out for the team.”

  Tim said, “I don’t even like football anymore, Dad.”

  Kent said, “Yes, you do.”

  Tim said, “No, I don’t. I like Warcraft.”

  Kent said, “It’s just a game, Tim.”

  Tim said, “So is football, Dad.”

  Kent said, “Well, football is the game you’re playing next year.”

  Kent left the conversation and headed into his bedroom, too angry to deal with his son anymore. He turned on the television in his bedroom and watched an episode of So You Think You Can Dance as he thought about his son and about Dawn Clint. He had a date with her the following night and had been looking forward to it for most of the week. He assumed the date would end with what would be their second sexual encounter. The memories of how her body felt against his, and how her breasts felt in his hands and mouth, were fading, becoming less accessible to Kent. He was excited to refresh them.

  Tim went to his bedroom as well. He tried to conjure sorrow, self-pity, anger, rage, fear, and any other emotion he thought might be appropriate, but he found himself unable to feel anything except complete detachment from the event. He logged onto his Facebook account and looked through his mother’s pictures. There were a few of her and Greg Cherry together, but the photo album containing the images of their engagement was still private. Tim again tried to force himself to feel anything, to have some emotional reaction to the reality that his family had disintegrated, never to be repaired.
And again he was unable.

  He logged onto his Myspace account and saw that he had a message in his in-box from Brandy Beltmeyer’s Freyja account. He found this strange, based on their conversation at school, in which they’d decided to postpone any communication until the following week. He opened the message and read it. The tone of Brandy’s message was different; the writing style was different. At first it didn’t even seem like she’d written the message, but he eventually decided that its unfamiliar style and tone was due to the nature of its content. It was clear that she was breaking up with him. No explanation was given, and Tim found that none was necessary. After reading the message, he logged out of his Myspace account and watched “The Pale Blue Dot” multiple times, thinking about how meaningless everything was.

  Anything any person would ever do would be erased at some point. There was no point to life, to having goals, to having a family. And, since Tim found himself without a family, he began to embrace the notion that he was the perfect example of the meaninglessness that defined existence. His mother had a new life that he wasn’t a part of, and that was the way she preferred things. His father wanted him to be the child he used to be, but he knew he could never be that child again. The girl he thought he loved had decided to end that experience, for reasons unknown to Tim. And, beyond all that, the one thing he had been able to find comfort in for the past year or so, World of Warcraft, had now been excised from his life against his will. He tried to imagine what possible future his life held but found himself again unable to conjure even the most rudimentary image of being at college or in an office or in a home with a family of his own. He couldn’t imagine anything beyond that night. He had no control over anything that was happening to him, and even if he had, it wouldn’t have mattered.

  Tim sat at his computer, watching various clips of cosmologists and philosophers discussing the insignificance of humanity for several hours after he heard his father turn off the television in his room. He brushed his teeth, and, with no anger or fear, and no need to prove anything to his father or to lash out against him, Tim quietly went to the kitchen, took a steak knife from the silverware drawer, and made his way to the bathroom. He ran a hot bath, got in, thought one last time about the fact that nothing would ever matter, and used the steak knife to sever his femoral arteries. The warm water made the experience almost pleasant to Tim. He closed his eyes and wondered what his mother’s new neighborhood looked like, the one where she would live with Greg Cherry.

  Awakened and annoyed by the sound of running water in the bathroom, Kent Mooney said, “Tim!” After receiving no response, he angrily got out of bed and made his way to the bathroom, where he discovered Tim, unconscious, naked and floating in a bathtub full of his own blood.

  Frantic, Kent dragged his son out of the bathtub and dialed 911. Once it was determined that his son was still breathing, Kent was instructed to tie towels around his son’s thighs at the location of the serrations and wait for the paramedics, who were already en route. Once they arrived and assessed the situation, they informed Kent that he was very lucky to have found Tim so soon after the initial injuries were sustained. They maintained that if another thirty minutes had passed, Tim would most likely have bled to death. It was the first time Kent had cried since he and his wife separated.

  chapter

  twenty-six

  Tracey Vance and her husband Jim put on their shoes Saturday afternoon, and she took her car keys from the kitchen table. She looked at Danny and said, “We should be back in a few hours. You and Brooke can get a movie on demand if you want, and there’s money to order food if you want, too. Be good.”

  Danny said, “Okay.”

  Jim said, “I know you’re disappointed about the game, but trust me, everything is going to be okay. You’re in the eighth grade. You still have your whole life ahead of you, and this game really didn’t matter.”

  Danny said, “I know,” even though he didn’t believe it.

  Tracey said, “Come on, we don’t want to be late.” She was looking forward to having sex with her husband without a condom, and she felt, in some small way, as though she had achieved a certain feminine victory on that day. It was similar to what she felt the day she’d gotten her diamond ring from Jim. She was happier than she had been in a long time.

  Jim looked at his son, who still looked forlorn, and as he walked out the door he said, “Look on the bright side—at least you’re not getting a laser beam in your balls.” Which made Danny smile.

  Brooke Benton arrived at Danny’s house a few minutes after his parents left to get Jim’s vasectomy. Brooke said, “I’m sorry, babe. I know that game was important to you, but you played really well, and, in my opinion, you still have, like, the best shot at being the starting JV quarterback next year.”

  Danny said, “Yeah, who knows? It’s all out of my hands at this point. Nothing I can do about it except try out next year and see what happens, I guess.”

  Brooke said, “Yeah, I guess so. So what are we going to do?”

  Danny said, “My mom said we could get a movie or something and she left money for food if you want to order something.”

  Brooke said, “Oh, yeah, we could do that. Or, I was thinking . . . how long are your parents gone for?”

  Danny said, “A few hours.”

  Brooke said, “Well, what if we . . . you know . . .”

  Danny said, “You want to have sex still?”

  Brooke said, “Yeah. In my opinion, we totally should. It’s not like we’re not going to be safe or anything. You still have those condoms your dad gave you, right?”

  Danny said, “Yeah, but I just—I still don’t know if we’re ready for this, you know?”

  Brooke said, “Well, I’m ready for it, and I think we should do it just once, and then we don’t have to again if you don’t want to.”

  Danny looked at Brooke. He remembered the second quarter of the football game, when he was unable to score. He placed some blame on her for that, and some part of him did feel that having sex with her forcefully would yield a certain amount of vindication. Beyond that, he felt that, if he got it out of the way, that would be one less thing he would have to worry about as he approached high school. He said, “Okay.”

  They went into Danny’s bedroom. Danny got a condom from the box his father had given him and set it on the bed next to them. They took off their clothes and Brooke reached down, stroking his penis, which became erect almost instantaneously. She said, “Okay, put it on.” Danny rolled the condom down the length of his penis. Brooke said, “Okay, I’m ready.”

  Danny slid his penis inside her. She experienced pain and said, “Ouch, slow down a little.” Danny did not comply. As his father was undergoing a vasectomy, Danny Vance broke through Brooke Benton’s hymen and continued to thrust his penis into her vagina with as much force as he could generate until he ejaculated. When he slid his penis out of her he saw blood, and when he looked in her eyes he saw tears.

  About the Author

  CHAD KULTGEN is the author of The Average American Male and The Lie. A graduate of the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts, he lives in California.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.

  Also by Chad Kultgen

  The Average American Male

  The Lie

  Credits

  Cover design by Milan Bozic

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  MEN, WOMEN & CHILDREN. Copyright © 2011 by Chad Kultgen. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transm
itted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  EPub Edition July 2011 ISBN: 9780062092236

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