667 Ways to F*ck Up My Life

by Lucy Woodhull

  “Sooooooooooy!”

  Her eyebrows shot skyward. “Well, I’d be angry if I were lactose intolerant, too.”

  My phone buzzed and Mel grabbed it. “Ooooh, Yash wants to know if you’ve landed yet. Where are you?”

  “Hawaii. Can’t you tell from my tan?”

  She giggled and tossed me the phone. “You’re going to have to get one, dorkus. Maybe one of your mistakes can be a tanning booth.”

  “Love it! I must have landed by now.”

  “I think you should spend Christmas in Hawaii. It’s just in two days, anyhow. Make him stew before you give him some New Year’s fireworks.” She winked and made a graphic gesture with her hands to show me what sort of fireworks I should be repeatedly receiving…so to speak.

  That was if I could ever convince a man to give me the business. Seriously—I was a lady with good knockers and a can-do attitude. Why wouldn’t they can-do me?

  I closed again the following night. Afterward, Mel and I stayed up late watching 9 to 5 for inspiration on how to ruin an asshole’s life. Right around the time when Doralee was roping the sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot, I informed Mel that we needed an operation name.

  “Operation Taylor Goes Down Swift-ly?”

  I spit out my vodka. “A+ use. Needs more outrage, though. Operation…Righteous…”

  “Something with titties, or vaginas, since we have those things and will be hurting him.”

  I sat up straighter on the couch and paused the movie. “Operation Righteous Titty Slam.”

  “Operation Righteous Vagina… Wham?”

  “Dentata!” I stood and raised my slightly drunken arms in victory. “Operation Righteous Vagina Dentata. Sometimes the bitch bites you back!”

  Chapter Seven

  F*ck-Ups One-Thirty-One through One-Fifty-Seven

  Operation Righteous Vagina Dentata Part One

  Mel and I spent an amazing Christmas watching bad movies, smoking a little of the good stuff my drug dealer neighbor had gifted me by way of a yuletide present, and generally goofing off. I hadn’t been able to see Yash, for he’d traveled back to London for the holiday (and through the New Year). No fireworks for poor Giselle. I despaired, for he’d probably forget all about me in the arms of a milk-skinned English lass—swarthy women such as myself have usually suffered from some blonde interloper at least once. At least he didn’t have to look at the mess of disgusting that was my shoulder burn. Since that incident, my ducking skills had become epic, like those of a politician.

  But neither Yash nor angry coffee customers were on the top of my mental to-do list. Lust had its place, sure—a much higher place than ever before in my life. This week, however… Justice reigned supreme. Justice for author stealers! For rude drivers! For people who change diapers on restaurant tables while you’re trying to eat a freaking pancake! Okay, maybe not all of them at once, but once started, my retribution for grave wrongs would be unending.

  Dagmar Kostopoulos used to be a sheep. A rule-follower. A beige devotee. No longer. Now evildoers would face my wrath, for I had fuck-ups to perpetuate, yet I had no more fucks to give.

  131. OMG that should totally be my catchphrase for the New Year

  Yea, it was happening:

  132. Operation Righteous Vagina Dentata was a go

  133. And the first forward advance would happen tonight

  Mel and I had quite a few facts at our disposal.

  —Mel knew which New Year’s party Taylor would be attending.

  —He would be driving his precious car even though he would be getting ‘fuckin’ wasted.’

  —She’d overheard him droning into his phone that he would ‘fuck the shit out of some skank.’

  134. I was that skank

  Or so he would think. No way would I ride in a spaceship car with a gross drunk lech, so we’d obtained supplies—screwdriver, gloves (two pairs), hoodies (one—Mel already owned one because she was not khaki), sugar, and a new skank dress.

  We’d auditioned all of my recent purchases, but the tackiest frock I now owned was merely Level Real Housewife—close to Level Skank, but not quite cheap enough. So we soldiered to the local teen store, where I’d found a disturbing number of elastic options for under twenty dollars. I chose the same dress as the twelve-year-old next to me.

  Disturbing.

  Mel and I alit from a cab two blocks from the trendy bar in Williamsburg where Taylor would experience Operation Righteous Vagina Dentata Part One. Once again, we went over the plan. Our iPhones synchronized, we hugged, and I took off toward the bar for my portion of the effort.

  Mel grabbed my arm. “Maybe we shouldn’t. I mean, maybe I could just start adding laxatives to his coffee. I’ll probably do that anyway.” Her face screwed up into a horrific mixture of smile and grimace. It was the worst smimace I’d ever seen.

  I yanked her in for a hug. “We’re not really doing anything illegal. Relax.”

  135. Well…

  136. Mildly illegal at most

  137. Nothing Taylor himself hadn’t done

  138. Probably

  Pulling back, I gave her leather-clad hands a squeeze. “If anything seems amiss, just quit and walk away. We do this only if it’s easy and fun, right?”

  “Right. You too.”

  “Oh, that scumbag is not laying one finger on me.”

  Mel let out an outraged squeak. “If he does, honey, I will put Skinny ‘n Sweet in his coffee!”

  A lady passing by did a double-take and hurried away.

  I said, “Skinny and Sweet was the sugar substitute in Nine to Five, but I appreciate the sentiment.”

  “Oh, yeah, whoops—I meant the rat poison.”

  “I love you so much.”

  “Me too.”

  We fist- and hip-bumped, and I teetered toward the bar in my stupid heels, Spandex snake-print tank dress, and faux fur. Every inch of me screamed conspicuousness. I felt like an amateur hooker.

  The skeevy guy who just passed me seemed to feel that way, too.

  In better news, I was starting to learn to walk in stripper heels. My gait had a lot fewer hitches in it, and I hadn’t fallen in the last thirty minutes!

  139. Actually, maybe I could be a stripper for my next fuck-up

  140. But is it really a fuck-up to make tons of money for dancing?

  141. Makes my other career seem rather stupid

  I arrived at the bar and rushed in, thankful for indoor heating and the possibility of booze. After all—

  142. Half of walking well in five-inch heels was being lit enough not to feel my feet anymore

  Time to get serious.

  I was here to get Taylor. No longer could bad people be allowed to take advantage of hard-working, honest, nice, sweet—

  A guy walked up to me and slid his arm around my waist. “Hey, sexy girl.”

  I slammed my heel into his foot. “Take your hands off me, asshole.”

  He limped away.

  —Young ladies!

  I scanned the dimly lit room. Ugh, so many douchebags. If this place blew up right now, at least twenty percent of the tools in this city would be vaporized at once. Entire offices of investment bankers would go poof!

  There he was. Taylor. He stood near the bar, dressed in dark skinny jeans and a sweater bedecked with a skull. Ooh, what a bad boy… If only the sweater hadn’t cost a grand. I tented my fingers together in the universal symbol of evil plans—excellent.

  I swished over, shoved my way to stand to his right, and let out a girly huff. “Who does a girl have to bang to get a drink around here?”

  The guy to my right said, “Me,” with a wide smile.

  “No.” I focused on Taylor, busy looking away down the bar. I gave him a sharp elbow in the ribs, and he finally turned toward me. “Oops!” I simpered. “I’m so sorry! I was just trying to get the bartender’s attention.”

  Taylor grinned, his curly dirt blond hair wobbling atop his pointy head. “You got my attention. What would yo
u like, lovely lady?”

  I let the ‘fur’ slip down over one shoulder and said, “Whatever you’re having.”

  He puffed up his bird chest. “Can you handle a Long Island iced tea?”

  “Who wants to remember New Year’s Eve?” I let out a long, ditzy laugh and he joined me.

  Oh, yeah. I got him.

  Our drinks arrived, and I fished my secret weapon, a tiny vial, out of my purse. My nice drug dealer neighbor, Dennis, had acquired it for me, as it wasn’t his normal product. I would pour the contents of the vial into Taylor’s Long Island iced tea when he wasn’t paying attention.

  143. Mel had told me that Taylor once bragged about roofie-ing a woman

  144. See? Nothing that he hadn’t done

  145. And I wouldn’t even assault him

  146. So the GHB hardly even merited inclusion on my fuck-up list

  We retired to a small couch by the front entrance to the bar. “You are smoking hot!” said my gallant date. “What a great dress.”

  There was literally nothing great about this dress. It was a glorified tank top out of which every single body part I possessed now spilled.

  147. I was totally bangin’ tho

  “Thanks!” I giggled. I hadn’t thought that one could ‘giggle’ a word, but it is, in fact, possible. “You’re so cute!”

  He flexed his piddly ‘guns,’ and I nearly gagged. I covered it with another giggle. It came out like a Tommy gun—rat-a-tat! Taylor didn’t seem to want to talk to me much, so I just kept machine-gun laughing. I did take a few sips of my drink, keeping my eye on it the whole time.

  148. No way would I be roofied before I roofied him

  “What do you do?” I asked him. Every moment I waited for him to look away for a few seconds so I could just GHB the drink and not have to talk to him anymore.

  “Books which make tons of money—I make those happen.”

  “That make tons of money.”

  He froze mid-leer with a quizzical blink.

  Whoops. But really—an editor who couldn’t tell the difference between that and which? Shame! “Wow,” I said. “Money. I like money.”

  He returned to leering—whew—and began droning on about his big job while trying to worm his hand under my ass. If I kept scooting forward at this rate, I’d fall on the floor. My phone buzzed. I checked the text. He didn’t seem to give a shit. Nice.

  Mel: I’m still at home with food poisoning, but everything is okay.

  Yay! That was our code. If we got caught by the fuzz and hauled downtown at some point in the future, her texts would read that she’d been at home, and not near this douche’s car.

  Me: I’m so glad. Get some rest. I’m putting the noodles in your soup any minute now.

  149. Noodles = GHB

  150. Soup = Taylor

  Although that was a grievous insult to soup.

  Finally, I couldn’t take his yakking anymore. I set my drink on the floor and ‘accidentally’ threw my purse halfway across the room. “Oh, no! I’m getting drunk and clumsy and stuff.” I yanked Taylor’s drink from his hand. “Will you go get my purse? All my lube and condoms are in there! Hee hee!”

  “Condoms?” he said with a horrified face before he took off.

  Ew.

  I tipped the tiny vial into his Long Island, and he returned to the couch, my purse in tow. With a smile that didn’t reach his eyes, he said, “Here you go. But you won’t need this stuff with me, honey. You look clean, and I like it bareback.”

  151. V

  152. O

  153. M

  154. I

  155. T

  I shoved his cocktail back into his hand and held my own aloft. “Let’s drink!” I suggested in such a high sing-song pitch that perhaps only dogs could hear it. Taylor got the message and downed the entire rest of his in one gulp.

  156. Yes!

  Operation Righteous Vagina Dentata Part One complete.

  Taylor got up to get us more drinks and I texted Mel.

  Me: The noodles are in the soup

  Mel: The barf is in the toilet

  Oh, yeah!

  Okay, so perhaps our codes were a little tame and/or gross, but they worked for us.

  Taylor returned and I just waited. Not very long, for soon he started swaying, sleepy and spacey. “Hey, buddy,” I said. “Let’s go to your house.”

  He yawned and sat up straighter. “Yeah, okay. Finally.”

  It had been twenty minutes.

  Now, he likely would have agreed even if I hadn’t roofied him, but I knew that being very agreeable was a side-effect. Hence the popularity of the drug for raping purposes. I’d been out with Mel once when she’d suddenly began acting like a total weirdo and had wanted to go with some strange man to his hotel room for what he called ‘pizza’. I dragged her out of that bar, the guy getting really pissed off, almost violent, until we’d escaped in a cab.

  She’d slept for fifteen hours and hadn’t remembered any of it. God only knows what that piece of shit might have done to her. My blood boiled even now, and the heat fired its way up and down my body.

  I yanked on Taylor’s arm, and he swam up to standing—that’s the only way I could describe his swishing and dipping and staggering. His arm around my shoulders—for support, not for sexy—I led him from the bar and down the street to where Mel had informed me his car was.

  We found the orange spaceship.

  Yes. Orange. The car looked like a rolling penis suffering from a particularly radioactive venereal disease.

  We walked around to the passenger side. His gas tank hole door (I don’t know what it’s called) stood popped, and a line of crusty white trailed down to the ground, where an open bag of sugar had been dropped.

  Taylor lost his mind. “Nooooooo! Noooooo, not sugar in my gas tank! God damn it! Fucking shit motherfucker!”

  He collapsed over the car and began to weep. Weep. My hand clapped over my mouth, I tried my hardest not to laugh, but it was too difficult. Taylor didn’t notice me doubled over with mirth, anyhow. He strangled the sugar bag, getting spurts of the white granules all over himself.

  Naturally, I snapped a photo. For posterity!

  A bubble of pure delight exploded through me. I hadn’t been this happy since Yash kissed me.

  We hadn’t even ruined his gas tank. Mel had just put the sugar on the ground and popped the gas tank hole door.

  157. BWAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!

  Time for Operation Righteous Vagina Dentata Part Two.

  Chapter Eight

  F*ck-Ups One-Fifty-Eight through Two-Thirteen

  Operation Righteous Vagina Dentata Part Two

  Now with More Bite!

  It took me five minutes of promising sex to Taylor to get him peeled off the ground. Apparently true heartbreak can overcome the promise of sex. I’d had to dangle anal before he’d even look at me. So to speak. I assured him that we’d take care of the car tomorrow, and we hopped a cab to his apartment. We had to get to his place, for that was the entire point of the exercise.

  158. The pretend sugar in the gas tank was just a bonus evil prank, as well as a way to get out of having him drive in his inebriated state

  I texted Mel.

  Me: I’m on the way to your place with the chicken noodle soup.

  Mel: I’ll be here waiting for you.

  Taylor grew fifteen hands in the cab, and by the time we arrived, I was about to clock the guy to get him off me.

  I paid from his wallet, wrestled him out of the car, and got us into the elevator. Mel, the hoodie pulled up to hide her shining face, had shuffled into the elevator behind us. I pushed Taylor’s non-shining face to the wall and pinned him there so he wouldn’t see her.

  “Do you like it rough, baby?” he asked with copious slurs.

  At this point, my internal bile would not allow me to baby talk with him any longer. The hatred swirled through my stomach and brain like a swimming parasite. I rolled my eyes and searched his pants pockets for keys.

/>   What I found first was a tiny, liquid-filled vial, nearly identical to mine. I held it up so Mel could see.

  “Fucking piece of shit,” she muttered.

  “What?” Taylor asked.

  I smushed his head to the wall. “Nothing, cutie!”

  159. Is murder really so bad?

  Mel passed me my pair of black leather gloves. I slid them over my hands before we got to the door.

  The elevator dinged. “Let’s go,” I told the scumbag.

  We wove to his apartment and I used the keys I’d found in his front pants pocket to let us inside

  160. Shudder, not enough bleach for my hands in the world

  I left the door slightly ajar, and Mel would wait in the hall until I gave the all-clear.

  Taylor swerved toward the kitchen. I headed him off and asked, “Where’s the bedroom?”

  He tittered—tittered—and pointed, so I pushed him that direction. Once we arrived, I gave him a solid shove and he fell across the bed face first. Whew.

  161. Unfortunately, I now had a view of his flat, frat-boy butt

  My skin crawled even to be in here, knowing that likely, if this had been a real situation and not an amazing ‘operation,’ he would have roofied me by now. I growled my frustration, and ick, and impotent rage.

  “Don’t be like that,” Taylor muttered. “Take off your clothes, don’t be a bitch.”

  162. But being a bitch was my new oeuvre!

  That was it. That was fucking it. I took off my stupid shoes and threw them into the living room. “You taking off your clothesh, babbeeeeee?” he asked.

  “Oh, yeah.” I stomped into his closet. Neck ties. I yanked five off his automatic tie rotator—really?—and sauntered to him once again. The first one I wound around his eyes. He started to lift it, but I jumped on his back and put a knee between his shoulder blades. “I like it rough. Remember?”

  “Sh-shouldn’t I blindfold you?”

  “Sure, of course. I’ll go next.” I knotted the tie behind his head.

  163. No way the silk would recover from this sort of knotting