www.RayGregory.com

 

 

 

 

Pet Peeves

 

by Ray Gregory

 

 

There were plenty of bowls Jenn could use. So why his favorite? It was the only one big enough for his cereal. Now it was sitting there in the dish rack with specks of her dried-up cereal on it, one “speck” as big as his thumbnail! His mother had been a slovenly dishwasher too — had been — before his dad….

     Ted grabbed the bowl, then wheeled, hurling it to the stone-tiled kitchen floor. Jenn was still in her cotton nightshirt. She froze a few paces back as the bone-white bowl exploded near her bare feet. One ceramic shard whizzed past her shin, grazing it, drawing blood.

     Cherry, their miniature schnauzer, scrambled out of the kitchen.

     “Are you crazy?” Jenn screamed. She stared down at her shin, fists clenched. A single, red trickle inched toward her ankle. “You prick!” She turned and ran through the dining room, then back upstairs slamming the bathroom door.

     “Well — that’s what she gets,” Ted muttered. He exhaled long and loud. “Creeping up on me like that. How was I supposed to know she was right behind me?" If he had known, he thought, he could have saved that bowl, just smacked her. “Shit!” he yelled, hoping she’d hear him. He’d have to eat his cereal out of one of those stupid little bowls now. “Fuck!” Why’d she make him do that? She knew better than to use his bowl. She always knew better.

     On the way to the stairs, he saw Cherry cowering by the sofa in the living room. He went back and poured out her breakfast kibbles, then added a few extra to make up for the trauma. She hadn’t done anything wrong. “Sorry, girl,” he said, stroking her head.

     Then he trudged up the stairs, feeling more put out with every step. His old man hadn’t stopped at just one bowl. Old-school maybe, but there was a guy with standards. Ted’s mom — she’d looked as hot as Jenn back then too — had worn over-sized sunglasses for weeks after her dishwashing lesson. And the new set of dishes she’d bought had remained spotless ever since. Back then, before going white-collar with the union leadership, his old man had done real, physical work. He hadn’t frequented any “pansy-ass gym” to keep in shape or let off steam. He’d got all his exercise on the job — and in the sack. Sure, the money had often been tight back then, but things had been a lot simpler too. Everyone had known their place, known what was expected.

     Ted sighed long and hard outside the bathroom door. “Why’d you have to use my bowl?” He jiggled the knob, but it was locked. “Why do you make me…?” He exhaled again. “Look, sorry about your leg, okay? I didn’t see you there. All right?”

     “Go fuck yourself,” Jenn yelled back.

     Ted clenched his teeth. “How was I supposed to know you were right behind me? The way you….” He knew her “wound” was barely more than a scratch. She’d surely doctored it lavishly by now, with antiseptic ointment and one of those giant band-aides she liked. Then he thought about her leg — her legs! — and that flimsy nightshirt she wore. It barely covered her ass. And the way it draped her jiggling tits, roused her nipples! He felt the stirring in his groin again, the swelling heat. Adrenalin wasn’t just for anger, he sagely counseled his buddies whenever one of them complained about an unruly wife. “C’mon, let me kiss it — make it better,” he pleaded, tempering his voice with playfulness now.

     “Go fuck yourself,” she said again, but her voice sounded more petulant than angry now.

     “Would if I could,” he sniggered. “C’mon, baby, open up. C’mon.”

 

#

 

Jenn loved it when Ted’s voice got deep and hungry like that. After a couple of seconds, she unlatched the door. It creaked open. She peeked out. It was Saturday, and Ted was in one of his old, bleached-cotton shirts. He probably planned to mow the lawn or tinker at his workbench in the garage. His shirt was still unbuttoned. She could see his chiseled pecs and six-pack lurking in the shadows. His skin smelled so good too in the morning, moist, musky. He hadn’t even zipped his baggy chinos yet. Just the thought of his muscles…! She loved feeling his weight on her, feeling him in her.

     “Sorry, baby,” he whispered now, his voice so low, so soothing. Maybe it had been her fault, she thought. Maybe she should have stayed away from that bowl. Maybe she shouldn’t have let him out of bed so early this morning either.

 

#

 

They woke three hours later. As usual, Jenn marveled at the dreamy makeup sex, how Ted could rock her world. Now it was lunchtime already, and they were both ravenous. While Ted took a shower, Jenn hurried downstairs. She snatched the newspaper off the front porch, then gutted it before laying the remaining sections in a neat pile on the kitchen table — Ted hated seeing all the ad pages and “cultural crap.” She swept the pieces of broken bowl onto the discarded classified pages, crunched them into a ball, closed the lid of the trash can on it. History.

     Then she cooked up omelets, fat with diced ham and cheese and green peppers, as Mr. Coffee gurgled and wheezed in the background like a congested baby. When Ted came down, they devoured the omelets, along with toast and jam and fresh, black coffee. As Ted passed scraps under the table to Cherry, Jenn playfully mentioned a novelty baby bonnet she’d seen on a dog clothes website. It would look so cute on Cherry, she said. “Over my dead body!” Ted mock growled. They both laughed.

     When Ted finished eating and got up, he told Jenn she was as good in the kitchen as she was in bed — “well, almost,” and he grinned. He kissed her, then gave her breasts a parting squeeze before heading out to mow the lawn.

     Jenn took Cherry out for a walk. It was a hot day. Neither she nor Cherry wanted to venture more than a block before they turned back to the air-conditioned comfort of the house. When Ted finished with the lawnmower, he came in, took another shower, then fixed himself a cold drink. He settled in on the sofa in the den before the TV, propped his white-socked feet up on the Ottoman, then channel-surfed for interesting sports. Cherry snuggled up on his lap.

     Jenn went out for groceries, but she drove to the mall first to get four new bowls, the exact kind and size and shade as the one Ted had smashed. When she got back, she washed and dried them carefully before slipping them into the cabinet as a surprise. She spent the rest of the afternoon on her computer in the spare bedroom, first checking the news and answering email, then settling in to shop for more summer wear. She wanted to get some tank tops, and maybe a sunhat, and she definitely needed more sandals, especially the strappy, daring-heeled kind Ted liked to see her in, even in bed sometimes.

     “I’m going to the gym now,” Ted said suddenly leaning through the door of the spare bedroom. His gym bag already dangled from his hand. “Nothing but shit on TV today.”

     “Okay, honey.” She got up and went over to hug him tightly. “Bed was great this morning,” she purred in his ear.

     “You’re right about that,” he said, pressing her to his groin, giving her buttocks a firm squeeze. “Might be more where that came from later. Seeya, babe.” He headed out smiling.

 

#

 

Moments after Ted had locked the front door behind himself, dejected little Cherry wandered into the spare bedroom. “What’s wrong, girl? Daddy gone?” Jenn helped the little dog up to her lap. “Yeah, I’m a sucker for him too,” she said stroking Cherry’s wiry coat as she rested her muzzle on Jenn’s thigh and whimpered. “Don’t worry,” Jenn purred, “he always comes back.”

     Jenn returned to her computer screen, to the sandals she liked, wondering how she’d look in them. She imagined Ted hovering over her in bed, grasping her ankles, examining and approving her provocative new footwear. God, she loved the way he looked at her! And the things he’d say: How most women looked better in clothes, but she looked best without them. And how he proudly pointed out the way her hips swayed when she walked to his buddies. And how he went on about her legs, her “great legs.” He liked nothing better than seeing her in high heels and short skirts. And when some strange guy stared too long or hard, Ted even got in his face. What a primal turn-on that is!

     She stared out the window remembering how perfect everything had been at commencement: her, the dazzling, summa cum laude blond, double major in literature and art history; Ted, her tanned, chiseled, grad-student fiancé, the perfect catch, on the alpha-male fast track already with his brash charisma and brand new MBA.

     Their wedding two weeks later had been picture perfect too, with her father springing for that ritzy garden setting with all the trimmings, from the string ensemble to the snow-white swans. Ted at twenty-six had been the hottest guy in five states in his cream tuxedo. She, in that heavenly, silk, strapless gown, had been in her best shape ever. They’d looked better than the air-brushed pictures in those glossy wedding magazines. In the spring warmth and the fragrance of the flowers, under that powder-blue sky, it’d been all they could do not to consummate the marriage right then and there in front of everyone.

     She’d felt so incredibly lucky hearing Ted brag about how he’d “won her.” But afterward…? now? Was it marriage itself, the state of it, the condition? Did Ted feel trapped? Had he stopped trying? It’d all been so gradual, so subtle: a little irritation here, a minor blowup there, then a thoughtless smack or worse, but always followed by profuse apologies, then the exciting, cathartic sex. She used to think makeup sex was a myth or a joke, maybe the low-life equivalent of marriage counseling, but now, with Ted…? It was powerful, addictive. But the in-between times, between the fixes, when her stomach knots, her temples clench….

     She could see herself teetering now on those sexy heels on her computer screen — sidestepping, weaving, ducking. It was like a minefield: Ted’s anger, his rage over every little thing. Now, just two years into their marriage, she had to tread lightly and carefully all the time, trying not to set him off. But she never knew what it took, which way to step, what would rankle his hidden, crisscrossed tripwires and make him explode again.

     But maybe that was it: maybe she just had to take the bad with the good. Her own parents, as upstanding and reserved as they were, had gone through some rough patches too. What couple hadn’t? Ted had edge all right, real, raw physical edge. He was hard, exciting. High-strung and hung! — God, she even talked like him now, even thought like him. The first time she’d seen him — a ll of him! — she’d nearly swooned like the rake-smitten heroine in some Victorian romance. And then his hungry kisses, how he’d devoured her, then taken her, impaling her and her heart. She still flushed thinking about it: him, her, together, one.

     Ted was the perfect match for her, she figured, the perfect foil for her timid, over-romantic girlishness. After him, the soft, “sensitive” types just didn’t cut it anymore. Ted was the kind of guy you could count on in a pinch, full of physicality and determination, ready for anything. She could never be satisfied with anything less now.

     Maybe he did get too physical sometimes, she thought, but thanks to him, now she was pretty “expressive” herself. She’d hit him too, and hard. God, she’d never thought herself capable of that, yet how easy it’d been. “Press my button and I’ll knock your block off.” What a dark rush, even liberating, for someone like her.

     She’d never known real love/hate before, both feelings at once, not outside her fiction reading or the dopey advice columns anyway, not gut real. It wasn’t that she’d been totally unphysical before. She’d always worked out, and had the toned bod to prove it. She was quick with new exercise and dance routines, and good in bed too, no faking necessary. She’d always fancied herself the upscale girl next door— the bookish but beautiful girl in the luxury brownstone next door — but with a daring side too. But now with Ted — Ted who loved to dress her and take her out and flaunt her — she could actually play the role, and to the hilt. Anger though? real punch-his-lights-out physical rage? That had never been an option before, in her fantasies or her nightmares. Her elite parents never touched each other in anger. But Ted, with his rough dad…? Had he ever known anything else?

     What a great job Ted had done keeping his anger under wraps — before. The hitting had only started after the honeymoon. Just a turf squabble or a pecking-order thing, she’d figured, more of Ted’s coarse dad’s influence. But thankfully, the hard stuff had been short-lived. The time she’d gone to work at the museum — where she was an assistant exhibition coordinator — with a swollen cheek and sworn she’d been a klutz and fallen down the basement stairs, Ted had got threatening calls from three of her associates. Actually, she’d smacked him harder than she’d realized that time. She’d known he hadn’t meant to overdo it when he’d returned the favor. But the threats from her friends and the idea of police involvement had put him on notice. He’d never hit her in the face again after that. Lucky too, and a real sign of her friends’ loyalty, she figured, that no one had mentioned it to her attorney father, who was on the museum’s board of directors.

     It seemed there was always something just below the surface, seething there, waiting to blow, something Ted never talked about, never could talk about. With any mention of talk, he’d always sail out the door. She wondered if he even knew himself what it was. It couldn’t be his work. She knew how men brought their troubles home with them, how they took it out on their families. Even her father had been morose at the dinner table sometimes. But Ted loved being a broker. He was such a go-getter, he loved the pressure. He thrived on it, got big bonuses. His eyes lit up when he talked about his work. So what then?

     But maybe anything, even a fight, was better than saying or doing nothing. Was that why she made him do those things? That was what he always said, that she made him do it, and that wasn’t a complete cop-out, or even much of an exaggeration. She did know the score, what he was like. She often was the one to blame. She wasn’t stupid, or innocent. But why did she invite the punishment? Did she really want it, even deserve it? Was it really her fault?

     Who was she kidding? She knew what it was. So did Ted, deep down, really. Of course it was that, the one thing they were missing, the thing they both…. What else could it be? It wasn’t like they’d been wasting time trying either. She’d even joked to her girlfriends about not just being a MILF someday, but a grandMILF. Grad school for her could wait. That was their plan. When the time came she’d stay at home and do the job right: mothering and milk on demand. If the time came. Of course that was what was eating Ted — eating them both — like a wolf gnawing at their guts.

     Everyone was wondering. They’d been trying almost a year. Ted’s mom had dropped a newborn every year for four years straight. Her own mother had been two for two. Her younger sister, Pam, had already confided to her about a secret abortion. So how come perfect Jenn wasn’t pregnant yet? What was wrong with Ted anyway? Why hadn’t he knocked up his prime, young wife yet? Why couldn’t he? She knew that was what Ted thought, or couldn’t bear to think.

     She’d heard about what Ted’s dad had said. Mack, Ted’s older brother, who was as big a lout as their old man, had been more than happy to repeat all the jokes his father’d made when he’d gone duck hunting with his sons recently: how Ted forgot to load his shot, so when he shot his wad, it was only the wad; how Ted couldn’t shoot his way out of a wet condom; how Ted was such a lousy shot he couldn’t hit the broad side of a — broad. Funny as hell, right? She’d wanted to strangle them both, the crude old bastard and Ted’s big-mouth brother.

     Despite all her hip body consciousness now, her fitness and stylish clothes and flair on the dance floor, she knew she’d been incredibly mind-centered before, even fanciful about life. Reading and art had remained her prime interests even after her hormones had kicked in, after most girls her age had started using their schoolbooks, if they’d still bothered with them at all, like geisha fans to flutter their eyelashes over. Then Ted had come along in college, handsomer than any fictional character she’d ever known, from Jane Austen to Jackie Collins. He’d literally swept her off her feet with his brawny arms, given her chills as he’d twirled her on the university quadrangle in front of everyone. But now that she’d been trussed in that wedding gown, gift-wrapped and garlanded like some fertility offering, now that she was a wife ripe for childbearing, it was all about her body, and not even her whole body. Everything was centered on her belly — her still taut, flat belly. Everyone yearned to see it swell. They itched to pat it, feel it, to know what was going on in there. She’d been reduced to breeding chattel, plain and simple. But was she damaged goods, a bone-dry cow?

     She hated it. It wasn’t like school, like making good grades. She couldn’t just study harder, make things happen by sheer force of will. What could she do about microscopic things, sperms and eggs she couldn’t even see or grasp? What more could she do? She was already so open, so yielding to Ted. Could she spread herself any wider? They fucked like senseless rabbits, and at all the right times. She tracked her basal body temperature, pinpointed her ovulation, then lay there afterward, her legs up, wondering, as Ted dozed off or showered. She was permeated with the feel, the smell, the taste of his semen. He pumped her so full, it ran down her legs to her ankles when she finally got up. Could her existence have been more earthy, more carnal? When Ted yanked off her dainty nightshirt with its prim little satin bow, was she anything more than a quivering, naked animal in heat, begging for his seed?

     She’d read that New Age book her sister had given her about how you could make things happen if you just “saw” them happen first. So every time she locked her legs around Ted now and goaded him with her heels — stiletto heels when he was feeling kinky — she visualized his seed. It erupted inside her in living, iridescent color, filled her uterus, took charge, conquered. She saw the winner, the wiliest little sperm of all, pound her egg as hard and furiously as Ted pounded her. She saw it till she felt it, felt the seismic thud, then her bursting egg’s eager, receptive shiver. How could anything so wanted, so real, not become real, not be real? Oh, get real! It was fantasy, wishful thinking. Nothing ever happened. Mind over matter? It was more like the more you want something, the less likely it is. Her womb never swelled with anything more than her stale blood. Her depressing periods came like clockwork, again and again. God, she hated them now! But they were what was real, the only reality. She marveled at how different sex had become when she’d wanted to get pregnant, how uninhibited, how free. But now, now that nothing ever happened, it was all so….

     Would they have to crawl to one of those clinics next, one of those sterile, white places where the thoroughly desperate got thoroughly probed and humiliated? Them, the perfect couple, so fit and smart and — infertile? She knew that was in the back of Ted’s mind too, but they couldn’t talk about it, couldn’t even let the other know they’d thought of it. Was it him or her? Who? Who was the damaged one, the one to blame?  Did either of them want to risk the answer? Before the marriage they’d even talked about their duty to procreate, their obligation as such superior specimens. What conceited brats they’d been! What cruel joke would Ted’s dad think up next?

 

#

 

“Hey, what’s that?” Crazy Pete said, half incredulous, half ready to burst into laughter. He swiped a finger across Ted’s bare backside.

     “What the…? Fuck off,” Ted growled. He raised his fist in mock anger, but he was half serious too.  Crazy Pete — that was what everybody called him — and his stupid jokes. He’d never targeted Ted before. Never dared, Ted figured. Pete was bigger, and bulkier with his beer gut. But Ted was in much better shape, a hell of a lot smarter and faster too. Who did Pete think he was anyway? Everybody knew he was just a lowlife construction worker. Ted even wondered how he afforded the gym fee. Since none of their buddies were in the locker room now, Pete must have settled on him by default. Ted didn’t dare check his butt though for whatever Pete was up to. No sense encouraging him, lending any kind of credence to his clowning. The guy was an overgrown kid. Best to ignore him.

     “Smells like flowers to me. Whaddaya think?” Pete said, turning to a total stranger, a guy unpacking his gym bag on the bench right next to him — Ted was grateful again none of the regulars were around. Pete held his finger under the guy’s nostrils. “What?” Pete demanded. “Lilacs? Pansies?” He cocked his head, squinting. He waved the finger right under the guy’s nose.

     “Dunno, man,” the stranger said, raising a spread hand before his face, backing off. He looked askance at Pete, even more so at Ted. Pete finally cut loose with the laughter. Silly bastards, Ted thought, both of them.

     Ted had already pulled on his sleeveless T-shirt and macho-casual cutoffs. He tied his sneakers as fast as possible. With none of the regulars around to appreciate his comic needling, Pete moved on to a wild story now about a built babe with a glass eye he met in a local bar. There was no more mention of the failed, unintelligible Ted’s-ass-smells-like-flowers joke, either during their workout or back in the locker room later. But out in the parking lot, with Ted heading for his pristine Rover and Pete for his dented, mud-flecked pickup, Pete turned and yelled, “Seeya next time — Powder Buns.”

 

#

 

Ted stormed into the house, slammed the door. He bounded up the stairs, two steps at a time, headed for the bathroom. He'd figured it out on the way home, what Crazy Pete had been jerking his chain about. Sure enough, when he bent down and looked close, it was that ridiculous, overpriced French rice powder Jenn had hinted him into buying her for Valentine’s Day. The white powder was all over the toilet seat! In just the light filtering through the bathroom blinds, he couldn’t see it without looking close. Bad enough he’d had to go into that faggy place at the mall to buy it. Now she couldn’t slap the flowery-smelling crap on her ass without getting it all over the friggin’ toilet seat?

     “Come here, goddammit!” he yelled. “Come here.”

     “What?” Jenn yelled back, her voice matching his in both tone and volume as she marched up the stairs.

     “Look,” he said when she stormed into the bathroom. He pointed at the toilet seat like a scowling prosecutor. “Look.” He lurched and grabbed her about the waist, then hustled her to the toilet. “Look.” He forced her down to her knees, till the white powder on the white toilet seat was right before her eyes. Then he pressed her face into it. When she fought her way back up, there was a fragrant, white swipe across her forehead, nose, and cheek. “Like that?” he said.

     “You’re sick,” she screamed. She stomped out of the bathroom. “You fucking sick bastard!”

 

#

 

They didn’t speak the rest of the afternoon. Ted planted himself in the den, watching action movies on TV. Jenn holed up with a book in the bedroom. They both fumed. They usually went out Saturday nights, but at dinnertime Jenn fix herself a bowl of cereal. She figured Ted would do the same. Maybe he’d even notice the new bowls she’d bought him, maybe even think for a moment. Instead, he went out to a burger place, came back with a full bag. He settled back on the sofa to munch and watch another movie. Finally at eight-thirty Jenn walked into the den. Ted was still on the sofa, at the end nearest the big, rough-hewn stone fireplace he and his father and brother had proudly built from scratch in just two weekends. The finishing touch, the antique fire irons resting near Ted’s hand, were a gift from his father — even though the fireplace had a gas log. Ted glanced sidewise at Jenn, then back at the TV as he gently caressed Cherry, who sat on his lap.

     Even though Jenn was the one who did practically everything for Cherry, she was Ted’s dog. That was always the way Jenn saw it. Ted usually fed her, but Jenn did all the rest: walked her, took her to the vet and the groomer, brushed her coat, even brushed her teeth. Even though the little schnauzer had been a gift from Jenn’s prim mother, who’d raved about the odorlessness of the breed, Cherry had a thing for Ted. It was his lap she always sat on, him she always ran to, his voice that made her quiver with excitement. More than once Jenn had got the feeling Ted cared more about that dog than he did about her. The way Cherry fawned over him, the way he never got angry with her, never even raised his voice to her….

     Jenn walked to the other end of the sofa from Ted. Just as she started to sit down, Cherry slid off his lap to stake out a spot next to him. When she spun once and settled in, her rump ended up right where Jenn was about to sit.

     “Off,” Jenn snapped. She scooped Cherry up with both hands and flung her, yelping and flailing, past Ted. Cherry’s neck hit the jagged corner stones of the fireplace. She crashed down head first on the glazed-tile hearth, jostling the antique fire irons. Lying there, her paws quivered as if she were dream-chasing the neighbor’s cat. Then the teetering poker slid down the rough stones, clanging on the hearth like a muffled bell. Cherry’s quivering stopped. Her wiry coat was as lifeless as the nap of the carpet now.

     “Cherry! Cherry!” Ted bounded from the sofa. He crouched by the little schnauzer, afraid to touch her. “Oh, no!” He cradled Cherry’s head in his hands. Jenn was speechless, her eyes frozen on Cherry’s eyes, nose, mouth, looking for any sign of life. “No,” Ted moaned, choking back a sob. He gathered up the limp, little body, clutched it to his chest, then rushed out. Jenn collapsed on the sofa. She buried her head in her hands and cried.

 

#

 

Ted laid Cherry in the back of his Rover. He gently slid in a shovel next to her. He drove to the nearby park where Cherry always loved to run and sniff. There he carried his precious pet to a far corner, near a hedge, where he started digging. He didn’t care if he got caught, if he was breaking some ridiculous law. If some busybody saw him and complained, he imagined himself bashing the bastard with the shovel. He’d just dig a bigger hole.

     After he lowered Cherry in, he said a little prayer. He wasn’t used to praying and meaning it. He sprinkled in the first few shovelfuls. When he’d finished, he found a smooth stone the size of a bowling ball by the brick wall that ringed the park. He half buried it on the grave, then covered the fresh earth around it with pine straw.

     He didn’t go home that night. He got a bottle and a motel room instead. There he leaned against the headboard of the bed, thinking about Cherry, toasting her memory. The perfect little lapdog in the house, yet such a feisty little terrier on the street. How could Jenn have done that? What was wrong with her? What was wrong with them?

 

#

 

Jenn was sick from guilt and worry and shame. She threw up for the third time. She’d killed Cherry! Murdered her! She would have done anything to go back in time, to that instant just before… It was true. She knew it now, as sure as anything. Ted’s anger? Her anger — her hatred — was even worse. He’d never done anything like this. Poor Cherry! She’d loved that little dog. Cherry had only been true to her nature, to the pack instinct. Ted had been her alpha male. That’d been why she’d always sucked up to him. And she, Jenn, an adult human being…. How pathetically insecure! Jealous of a lovable little dog? And why? Because that little dog had been better at winning Ted’s affection?

     It’d been an accident, right? She hadn’t meant to do it. She just… but she knew the truth, the hideous, God-awful truth: At that instant, she’d hated Cherry, hated Ted, hated everything. What was wrong with her?

     Ted didn’t come home that night. The next day, Sunday, passed. No Ted, not even a call. All her messages and texts went unanswered. Monday morning Jenn went to work at the museum. Still nothing when she called Ted. She tried him at work first thing, but all she got, from three different people at the brokerage firm where he worked, was he was “out.” She knew it wasn’t true. It was plain as day in their voices. She took off from work and went to the heart of downtown, to the building where Ted worked, then up to the twelfth floor. But she couldn’t find him anywhere. Everyone looked at her funny. She left and called back to the museum. She said she had a family emergency, nothing serious, but something she had to take care of. Her boss was as understanding as ever.

     She went back home to think, to see if Ted had called, if he’d even come back. When she walked in the backdoor, no Cherry scampering to greet her, but something else was different too. Ted had been there! The gym bag he’d left on the kitchen floor by the counter was gone. She ran to their bedroom. All his clothes were gone too!

     The day passed. Nothing from Ted. She couldn’t try him at work again. They already thought she was crazy with all her calls. Ted had surely told everyone by now what she’d done, what kind of insane monster she was. He’d probably already taken up with one of those long-legged, tailored, driven women where he worked. Maybe he already had one on the side. Maybe Cherry had just been his excuse.

     She couldn’t talk to anyone: not her girlfriends, her coworkers, even her sister. It was too horrible. How could she talk about what she’d done anyway? She’d be a pariah if they found out. They were all so decent and stable and responsible. They could never fathom it. How could someone kill their own pet, a little dog as sweet as Cherry? Sling it into a stone wall?! Cherry had been no bigger than a newborn. Everybody knew a young married couple’s first dog was like a training baby. If she could have slammed her own little dog against a stone wall, why not her baby? Everyone would watch her. They’d wonder when she’d snap again, when she’d become another one of those sordid baby-killing moms in the news. And why not? She could even see it herself now. She’d been there, she'd actually seen herself do it, actually done it with her own hands! It’d been too horrible to rationalize, to claim it’d just been an accident. It’d been deliberate violence, plain and simple, sheer, cruel, brutal violence, borne of savage rage. She’d known it the instant she’d done it, known it to her gut, her bones. She could still feel Cherry, the negligible weight of her little body in her hands. She still felt the tension in her muscles, the rage, how at that instant she’d hated Cherry as much as she’d hated Ted. How could she even call herself human anymore? How did she even qualify?

     She drank wine, red or white, it didn’t matter. She drank more and more, till she finally passed out. When she woke the next day, she started again. She couldn’t range far from the den, no farther than the kitchen to get another bottle when she needed it. She didn’t dress or bathe. Her hair was a mess.

     The den, especially the stone fireplace, was a shrine now, everything still in its place, untouched: the fallen poker, lying like a sacred relic on the tiled altar of the hearth; the crumpled magazines Ted had knocked off the Ottoman when he’d leapt toward Cherry’s fallen body; the little dog cushion at the corner of the hearth that Cherry would lie on in the winter enjoying the fire. Every now and then Jenn crawled to the cushion for a whiff, then curled up next to it, burying her face in its soft fleece, hugging it to her naked breasts, crying, begging Cherry’s forgiveness.

 

#

“What?” she said into the phone the next night as her other hand choked the neck of a third-full wine bottle. Wind and thunder and driving rain outside rattled the window panes now, but there was silence on the phone, dead silence. She knew who it was. She’d known he’d call, not at first, but after a while she’d simply known it. Their ritual was inevitable, as primal as the wind and rain and lightning. Their cycle of hurt and rage and fucking to forget had to play itself out once more.

     “We need to — talk,” he finally said.

     “I’m — ready,” she said just as flatly.

 

#

 

Ted let himself in the sliding backdoors, in out of the storm. The house was dark, and chilled with the air conditioning on full blast. He heard the labored drone from the vents. He kept his jacket on, even though it was beaded with rain, but he doffed his golf cap, shook the water off it, flung it on the kitchen table. He stepped out of his soaked shoes, then crept across the kitchen like a cat burglar. He edged down the hallway, toward the den and the eerie flickering. He heard the hiss of the gas log. At the door to the den, he saw the cave of the fireplace with its shimmering blaze. He caught a whiff of stale urine.

     Jenn was on the sofa, snuggled under a ratty old blanket she’d had since childhood. It was the blanket she gave Cherry to lie on in their bedroom. She was clutching a near-empty wine bottle to her chest as she stared at the jets of glowing flame. Her hair was frazzled, dirty. She was obviously drunk. He’d had a few himself. He saw a bare shoulder, one bare, languid foot. She was naked too under that blanket. She saw him now, watched him peel off his wet jacket, yank out his shirttails, unbuckle his belt.

     Lightning exploded in the windows, just before the deafening cracks. They kissed and groped, but in slow motion — ghostly, numbing motion — till he finally dragged her to the carpet, turned her brusquely, then yanked up her rear. Doggie style, the callous irony! Right before their eyes were Cherry’s soft, fleece cushion, the coarse, pitiless stones that broke her neck, the poker that rang her death knell.

     He clenched Jenn’s tangled hair now, wrenched it tight in his fist. He forced her down, sway-backed, crushing her pale cheek into the carpet. When he felt her, she was bone-dry. She screamed when he rammed himself in.

     “You barren bitch! You don’t deserve a baby.”

 

#

 

Jenn’s hands clawed desperately. Then she lurched backward with everything she had, up on her knees, flailing the poker over her shoulder. Ted gasped, crashing backward. Blood gushed from the gash in his forehead, filling his eyes. Jenn leapt to her feet, crouching, alert, then she howled. She danced around him, whacking him again and again.

     When it was over, she placed the bloody poker back on the hearth, exactly where it had landed next to Cherry. She settled back into the sofa with a new bottle, pulling the old cover back over herself. She swigged the wine, almost the whole bottle, as she studied the shimmering flames.

     When she finally stared down at the mess on the carpet, it — it was just like an abortion. Why? Why’d he make her do that?

 

 

Copyright 2009 Ray Gregory

 

www.RayGregory.com