“So, this is what it’s like to die,” I said, half to myself.
“Your Goddess is arriving in a couple of hours,” June said. “I have my orders. Cunt Whore is supposed to keep you here until she arrives. I will do whatever I have to do to keep you in this bed.”
“You’re not Cunt Whore anymore. You don’t need to…”
“Cunt Whore has to,” June said, seriously. “Let Kristen make her own entrance. You can tell her about your decision later, but since she doesn’t know the new rules, I’m reverting to the old ones.”
June went down on me, and did her damnedest to make sure that I’d not be able to come again for a while.
After she was done, I looked at her laying next to me. I said, “How do you do it?”
June and I laughed for about ten minutes straight at that.
I was teaching Merry the little I knew about pool.
I decided to show Merry the quadruple bank shot Camille used against Kristen months ago. I practiced that particular shot in secret, and I was about eight out of ten with it. Camille advised that trick shots should be nine out of ten, though, but I ignored her advice. I set up the shot and took it. I made it through four banks, but the angle on the last bank wasn’t quite right.
“That’s stupid,” Merry said. “Why didn’t you just shoot straight across?”
“Good question, Shortcake!” I said, cursing myself. I tried to make myself look like a great pool hustler and ended up looking like a really stupid asshole.
“Rack ‘em up, Jim.”
I racked them up, and allowed Merry to break. She wasn’t bad, but she wasn’t a great player. However, whenever I tried to be fancy, like take an unnecessary bank shot, I’d miss. It made the game quite close.
“Eight ball on the opposite side pocket,” I called. I took the shot, and made it.
“Cool!” Merry said. “Can we play for stakes?”
“Like what?” I asked, innocently.
“Article of clothing per game.”
“No strip pool, munchkin!”
“Munchkin?”
“Sorry, Shortcake.”
“Get us straight. Call June Munchkin!”
June? She wasn’t that small. “She’s the same size as you!”
“I heard she could munch, though.”
I started wondering what my own step-sister knew about the women in my life.
How do you explain it when the love of your life walks into your playroom, and sees you naked except for boxers, and your kid sister in her bra and panties?
This was the situation that I was in when Kristen arrived. To my credit, Merry had four solids on the table, whereas I only had the eight ball to worry about.
Merry took her shot, and nothing went in. (We called this the “poke and hope” shot, which is an expression that Camille taught us.)
The position that Merry left me was perfect. It was a straight hit into the side pocket. I knew that side pockets were a bit more difficult than corner shots, but I lined it up and knew that I was perfect.
I lined up the shot, remembering Camille’s instructions on how to exert more control of the cue.
“Fifty bucks says he’s going to miss!” Kristen said.
I glared at my blonde Goddess, and realigned my shot.
“Five thousand says he’s going to make it.”
I didn’t know that Camille came back—I thought that she was going to stay in New England. I looked back and saw her. She just smiled at me.
“Five thousand, one shot,” Kristen agreed.
I refused to acknowledge what the girls were doing around me. I lined up the shot once again, and closed my mind to all distractions. I pulled the cue back and shot…
Plunk! I made it!
“Five thousand, Goddess!” Camille laughed.
“You’ve got it, Cammy,” Kristen said.
“What do you say now?” Camille prodded.
Kristen looked at me and said, “I’m sorry, Jim. I won’t bet against you ever again.”
“Maybe you just shouldn’t bet against Cammy, Kris!”
Kristen looked at me, then at Camille, and then at me. “I think you have found the winning strategy!”
Merry started reaching behind her back in a motion that I recognized that a girl does when removing her bra. It took me a few minutes to explain to Merry that I really didn’t want her to lose any more of her clothes.
Apparently, after lunch was the “How Big An Asshole Was Jim These Past Two Weeks” competition. All the girls spent a lot of time relishing my clay feet and my lack of trust.
If I wanted to feel the way I was feeling, I could just have Archy come over and call me a serial rapist again.
Patty noticed how I was feeling first. “Girls, Jim doesn’t need all this shit on him.”
Unfortunately, the girls ignored Patty.
When June started going on about the shower episode with Merry, I had my fill.
“FUCK YOU ALL!” I shouted. “I made a fucking mistake. I apologized, and I have to relive this shit?”
I left the room, and walked out into the parking lot. I walked home. I saw cars coming along the road where I was walking. In every case, I found that I could duck onto the side of the road in case it was one of the girls.
Merry was home when I got there. I glared at her, daring her to say anything. I think it worked, as she didn’t say anything.
For the first time in months, I slept in my bed in my parents’ house and I didn’t want to leave.
It turned out that my ally, other than Patty, was Merry. Both girls seemed to know how I felt, and they both thought that I was wronged.
Merry had a solution for my problem. She kept everybody from me, period.
There were many people at the front door of our house. My mother’s instinct would be to invite them in, but Merry would give her a look as if doing so would be inviting a deadly plague into our house.
Nobody, not even June or Kristen, could get past Merry.
I woke up alone the next morning.
If that statement doesn’t seem important, you should realize that statement hadn’t applied to me since I moved into Kristen’s apartment after her birthday party.
Well, at least, I’m back in my own home, I thought. My parents are good people. They wouldn’t turn on you like those people I thought were my friends.
I saw Merry at the door to my room. “Are you awake?” Merry whispered.
“Yeah,” I answered.
“Everybody came over,” Merry said. “I told them to fuck themselves. I just told them what you told them. Mom and Dad didn’t seem to get angry.”
“I love you, Shortcake.”
Merry beamed at me.
“Um, Patty’s downstairs.”
“Oh?” Patty was the one person who wasn’t on my shit list. I could never refuse Patty anything. “Send her in.”
Merry left and a minute or so later, Patty came into my room.
“Patty! Why do they hate me?”
“Jim, you don’t take criticism well.”
“I love criticism,” I said, truthfully. “It shows my weaknesses and I address them in my next project.”
“What if the project is life?” Patty asked.
“Huh?” I asked, not following Patty.
Patty shut the door to my room. “How were you criticized, Jim?”
“I’m a serial rapist. I don’t trust my own friends, I am the worst…”
“Enough,” Patty said. “You’re back to where you were when you got pissed off.”
“No, Patty,” I said, sadly. “We’re back to where I was being attacked.”
“You don’t take personal criticism very well.”
“Kristen was on their side, laughing. I thought she understood me. How could she take their side?”