can't help but note that like an intimidated coward I fast look down. “You got a really shitty sense of humor, you know that?”
“Who says I’m joking?”
How do you deal with someone like that? He is insulting me right in my face and I just stand there taking it.
“Very funny, Carl."
For an answer, he reaches into his pocket. When his hand reappears there is a wad of bills that I can’t help but eye longingly.
Nothing but hundred dollar bills.
It's been a while since I laid my hands on one of those and I know it is more than the bank will give me.
We are three months behind on our mortgage. That and we already sold the car. The only things in our garage now is junk no one will buy and I'm at wits end.
“Go share the good news with the wife, boy,” Carl says as if we’ve already reached an agreement. To my shame, my first impulse isn’t to spit in his face and tell him to go fuck himself, but to look around for witnesses, as if by just seeing us talking they know what is being discussed.
There is the elderly Mr. Greystone from across the street sitting on the veranda with Alexis, his neighbor's teenage daughter, and there is the kid from the Nelsons, and I can see that newlywed couple who moved in a few months ago turn the corner in their flashy sedan.
Your average all American neighborhood. That's what this place looks like, only now it no longer feels like it to me. Now it feels like a place where things take place behind closed doors that can't stand the light of day.
Things like a husband actually putting up with listening to a neighbor suggest he should pimp out the wife.
Sweat breaks through my skin and my heart rate picks up as I watch Carl peel off the bills until he has reached an even thousand. That's money we so desperately need. That's money that I should be providing, only I don't. Instead I hang around the house feeling like a bum, self-conscious about facing my own wife.
But that's not the worst of it.
The worst part is that I feel emasculated by the first thought that enters my mind: will she be up for it? A thought that shames as much as it hurts.
Thing is, we really need that cash. We needed it months ago and now, eyeing the money longingly, I am too weak to do the decent thing and object.
Like a trained dog, I look up and into Carl's face, already hard trying to forget how much I hate the guy.
“Well?” Carl says in that demanding tone of his, a thick eyebrow raised as if asking me why I’m idling.
“Be right back,” I say, my voice as hollow as I feel. I turn around and start dragging my feet to the house. The same house that will be foreclosed soon enough unless I swallow my pride and my beautiful wife spreads her legs for cash.
Not that Carl is that old, mid-fifties and still strong as an ox. Still healthy. Healthy enough to bang the shit out of my wife's pussy if he wants to, and judging from the cash he is offering, I can only miserably conclude that he really wants to.
“Put some speed in it, boy,” Carl hollows and like a fool I do.
Mary
By the time he is done explaining what Carl is proposing, I’m in shock and not certain if I should laugh over his nerve and the absurdity of it all, or if I should feel disappointed in Sam for actually sharing in a way that makes it sound he isn’t going to object if I take the offer.
Accept to turning to whoring with that guy as my first paying customer.
Studying the way he looks uneasily at me, his eyes avoiding mine, I do neither. I feel anger rise in me instead. He is not joking, I can tell from his unease, it is a conclusion that echoes in my mind, feeding the red hot anger that burns in my chest.
Anger that I can only aim at Sam, not Carl, because Sam should be the one standing up for me.
Only he didn't.
Instead he told me what Carl wants from me while looking feeble and pathetic, sweating and his eyes darting all over the kitchen, avoiding mine.
That's what shocks me, not that that lowlife of a
“Who says I’m joking?”
How do you deal with someone like that? He is insulting me right in my face and I just stand there taking it.
“Very funny, Carl."
For an answer, he reaches into his pocket. When his hand reappears there is a wad of bills that I can’t help but eye longingly.
Nothing but hundred dollar bills.
It's been a while since I laid my hands on one of those and I know it is more than the bank will give me.
We are three months behind on our mortgage. That and we already sold the car. The only things in our garage now is junk no one will buy and I'm at wits end.
“Go share the good news with the wife, boy,” Carl says as if we’ve already reached an agreement. To my shame, my first impulse isn’t to spit in his face and tell him to go fuck himself, but to look around for witnesses, as if by just seeing us talking they know what is being discussed.
There is the elderly Mr. Greystone from across the street sitting on the veranda with Alexis, his neighbor's teenage daughter, and there is the kid from the Nelsons, and I can see that newlywed couple who moved in a few months ago turn the corner in their flashy sedan.
Your average all American neighborhood. That's what this place looks like, only now it no longer feels like it to me. Now it feels like a place where things take place behind closed doors that can't stand the light of day.
Things like a husband actually putting up with listening to a neighbor suggest he should pimp out the wife.
Sweat breaks through my skin and my heart rate picks up as I watch Carl peel off the bills until he has reached an even thousand. That's money we so desperately need. That's money that I should be providing, only I don't. Instead I hang around the house feeling like a bum, self-conscious about facing my own wife.
But that's not the worst of it.
The worst part is that I feel emasculated by the first thought that enters my mind: will she be up for it? A thought that shames as much as it hurts.
Thing is, we really need that cash. We needed it months ago and now, eyeing the money longingly, I am too weak to do the decent thing and object.
Like a trained dog, I look up and into Carl's face, already hard trying to forget how much I hate the guy.
“Well?” Carl says in that demanding tone of his, a thick eyebrow raised as if asking me why I’m idling.
“Be right back,” I say, my voice as hollow as I feel. I turn around and start dragging my feet to the house. The same house that will be foreclosed soon enough unless I swallow my pride and my beautiful wife spreads her legs for cash.
Not that Carl is that old, mid-fifties and still strong as an ox. Still healthy. Healthy enough to bang the shit out of my wife's pussy if he wants to, and judging from the cash he is offering, I can only miserably conclude that he really wants to.
“Put some speed in it, boy,” Carl hollows and like a fool I do.
Mary
By the time he is done explaining what Carl is proposing, I’m in shock and not certain if I should laugh over his nerve and the absurdity of it all, or if I should feel disappointed in Sam for actually sharing in a way that makes it sound he isn’t going to object if I take the offer.
Accept to turning to whoring with that guy as my first paying customer.
Studying the way he looks uneasily at me, his eyes avoiding mine, I do neither. I feel anger rise in me instead. He is not joking, I can tell from his unease, it is a conclusion that echoes in my mind, feeding the red hot anger that burns in my chest.
Anger that I can only aim at Sam, not Carl, because Sam should be the one standing up for me.
Only he didn't.
Instead he told me what Carl wants from me while looking feeble and pathetic, sweating and his eyes darting all over the kitchen, avoiding mine.
That's what shocks me, not that that lowlife of a
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