by Deena Bright
Char tries to comfort me and tells me to relax and just wait for the end of the story, before I react. Fuming, at him and at her, I wait, ready to kill people. Char explains that she smiled and knelt down. She opened his zipper, took out his prick, and began stroking him. Stroking him? My best friend fondled my husband’s hard-on?
At this point in the story, I’m done! I stand up, open my mouth to scream, but Char hushes me, begging me to just listen to the rest of the story. Apparently, Marcus started getting into it and rested his head on the door of the truck, at which time Char took a lighter and water bottle from inside her purse, while continuing to stroke him. Then, quietly and just like that, she set his pubic hair on fire. He freaked, and she doused his balls in water. She stood up and said, “You’re marrying my fucking best friend tomorrow, you prick, keep it in your pants from here on out or you’ll see how hot it really can get, mother fucker.”
That liar. Marcus had some makeshift bandages on his testicles on our wedding day and throughout our honeymoon. He said that he tried to use a straight-edged razor to “manscape” for our big day, and things went terribly awry. I thought it was the cutest story, never questioning it. I always hated that we didn’t make love on our wedding night or honeymoon, but never thought in a million years…
“Well, at least I get to light his dick on fire again. That’s good news.” Char looks at me sheepishly. I can tell that she’s worried I’ll be mad. “You know, they do come in different sizes, bigger ones, if we’re really looking at the bright side… different colors too…” I laugh and shake my head—never being able to stay mad at her.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask, knowing the answer already.
“We all tried to tell you. All of us. You wouldn’t listen. Ohhh fuck, looks like Jasper just got even richer.” My brother’s already crazy loaded. He has a ton of money, so I’m a little lost at what she’s talking about. “Jasper had under three years. Jocelyn gave you four; I thought you’d at least make five. Well, it’s the best 100 bucks I ever lost,” she shrugs, matter-of-factly.
Appalled, I demand, “You guys made bets on how long my marriage would last? Who does that?”
“People who love you and knew that he was not the man for you. I’m just glad you figured it out before he knocked you up. But you should get an AIDS test or some shit like that. He’s nasty.” She jumps across the bed and tackles me.
“Are you implying that people with AIDS are nasty?”
“Oh God, stop always being so politically correct. No, people with AIDS aren’t nasty, but Marcus fucking is. His dick is going to shrivel up and fall off one of these days—inside some skank’s snatch.”
“Char, what am I going to do?” I ask, feeling the fear of the unknown suffocating me.
“Janelle, you’re going to be great. This is just a life bump. One year from now, he’s going to be somebody else’s jit-bag problem.” Marcus coined the term jit-bag, because he hated the word ‘douche,’ but Char always loved calling him his own name. He is a jit-bag, and she’s right. Was this really a life bump? Could I really soar right over it?
As we’re leaving the hotel, Char notices my car in the hotel parking lot with a note on it. Confused, I tear open the envelope.
Janelle,
I hope your not mad. I kept your keys last night. Thought you could use one less hassle today. My buddy, Vince, and I picked up your car. Your keys are at the front desk. Call me… soon. Don’t make me die waiting. I put my number in your phone. Look under “Dark fantasy.”
Briggs
Ps. Know it’s the wrong your. Just wanted to piss you off. See, I learned something that year.
“Oh. My. God. I cannot wait for you to fuck him. If you’re not, can I? Janelle! Oh my God!” Charlene’s skipping and dancing around me, like a schoolgirl high on lollipops and acid. I can’t even think straight.
Briggs left last night and went and got my car? That’s beyond nice, thoughtful even. Guys aren’t thoughtful. Are they? Marcus wouldn’t have done something like that. He probably wouldn’t have taken me to get my car today if I had gotten too drunk to drive. When I woke up this morning, my mind was clear, less liquor-clouded. I planned to let the whole Briggs thing die out. I’d never see him again, so what did it matter? But now, I’ll have to thank him. I’ll have to see him or at least call him. Damn. He’s good.
After I get my keys and Char and I decide to meet at my sister’s house, I get into my car. As I settle in and put my key in the ignition, something’s off. Way off. My car is no longer the fast-food bag receptacle that I’m ashamed of. Half-empty water bottles aren’t strewn about. My car, my gas-fueled garbage dumpster, is spotless.
Very good. Very damn good.
My phone died sometime in the night, so I plug it into my car charger. Immediately, I’m alerted to three texts: two from Jocelyn and one from Dark Fantasy. Apparently, he took my number from my phone too. I touch the screen:
DARK FANTASY: Don’t be mad. Just wanted to help. Call me later. Do it. Let yourself.
I certainly am not mad. That is not what I’m feeling at all. Oh boy. Things are truly getting tough. I immediately change “Dark Fantasy” to “Briggs.” I like being politically correct.
But first thing’s first, I have to talk to Joz. My older and overly protective sister needs to know what’s going on. Char’s going to Joz’s first. She’s going to tell Jocelyn and Rick the whole story about Marcus and Lauren before I get there. I just want it done, known, out of the way, so we can start planning my next step, my future. I can’t figure this shit out without my forces behind me. Oftentimes, family can see the clearer picture when you’re too dumb and cloudy to see it yourself.
Honestly, I don’t know the first thing about divorce or how to get divorced. I drive around for a while and get a Chai Tea Latte from Starbucks, listening to Air Supply, explain how to “make love out of nothing at all,” something I am seriously considering right now.
It’s torture to not drive to my house to see if Marcus is home. He’s supposed to be golfing today. I can’t help but wonder if he still went. Who am I kidding? He still went. Life and obstacles didn’t set Marcus off his game. I often used to wonder if he had real feelings. The thought used to keep me up at night. I worried that a man without real feelings couldn’t be a good father. I’d stopped caring about him being a good husband a while ago. Marcus was never going to be a loving and attentive husband. But I still worried that he wouldn’t really love our kids. Guess I dodged that one.
AS I PULL into Jocelyn’s driveway, I’m surprised to see Jasper’s car there too. I knew he had the marathon today. Could Jasper have missed the race for me? Something more must be going on. Joz and Jasper come out and meet me in the driveway, Char stays on the porch, looking odd. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought that Char looked ecstatic. Jocelyn puts her arm around me, and leads me into the house.
“Jocelyn, I don’t need or want sympathy and pity. I just want to figure out what to do next,” I beg her.
She laughs, “I’m not going to give you any pity-party Nelle. I’m about to congratulate you for finally seeing that jit-bag for the scum of the Earth that he is.” Jocelyn looks so serious and not at all sympathetic. What’s with these people? They couldn’t have despised him this badly.
“J and I were waiting until your 30th birthday to do this, because we were hoping you’d figure everything out for yourself. We didn’t want you to waste any more of your life, she explains, handing me a file, marked “The Fucker.” I glance at them and then at Char, she’s nodding, urging me to look at the file. I read the file.
“I JUST NEED to think,” I storm off after I read the file. Jasper, Jocelyn, and Charlene are following close behind me to my car. “I have to go.” Charlene jumps in my car and states that I’m not going anywhere without her. Jasper and Jocelyn stay back, observing my freak-out at a slight distance away. As I’m buckling my seatbelt, I look up and Jasper’s standing at the door. Reluctantly, I put the window
down and look at him, permitting him to say whatever it is he wants to say.
“Janelle, I left the marathon to be with you today. I know how hard this has to be,” he consoles, putting his hand on my arm, which is a very intimate and sensitive move for Jasper to make. “We’re here for you, but take some time, figure out what you want for once, write that musical you’ve been wanting to write, don’t rush into anything.”
Jasper pats my arm, squeezes, and then adds, “And call that Leo kid for me. I still need him to do my landscaping,” he chuckles, backing away from the car. I smile at him and nod. Leave it to Jasper, no matter what, he always ends every conversation about himself, making people laugh. I pull out of the driveway, leaving Jocelyn and Jasper standing in the driveway. Char’ll get her car at some point.
I loved my brother and sister. I didn’t know what I would have done without them in my life. Right now though, I can’t decide if I hate them or love them even more. I just can’t wrap my brain around the fact that they knew things about my husband for two years and didn’t tell me. I can’t believe that they lived their lives like they knew nothing. I’m pretty sure that I’m pissed. I feel doubly betrayed, triply betrayed. Char, Jocelyn, and Jasper all knew that my husband was a cheating son of a bitch. Hell, if you counted Marcus too, then I was quadruply betrayed! But Jocelyn’s right; she knows me too well. She even said, “Janelle, what do you always say about women being blind?” She was right, but I never meant myself.
Or did I?
I have this strict rule that I never tell my friends, female friends, anything negative about their boyfriends or spouses. Women are blind to the flaws of the men in their lives, until the fateful day when they can finally see. It’s pointless to sit and tell any woman that her man lacks—anything. She just cannot see it. Then suddenly, BAM, she finally sees him for who he really is. It doesn’t matter what anyone says or even what anyone can prove. All that matters is what she can see when she finally chooses to see it. Was that me? I never thought it was, but damn, certainly seems like it, especially now with the file.
The file.
Jocelyn had been having Marcus followed for two years, nearly two years. The first Christmas we were married, Jocelyn and Rick had a holiday party. Apparently , Marcus was drunk and hit on my sister. She laughed it off, didn’t make him feel uncomfortable or even try to put him in his place, but started her own surveillance. After a few weeks of getting nothing on him, because she had kids and a husband of her own to tend to, Jocelyn hired someone to follow him.
Jocelyn compiled an entire file of pictures of Marcus with various women, at many places, doing unspeakable sexual acts. How the P.I. got the photos was beyond me, but the pictures were clear. Marcus was a nasty, good-for-nothing cheater. But the worst of all was the final document she showed me. Just the thought of it, brought me into a crying, crumbling mess. Bawling, unable to see through my streaming, flooding tears, I pulled the car over to the side of the road.
“I know. He sucks. He doesn’t deserve you. I’m so so so sorry. You deserve the best, Janelle. You know that, right?” Char tries to console me, rubbing my back and pulling me into her. How could I have been so blind?
“Char, a vasectomy! He knew how much I wanted kids. How could he? How could he?” Marcus told me that he was going fishing with his buddies for four days last fall. But he didn’t. He scheduled a vasectomy and spent the weekend at a hotel, recovering with bags of frozen peas and skanky Lauren to take care of him. I cannot believe this. Jocelyn knew for nine months and didn’t tell me. Nine months? How ironic. How could she not tell me? Why were they waiting to tell me?
I hated myself for being right about women, especially about being right about myself. I should have seen all of this coming, known it was coming. I didn’t even think that it was possible for a man to get a vasectomy if he was married and didn’t have kids. I would think that the wife would have to sign off on it or something like that. Well, it certainly should be a rule, if it isn’t. I’m going to write a strongly worded letter—to someone—I don’t know who, but I am. That bastard. He knew I wanted a big family. He did too.
Or did he?
Was every aspect of our marriage, our relationship a big, fat, fucking lie?
Char insists that she needs to drive, while I cry and scream at the top of my lungs about my cheating, stupid husband. Putting Alanis Morissette on the radio, I text Marcus in between rants while belting out various angry choruses.
JANELLE: I’m on my way to the house. Don’t be there, you snipped dick, lying, cheating bastard.
I need to get some things. I’ll worry about actually moving out soon. Right now, I just want some of my stuff, and I’m certainly not ready for a face-to-face altercation with him. I’m not even sure if I ever want to see him again. What would be the point? Nothing he can say or do would ever redeem him in my eyes again, and certainly not in my heart.
Thankfully, Marcus isn’t home when I get there. His golf clubs aren’t in the den. He must’ve still gone golfing and is still out with his friends. Nothing deters that prick from his scheduled plans. There’s a small part of me that still hoped that he had skipped his golf game, ignored my text about being gone, and was home, waiting to beg for my forgiveness. Let it go Janelle, never going to happen.
I grab some clothes and bathroom necessities. I’ll get the big stuff on Monday, when I know he’ll be at work. I can hire a moving company to come get it all. I don’t want to keep much, especially the crap in the house that we bought together or that reminds me of him. He can keep it. He can definitely keep our bed, the bed that he screwed Lauren in. The bed she handcuffed him to. The bed that I thought would be the place that we conceived our first child…
Bastard.
“I wish I could’ve set our bed on fire without burning the house down.” I yell, punching the dashboard, as I begin to back out of the driveway.
Char laughs, but then gets a glint in her eye that means her wheels are turning. She makes me pull back up the driveway. “What the fuck are we doing? Why are we NOT fucking with that bastard?” she questions, getting out of the car with mischief and revenge written all over her face.
WE’RE LAUGHING AS we run to get into my car. “Hurry, hurry, hurry,” I yell. Char’s jumping in the passenger’s seat as I begin screeching out of the driveway.
“That was so fucking great. I can’t believe you let me do it,” Char squeals. I’m pretty pleased with myself too. I’m not the impulsive, vindictive type, but it does feel good to let out some anger. Let’s face it, Marcus has it coming.
The first thing this “scorned” bitch did was rub Ben-gay all over my vibrator. God knows, I’ll never use that thing again. Char promised me that she’d pick me up a new vibrator this week on her lunch break. Being a teacher, I can’t actually frequent the sex toy shop down the road. I hope the Ben-gay really “heats” up Lauren’s vag in ways she’s never felt before. Char didn’t think that was good enough. She had other plans for our revenge.
It took us a while to get the ping pong table up the steps from the basement and into the driveway. It was a lot heavier than she and I thought t it would be. Then, I grabbed the Keurig, as Char got all of Marcus’ flavored K-cups. We put everything in the middle of the driveway. Then, Char spray painted a note on our driveway. (I wouldn’t let her spray paint the garage door.)
The note said:
I told you it would get hotter, mother fucker!
You’ve been CHARRED by Char—again!
Then, Char used a small amount of gasoline from our gas gallon in the garage, sprinkled it on the ping pong table and Keurig, and we watched the entire pile ignite. It was quite symbolic really, watching my life, my past, what I thought was my future, all go up in flames.
“So are you okay?” Char finally stops laughing and can actually speak. “You should be. This is a good thing.”
“It sure doesn’t feel good, but I’m a survivor, right? I can deal.” I wasn’t so sure, but I’m certain that’s what she
wanted to hear. I know that’s what she’ll tell Jocelyn and Jasper when she talks to them again later today, which I know she will. They’ll probably be talking about me for weeks now. I’m just grateful that Jasper is going to let me stay in his pool house.
Jasper allowed me to decorate the entire pool house. Everything in his pool house I picked out and designed. I enjoyed doing it, because he let me spend all of his money on things that I liked and wanted for it. It had been a blast. Today at Jocelyn’s, he revealed that he had done so, because he figured that I’d need to live there someday.
My God. Women are stupid. I’m stupid. I always believed that women knew deep within their heart of hearts when their men were cheating. I assumed that we could sense when something was amiss. When your husband isn’t attentive, it means he’s being attentive somewhere else, to someone else, right? I just cannot believe that I missed the signs. Did I miss them or was I merely ignoring them? Oh damn him! Damn. My stomach aches, feeling empty and alone.
AFTER I’M ALL settled in, Jasper stopped in to see if Char needed a ride to get her car. Before they left, Jasper gave me another file. Another file. God help me. Char’s face tells me that she knows what’s in this one too. As they’re leaving, she reminds me that she’ll be by at 10:00 the next morning to get me.
Perplexed, I ask, “Get me for what?”
“Our spa day, remember?” Shit. I’d so forgotten. We’re supposed to be spending the entire day getting spa treatments for our “kick off the summer pampering day.” Char always finds a reason to get facials and massages.
“Char, I don’t think—”
“Perfect, see you at 10:00. Love you,” she calls as she and Jasper leave. Being alone in the pool house with my two duffel bags of clothes, my books, my laptop, and another file, I feel the gravity of the situation engulf me. I’m all alone. I have a cheating husband and still one more file to peruse—a file that will once again remind me of the horrifying choices I’ve made. What the fuck could be in this one? It mustn’t be too bad since they both figured I could read it alone. Right?
