“Let me take a look.”
Fuck, she’ll know you’re lying. You can hear her clomping toward the oven.
Thinking fast, you grip the baking rack with your entire hand. You pull it away, the crisscross marks of the wire rack already swelling and blistering your palm. You see a little piece of skin stuck to the rack, sizzling in the heat from the oven.
“Did you just…” Mom bends down, squinting in confusion.
“No, no, like I said—”
“I saw you.”
Fuck, this is the end. It’s one thing to be a weak, pathetic, genetically poor specimen, but deliberately burning your own hand? That’s outright psychotic.
“That was just incredibly…” She sounds dazed. Horror does that sometimes. She shakes her head slowly. Here it comes. “Impressive.”
The fuck?
“I must have underestimated your back pain. Anyone who would undertake such a heroic action just to prove his mettle, well…” She leans down slowly and very deliberately wraps her hand around the oven rack. She doesn’t cry out. She doesn’t even grimace. Jesus, who is this woman?
Slowly, she releases. Her hand is oozing and inflamed. She presses it to your mangled, burnt palm, looking straight into your eyes.
“That’s someone I want in my family. It’s an unconventional format, of course, but I think my husband will be happy to count this as a proving.”
A proving?
What the fuck is wrong with this woman?
* * *
If you want to leave this place NOW, go HERE.
If you’re just happy that Mom has finally warmed up to you, go HERE.
“Fine,” you sigh dramatically. Jimmy needs to know you are being extremely cool right now. “Bundle everything together and I’ll take care of it.”
“Thank you,” he says, stripping naked and throwing his clothing in the middle of the pile of sheets. Jesus, is Jimmy more hung than you? Check out that…NO, STOP LOOKING AT THE NUDE TEEN.
When you turn back around, he’s dressed, and the laundry is contained. You grab a few shirts from your luggage to make it more plausible and head down to the basement. Everyone’s washing machine is in the basement.
You’ve just managed to figure out the machine settings when Lindsi’s older sister, Luanne, walks in. You haven’t met yet, but she looks like Lindsi with ten more years of stress wrinkles and a body that never fully bounced back from pregnancy. It’s like looking into the future. God, you hope a future with Lindsi wouldn’t mean your very own Jimmy.
“Need some help with that?” she offers cheerfully.
“No, I’m fine, I think I’ve got it figured out.”
“Let me just check. This machine’s tricky, the colors cycle isn’t good for certain fabrics, and—oh.”
She’s peering into the machine, right at a big pile of sheets and one pair of Pokémon boxers. She plucks them out.
“But these are—oh.” She drops them hurriedly, scrunching up her nose in disgust before squinting at you suspiciously.
Oh yeah, she’s definitely noticed the semen.
* * *
Click HERE to continue.
“I feel for you, but you’re gonna have to deal with this one yourself.”
“But surely if you were a hardened sexual predator you wouldn’t leave such obvious evidence behind.” His inflectionlessness has taken on a note of desperation. “Anyone would realize that. They wouldn’t assume—”
“Dude. Not my problem.”
You pick up your clothes and head to the bathroom. You don’t want to have any more “sexual predator” discussions before coffee.
The rest of the day passes uneventfully. Apparently you slept through the men leaving to cut down the tree—thank god, that sounds fucking terrible—and Lindsi seems so grateful that you’re there, she’s going out of her way to run interference on Mom. By the time you sit down to dinner, you’re actually starting to think this was a good idea.
Until Luanne—Lindsi’s sister and Jimmy’s mother—opens her mouth.
“Jimmy, is there something you’ve been keeping from us?”
“To what do you refer, mother?” He stares at his brussels sprouts intently.
“I found your boxers in the laundry this morning, and I was worried.”
Jesus, he just threw them in with the laundry? He might as well have tied a bow on them and left them on his mom’s fucking pillow.
“Obviously you’re having some discharge; can you describe it for me?” Luanne says.
“Oh no, Jimmy, is something wrong?” Mom chimes in, looking worried.
“Nothing is wrong.” Jimmy is making markedly little eye contact, even for him.
“I saw traces of blood,” Luanne says, looking around meaningfully. “I was looking on WebMD and they say blood in pus could be a sign of gangrene, even something worse.”
Oh come on, she’s really floating dick gangrene as the answer?
“Have you noticed anything, Jimmy? Any sores or necrotic flesh?”
“Nothing has changed.”
“Then we have to go to the ER. Should I call an ambulance, or—”
“For Christ’s sake,” you say with a snorting laugh. “Stop embarrassing the kid. We all know it was a run-of-the-mill wet dream, right?”
Everyone stares at you, mouths dropping open in horror.
“Right?”
Apparently not.
* * *
If you want to apologize to try to smooth things over, go HERE.
If you’re just gonna let this one hang, ’cause Jesus fucking CHRIST you can’t listen to this idiocy anymore, go HERE.
“Umm…” You can’t imagine anything you’d be less good at than hunting—it’s always killing Bambi’s mom, you don’t care what anyone says—but this is the first time Mom has looked at you with anything less than pure and utter loathing. “Sure, yeah. That sounds…fun.”
“Perfect. Come on, I’ll wake Lars. He’ll explain things.”
Mom grabs your arm—she doesn’t even shudder at the gore—and hustles you inside, sitting you down at the kitchen table. The microwave clock reads 4:32. Poor Lars.
But when he appears in the doorway, he looks eager. So does Lindsi—she’s right behind him. They sit while Mom makes coffee.
“So I’m not sure if Mom explained,” Lars begins, folding his huge hands together on the table. Jesus, each finger is at least as big as a carrot.
“Explained that you’re a hunting family?”
“Well, yes, but I meant something more specific. We call it the proving.”
“The proving,” Lindsi echoes. That’s weird. Maybe she’s just too sleepy to get her timing right. Though you could swear you heard Mom say it, too. In unison with Lindsi.
“It’s a sort of…how do I put it?” Lars smiles ruefully, rubbing his blond hair. “Like a test of manhood in our family? It used to be a big deal, but now it’s just a fun tradition. We all do it.”
“They do,” Lindsi leans forward, eyes fever-bright. “It’s how they show they care about the family.”
“Anyway, the idea is you have to bring home a kill by the end of the night, prove you can provide and the like.”
“My family respects people who can fend for themselves,” Lindsi says, nodding rapidly.
“You should try it. You’ll have a blast, I promise,” Lars says, leaning down slightly to gaze into your eyes. He looks so friendly, like some kindly Norse myth, that you find yourself nodding along with Lindsi.
“So,” Mom says, setting three mugs of steaming coffee on the table. You can’t help but notice yours is the largest. “What do you say, are you up for it?”
You’re not, absolutely not. But how can you say no?
“Of course! I can’t wait to…prove?”
“The proving,” they all say in unison.
* * *
Click HERE to continue.
“What? No. God no. That’s barbaric.”
Mom actually shrinks back from you, he
r disgust is so deep. It appears the Ambien is really fucking with that “having any filter between your brain and your mouth” thing.
“Sorry, that was a poor choice of words. What I meant was that it’s not really for me. But I eat meat, so, you know, no judgment.”
“No need to explain,” she says, waving her hand dismissively. She’s already halfway back to the house, clearly uninterested in anything else you have to say.
• • •
You wake up the next morning to the sounds and smells of breakfast being made. Lindsi should have woken you—she has to know you’d want to help. You head down to the kitchen.
“Good morning! How can I pitch in?”
No one responds. Weird. Maybe the frying noises drowned you out?
You clear your throat loudly.
“’Morning, everyone. What can I do to help?”
Once again you’re met with silence.
“Lindsi?” You walk up and tap her on the shoulder.
She turns, her expression like a dozen sucked lemons.
“Is everything okay?”
“Come with me,” she hisses.
She pulls you, by the arm, to the front door.
“Why is everyone being so…distant?” you ask.
“Mom told us, obviously.”
“Told you?”
“That you refuse to hunt!” She wrinkles her nose like you’re a bad smell.
What do you say to that? Seriously, who cares if you hunt?
“If you won’t hunt, how can my family trust you to provide for me?” she asks sternly.
“Provide? What? I just got promoted…and you work.”
“You should go. It was nice of Mom to even let you stay the night.”
“Are you serious?”
“Uh, yeah. And don’t call again.”
“Lindsi, whether or not I hunt cannot be that big a—”
“You’re weak stock, okay? It’s that simple.” She turns to walk back to the kitchen. “I should have known better when he ate that quinoa salad,” she mutters.
The End.
You only have to make it the few miles to the VanWhittington house. And the time in the bathroom has really cleared things out. You’ll be fine going freeball for half an hour.
You exit the bathroom to find the entire VanWhittington clan waiting.
“I was just about to come in after you!” Lindsi’s dad says, grinning.
“Yes, you were in there quite some time.” Lindsi’s mom glares. “I suppose you had a fairly good reason for interrupting the entire service?”
“Sorry, stomach problems. From travel, I think. I’m feeling better now, though.”
“That’s convenient.” She turns on her heel and marches toward the exit. You all follow, packing into the car.
It’s a tight squeeze with five adults, especially since one of them is Lindsi’s brother Lars, a man whose body seems to have been fashioned out of multiple tree trunks. You squeeze up against the door, half hovering so as not to get too friendly with Lars.
Lindsi’s mom turns around to say something, then stops with a horrified sniff. Her hand flies to her mouth and her eyes are wide. She’s staring straight at your fly. That’s weird…
Oh fuck, somehow it’s come down since you left the bathroom. And scooting around the car has caused the tip to flop out onto your pants.
You zip up so fast you catch your dick in the teeth.
“AHHHH!”
You swat at your junk, trying to get the zipper to unclench.
Of course, now everyone has noticed your little…peep show.
* * *
Click HERE to continue.
Really, it’s pretty miraculous your pants are even intact. You’ve managed to work some things through your system in here, but it would be playing with fire to put them on with nothing between you and the fabric.
You’ll just have to fashion some temporary underwears out of toilet paper.
You start wrapping one leg, then the other, then around the entire middle to get some junk coverage, then repeat the process. You’ve barely built a single layer before you’ve totally emptied the roll in your stall.
You peek beneath the divider, but you don’t see any feet. Quickly, you open the door, jerking your pants off the back and shambling over to the next stall, careful not to move your legs too quickly lest you tear through the layer you have created. Fuck, no toilet paper in there either. But there’s one more stall. You start toward it…
The door opens.
“I was just coming in to check on you; you’ve been gone a long—oh.”
It’s Lindsi’s father.
He’s definitely noticed the toilet paper underwears.
* * *
If you want to just tell him the truth, go HERE.
If you want to tell him the first lie you can think of, go HERE.
Finally, the vomiting stops.
Lindsi’s mom turns to you, eyes steely and cold.
It. Was. You, she mouths.
You gulp. You could deny it, but somehow you know it won’t make any difference.
She picks her way between piles of sick to the front of the church, where she consults with the shell-shocked priest. After a few moments she waves you over.
“I was just telling Reverend Mather that we’d be happy to help him clean up this horrible mess. Since you and I obviously have stronger stomachs than the rest of the congregation.”
“Oh, but this young man isn’t even a member of the church. And it’s Christmas Eve. We’ll find…a way…” The priest’s eyes glaze over as he stares at the congregation limping away from the devastation they’ve—you’ve—wrought.
“No, he’s glad to help.” She smiles a reptilian smile, her narrowed eyes never leaving yours. “Aren’t you?”
“Yes. Sure. Least I could do.”
“Good. Let’s get started.” She walks away, presumably to find mopping supplies.
Hours later, the clock hits midnight.
It’s officially Christmas morning, but you’re still swabbing puke off the vast church floor. You don’t even have the comfort of having Lindsi with you—her gag reflex was too strong for her to stay.
“You missed a spot between those pews,” her mother says sharply.
You sigh, heading back to where she’s pointing. You still have at least thirty rows of vomit to mop up.
The only thing stronger than the smell is the potency of the hatred you can feel pouring out of Lindsi’s mother.
The End.
You trudge through the snow with Brad and duck inside the faux stable.
You grab baby Jesus. He’s stuck. Maybe even nailed in place? Huh. That’s kinda ironic.
“Hurry up, bro!” Brad yells.
You position your right foot on a Wise Man’s crotch for leverage, then start pulling the Jesus’s head, the only part you can get a good grip on.
Something’s giving way…
POP!
Oh Jesus, you’ve decapitated…Jesus!
Two meaty hands grab you and toss you to the ground. From your prone position you can see Brad and Blitzer sprinting toward the Porsche.
“You’re under arrest for a committing a religious hate crime!” screams a police officer.
You feel the officer’s knee digging into the small of your back.
“AHHHHH!”
“SHUT UP!”
“MY BACK!!!”
The officer slaps on a tight pair of handcuffs. You shift slightly; one of them cuts into your wrist.
The policeman starts reciting your Miranda rights.
“Brad. BRAAAAAAADD!!!!”
• • •
After a sleepless night in the drunk tank, you’re released. Apparently “minor vandalism” isn’t actually a hate crime after all. Though the fine’s pretty fucking steep.
Your first phone call when you get home is to your girlfriend, Lindsi.
You tell her the story, sprinkling in a few white lies to make yourself come off better
.
Somehow, it fails to elicit sympathy.
“How could you do something so stupid?” she spits.
“I dunno,” you mumble, opening up Facebook.
Huh, look at that. Brad’s posted a new video to his timeline.
“You don’t know?”
And it features you…getting tackled by a police officer.
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
A new comment appears on the video. It’s from Brad: #ChristmasChampion.
“Hello?” Lindsi screams into the phone.
The video is racking up tens of likes. It even has two shares. A smile spreads across your face, warming you from the inside. You’ve never had a post perform so well.
“Are you still there?” Lindsi yells. “HELLO?!”
Wow! Brad just clicked “like” on his own post!
“You know what? GOODBYE!” screams Lindsi.
You can’t believe it. Brad’s called you out as cool. Publicly, even!
It’s a Christmas miracle!
The End.
You trudge through the snow and duck inside the faux stable with Brad.
You’ve never vandalized anything before. You’ve never even shoplifted. And now you’re supposed to steal baby Jesus, from a church, on Christmas Eve? That’s like going from straight-edge to heroin without stopping off at booze.
Could you fake a seizure?
No, they might send you to the hospital, and your insurance is pretty shit. Plus, your acting skills are also pretty shit.
You take an exaggerated step forward and pretend to stumble over an exposed part of the crèche display.
You scream in pretend agony. “AHHHH! I think I’ve sprained my ankle!”
Maybe that was a bit too specific. Whatever, too late now. You writhe around in pretend pain.
Blitzer and Brad just stare at you. It doesn’t look like they’re buying it.
Choose Your Own Misery Page 13
