Sputterpub's Blog

She realized three months after she married him that she probably shouldn’t have. It started to be obvious to Monica then, how damaged she was after the breakup with Charlie, what a relief it had been to be light-hearted with Simon. Seductive relief.

But it didn’t seem to be any big deal. It wasn’t like she and Simon were religious, or romantic, or even serious. They enjoyed their time together and wanted more; they agreed that their circumstances permitted them to have more; they went for it with no eternal promises. They were old enough to make their own decisions and had the resources to pay for them. They said that they didn’t want to offend any parents by premarital cohabitation. So they married, and Monica thought they both meant it when they agreed that their union did not mean unbreakable emotional or financial connections.

Monica meant it. She always meant her words. But Monica was so attractive that her interlocutors rarely believed her. Everyone assumed that anyone as beautiful as Monica probably wasn’t that smart. Even folks who knew from whence she came.

Monica’s parents had an enduring marriage that would have been admirable if it weren’t comic. But when a university professor marries a chorus girl, people talk. And even after the union goes on for years, whispers continue.

Monica’s father was short, dumpy, myopic, balding, and brilliant. Her mother was statuesque, buxom, blonde, friendly, apparently vacuous. The truth was, her parents were two of the nicest people on the planet and totally dedicated to one another, but they looked like caricatures and never overcame that look. Their marriage surprised their disparate peer groups when it took place, and its endurance astounded everyone who didn’t know them.

Maybe one of the ingredients to her parents’ successful marriage was the exclusiveness of their love. But that condition excluded their children almost as much as it did their circle of acquaintances. Monica and her twin Matthew were always loved and well cared for, but neither was able to fully enter the circumference of parental embrace because in some ways, their mother and father had eyes and laughter only for one another.

Under their familiar circumstances, it would have been no surprise if the twins grew up so close they invented their own language or communicated without words. But Monica and Matthew were tolerantly incompatible. Their births were only 12 minutes apart but their qualities diverged like tectonic plates. Monica the older got the best of both parents. Matthew the runt carried their father’s small frame and bad vision along with their mother’s amiable slow wit.

Monica grew up lonely. She had her books and paper dolls, but she didn’t have close friends. She started out with a gaggle of neighborhood buddies, but she lost them when her parents decided that public school wasn’t allowing her to reach her full potential. In third grade she was shifted to the private school five miles from home, and after a season or two the local girls seemed to forget her. The girls at her new school were put off by her beauty and the boys were at first uninterested and later intimidated. Like many a lovely teen she never dated much; guys always assumed someone else had already asked.

They blew out his sinuses with saline. They X-rayed his face and did a coronal CT of his head. They prescribed Vicodin and he enjoyed the sleepy powerful feeling it gave him, the way it made even Monica’s TV shows interesting and actually led to a gratifying romp with her on the hall runner one night when she came home glowing from an evening with some business colleagues. He remembers her looking almost as beautiful that night as the first day he met her. But the Vicodin didn’t dent the headache.

He returned home breathless with exertion and epiphany. He wanted to talk it over with Debra, but he had to get past Monica first. She was on the deck. With Max, the realtor she’d used for the two houses they’d bought so far. Monica had been talking about another trade-up for some time and at first Simon figured that was why Max was sipping gin & tonic at the railing. Then he relaxed his eye muscles and let himself see. He wondered how long Monica and Max had been an item. He said “Hey” to them both and turned back into the house for the phone, for Debra, for the night.

The second half of the revelation came when he took Debra in his arms. He put his mouth against the top of her head, on her curls still warm from sitting on her porch watching the sun set, and he concentrated on the sensation of her torso in his hands, the curve of her breasts against his thumbs. She pulled her head away from him to look in his face before kissing him deeply, and then she told him she wanted his baby.

Simon almost melted with happiness. He became excited about his life. He went to Monica the next morning and announced the obvious. She acted angry. Said she’d take him for all he was worth. That made Simon chuckle. He was thinking then that with a bit more time and a lot of grace, he might be worth something.

He’s giving it all to Monica. The house and the cabin and every little framed window. Simon got away with his future. He now works three days a week and spends the rest of his time looking around.

They were into computer analysis then anyway. They were accustomed to the proprietary systems of their big corporate employers, and they also had separate little systems in their home offices. Most evenings they shifted between watching TV and working in their separate offices. They tended to different rooms, because Simon liked watching the cop shows and Monica was drawn more to the ones about lawyers or doctors. Soon it seemed that they only talked when they had to make a decision about an investment, and they only had sex when they traveled.

Monica went for momentary gratification and excitement. She was quite content to be married to Simon. But she was addicted to the feeling of power she had when she met a new man and attracted him. She loved the bestowing of herself on an appreciative male. She was drawn to sexual adventure, to under-the-table fondling, to car sex. She liked to go panty-less to bars.

They didn’t have an open marriage, but each was on the road enough that it was easy to arrange time apart. The only time Monica had a real problem was when she turned up pregnant. She and Simon had done it one time in that cycle; she remembered coming home from an incredible erotic session with Max and she must have exuded something, because Simon kind of jumped her in the upstairs hall, on the oriental runner, and she really enjoyed his raw spontaneity. She had to hide the abortion from him; that took more planning than any liaison.

She was a sales representative for a payroll service, and the meeting ahead was likely to be the biggest deal of her six month career. She turned to say goodbye as they neared her stop, and she noticed the monogram on his briefcase. “Like the president,” she observed.

They continued closer as they approached Simon’s place. When he drove into his carport she released her seat belt and curled over him. He pulled her face to his and her skirt to her waist and they might have done it right there except another tenant entered the parking area. They went up to his apartment instead, and in the course of the next seven hours inaugurated their relationship in his living room, dining room, kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom. The utility porch was simply too small and too cold.

They were 22, unattached, and employed. Together they had a nest and plenty of money. The sex the first year was very nice; the promise from that first night hovered around their romance. They soon married.

There was some talk of graduate school for him but nothing came of it. There was some talk of camping and biking but nothing came of that either. They continued to advance in their marketing jobs. Simon sold the Camry and leased a Saab convertible. Monica traded in the Civic for an Acura.

As the campfire alters its state, from curlicues of red-glowing coals to licks of blue and gold, Daphne alters hers from outgoing to in-turning. She becomes very quiet, and she begins to sense the pathways of her nerves, the connections of her muscles, bones, ligaments, tendons, the coordination of her immune system. She visualizes the patterns of her own ankles and feet.

Gail isn’t touching her. But she’s reaching with her heart toward Daphne and at the same time trying to pull Reese’s spirit along with her. Reese jolts slightly, as if something struck her at the base of her neck. All three of them become very still and silent. For about four minutes, the only movement is the dance of the fire, and the only sounds are the cracks of oxidizing wood.

Daphne closes their trance when she stirs the fire with a crooked stick. “I think you got it, Reese,” she says. “Can you keep it up?”

Reese nods as she examines her ankle. Gail leans closer to see. “It feels much better,” Reese murmurs as she circles the flesh with her hands. “And the swelling seems already less. I’m sure I’ll be able to hike tomorrow.”

They’re all tired enough to sleep well. Gail is the only one who wakes because of the faint gunshot at 3 a.m. She wonders what roused her, as she falls back to sleep.

Reese’s ankle is only slightly swollen in the morning. She says it really doesn’t hurt. They bandage it for support, feed her aspirin, and break camp. They hadn’t intended to hike back out for another four days, so their packs are heavier than they’d planned; Gail and Daphne take on extra weight to lighten Reese’s.

Their trail out takes them past their original campsite. They pause in disbelief. Apparently the hunters were disappointed to find the camp abandoned. The area has been trashed. There’s broken glass, paper and foil litter, big gashes in nearby trees. Even gentle Gail is stirred to hatred.

As they hike, they discuss alternative plans. Reese’s ankle is doing well, but backpacking is out for this vacation. By the time they get to Reese’s car, they’ve decided to head for the coast. Daphne’s family frequents the area, and she knows where they can get a good room that they can afford.

Gail takes the wheel. Daphne hates driving and Reese should rest her ankle. They decide to have a real meal before they leave the area. They park at the local restaurant/saloon. There’s a banner hanging off its porch: EARTH FIRST – THEN WE’LL LOG THE OTHER PLANETS. They enter the dimly lit room anyway. They find a table, order chili and fries, and then take turns using the bathroom. They each appreciate the plumbing.

Gail is the last to use the bathroom, and she’s coming back to their table when a man walks into the place excited with news. Daphne and Reese stop their own conversation to listen to the guy report to the bartender/owner. He says the rescue squad had to go in this afternoon and fetch two hunters. There had been four in the party, two were injured last night, and the other two came out to get help. Reese and Daphne goggle at each other as Gail sits.

The man says one of the hunters turned his ankle while peeing in a rock pile last night. He fell exposed and lacerated his penis, but it was his ankle that required the squad. The other hunter actually shot himself in the foot. Apparently, he was trying to shoot a snake with a handgun. No one knows why he wouldn’t leave the snake alone, if there really was a snake, but he’d been drinking, so maybe reason is irrelevant. He may have been hit by his own ricochet, but the paramedics thought the wound looked too close for that; they hypothesized that he tripped on the same rocks as his buddy, and shot himself while trying to regain his balance. They had to use the county helicopter to get the injured men out of there.

Incidentally, the man reports, the two who went for help were such morons that they took a short cut through an area of thriving poison oak. They didn’t realize it yet, but they’d be erupting in an agonizing rash in three more days. “I know. I know. Our local economy depends on the hunters,” the man acknowledges to the bartender. “But these guys were obvious idiots. I gotta believe they deserved it.”

Daphne grins at Reese and Gail. She makes a fist with her thumb up. “I feel like a goddess,” she says. Reese and Gail return the gesture with happy faces, as the waitress arrives with their hot food.