Layaway

First things first, Steve: I really did laugh at your description of this poor woman's writing. She sounds like she's trying *damned* hard to make something happen. Actually, she sounds a lot like me. Some of my old stories are like that. Perhaps not crippled w/similes to that degree, but my intent was the same! I was fortunate enough to have a guy on my side then who had given up writing but who was still willing to read my stuff. Many's the morning he would sit across from me, shake his head, and say, "Just tell the story, will you? Just tell the story."

This is probably the writer's equivalent of "keep your eye on the ball." Shrug.

Just wanted to briefly describe the agony and ecstasy of the married man. Wife took the day off work. Wife made the suggestion to me that perhaps, since she's home and I'm home and infant son is off in daycare, perhaps we could get together and know one another they way Adam knew Eve. Sounds good, I say, trying to act casual, trying not to do the math in my head, trying not to remember how many days it's been.

Wife leaves to run some errands. I'm thinking about the impending freak-session and debating whether or not to grip. On the one hand, gripping will make me more relaxed during conjugation. On the other hand, gripping will take the edge off of my performance, and I'm kind of enjoying this feeling of abject desperation. It reminds me of the way I used to enjoy the junk-sickness when I knew for sure I was going to score. Fortunately work intervenes and renders the grip/no grip conundrum moot.

Wife comes home, I hear her go lie on the bed. I enter the bedroom and lie beside her. She rolls over, opens her arms...and then picks up a book.
"I have to read this to you," she says. "You have to hear it."
She begins and account of animal slaughter practices in meat processing plants. It is graphic, it is horrible, it goes on for a long time. I roll over on my stomach and shut my eyes. Is she doing this on purpose? Is this some kind of joke? Here I am, brushed, flossed, and cologne-spritzed. And for what? She's having me on. This has got to be a joke.

But it's no joke. When she's finished there are tears in her eyes. I'm also a bit misty, but it's got nothing to do with the poor animals. I just can't believe this golden opportunity has passed me by. Does she know what she's done? Does she realize that she's just crushed my manhood completely, just dealt a death-blow to my sexual confidence? Does she realize that she's just plunged my entire universe into darkness? I shuffle back upstairs without a word. I sit in front of the computer and try to compose myself. Her voice comes wafting up. "I understand that was hard, but I felt you had to know."

A half-hour later, she calls me back down. I am a broken man. I have decided that the universe keeps me alive purely to amuse itself at my expense. I stumble down the stairs, overcome by crushing fatigue, barely able to stay upright. My wife is naked on the bed.
"Will you become a vegetarian now?" she says.
"Oh, yes. Yes yes," I say, stepping out of my clothes as fast as humanly possible.

So I can now understand how a man might change his entire philosophy. How an atheist might become a Christian, or vice versa.