I bought my parents a new home, new cars, new everything, thinking that without the pressure of wondering where the next paycheck was coming from, they could close the distance between them. It didn’t work. If anything, the money allowed them to retreat further into their solo spheres.
I vowed I wouldn’t entangle myself with another person, and I was able to keep that promise until I met Charlee. All it took was one look at her. We arrived at the cash register at the small sundry shop on the first floor of my building. I was buying the newspaper like I do every morning. She was buying a package of mints before an interview for a job she didn’t particularly want but needed so she could pay the rent. Her roommate had abruptly moved out, leaving Charlee with a two-bedroom apartment that she couldn’t afford. She was younger and too trusting. I had an instant urge to protect her from the world. Growing up in a small town, she wasn’t ready for a big city.
I rode up the elevator with her, babysat her purse while she was interviewed, and bought her lunch afterwards. I also took her home that night and slept on her sofa. I wanted to be in her bed but decided we would be married soon and would do it right. It was torture to be near her, to kiss her and hold her and not bury my cock inside her wet heat. I managed to make it until the vows were said but not much after.
Her virgin blood stained her wedding gown. I still feel like a dick about that.
I wasn’t born into money. My dad was a laborer, making concrete forms for bridges until he hurt his back. I worked as a teen at a local gravel pit, shoveling rocks into dump trucks, and then as a part-time construction worker in college during the summers before football camp started. After graduation, I did as many odd jobs as possible during the nights and weekends to get enough money to start an investment fund. I have calluses on my hands, and my manners aren’t as polished as the Wall Street boys who grew up on the coast and attend Hahvahd and Yale.
If I had had that upbringing, maybe I would’ve been able to control myself, to hold off long enough to get her dress off, lay her down on a bed of roses, and softly, gently take Charlee. But she doesn’t inspire soft feelings in me. Instead, I’m filled with animalistic desires to hold, conquer, possess. I hate seeing her talk with other men, even the clerks at the convenience store or the gas attendant who fills her Land Rover.
I know it’s wrong, but I still hate it.
I scrape a hand through my hair and then circle the house to see if I can find some wood for the fireplace. The wind is picking up, and there’s a sharpness in the air that smells of snow. In a lean-to next to the cabin, there’s a small stack of cut logs. I pile them into my arms and bring them inside.
Charlee is in the kitchen, elbow deep in the sink. She’s done a lot of work in here while I’ve been mentally wanking myself outside.
“Looks good,” I say as I walk past her toward the fireplace.
“This is a nice place. It just needed some cleaning. Mrs. Cunningham used to live here. When I was a little girl, the older kids told me she was a witch and would eat you if you walked in her yard.”
I set the wood down and arrange a few pieces of kindling on the iron grates. “Did you walk on her lawn to see?”
“No. I was a good girl.” She gives me a half smile. “And a chicken. I stayed away, but Hank Porter did on a dare. He walked across her lawn for an entire week and nothing happened to him.”
I try to keep my jaw from twitching at the name of some kid who poses zero threat to me. “So she wasn’t a witch.”
“Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that.” Her lips turn up a tick higher. “After that week of beating a path across Mrs. Cunningham’s back yard, Hank broke his arm falling off his bike when he was riding to school. He swore that the sidewalk rose up and bit his tire to pieces and that’s why he crashed. Anyway, after that, we all believed she was a witch and stayed away.” Her lips fall suddenly. “I guess, though, she must’ve been lonely. No kids. No husband, and everyone avoiding her. I should’ve brought her some cookies.”
“You were a kid, Charlee. It wasn’t your responsibility.” I light the fire.
“Still—”
“You were a kid,” I repeat. I throw two logs on. She takes too much responsibility on herself. She’s always overextending herself to help others and then getting run down because of it. Twice during the first six months of our marriage, I came home to find her nearly passed out from exhaustion, having covered the shifts of her coworkers, who always had more important things to do that they couldn’t work. She was going to end up in the hospital at the rate she was going, so I told her she couldn’t work anymore. I needed her at home.