by Kira Graham
“What was so special? Listen up, man, because I am only saying this once. When I get my flow, it’s like I’ve acquired an untreatable, terminal illness that is slowly poisoning my body. My hormones go all out of whack, streaking to every conceivable inch of my body. My muscles hurt, I get raging headaches, and my bowels get inundated with this little concoction that I like to call a natural laxative. It turns my stomach into a boiling cauldron of pure pain, and makes it so that I have to clench everything, nearly all day, for five days of every month. Think of it as having the stomach flu once a month for the rest of your miserable life. And those aren’t even the worst parts of it—but it’s enough to make women fucking rock stars for going through this shit without killing everyone around them in fury. Understood?” I ask, stepping past him in my towel to get to the closet.
Seriously, didn’t I just have a good talk with myself about keeping some mystery in this marriage? And yet here I am, answering one of his million and one questions about my gross biological functions. That’s the problem here, I think, as I pull on a pink silk nightie and reach for my hairbrush. He wants a degree of closeness that I just don’t think is good for anyone. It’s one thing to be you—and to be comfortable being you—around your significant other, but it’s quite another to just let everything about you all hang out, all the freaking time.
I don’t want him to see me as some disgusting bag of boiling blood once a month. Honestly, why can’t I be like Mom? You know, in all the years that I’ve consciously understood that my mom is human, and I use that term extremely loosely, I have never once heard her talk about her cycle or seen her experience it. In fact, I asked Dad when he gave me my period speech, plus a thousand dollars and a “sorry” gift, why Mom didn’t have this affliction—’cause that’s what it is—and he said that Mom was just very good about hiding those things.
I don’t think that even he knew about it, which stands to reason, because the man loves her so completely that he must not have understood that those things were a reality.
I just can’t quite explain how or why my husband seems to love me more, the more he knows. It’s disgusting. Goddammit.
“You need to chill out about these things. We do gross things. It’s human,” Z shrugs after following me into the closet, as if being apart from me is a physical impossibility.
I don’t know if I love or hate that, but it’s a good thing for him that I can’t decide, because he pulls me into his arms, laughing all the while, and carries me to the bed, where he snuggles me into him and shoves his face into my hair.
So far, it’s been a week to remember. Not only did I win my case against the city, thereby proving to one and all that I am guilt-free—in this instance, at least, since we won’t talk about the late night drive of oh-five, or what Tee and I resorted to after something jumped in front of her car. I also declined the huge payout from the city, and got the mayor so far up my ass that it tickles my insides. We closed on Waters, finally, after a lot of back-and-forth from his lawyers about royalties that the idiot was pushing for—for God knows what reason, seeing as how we bought out the patents that he held on some of their designs.
All in all, it’s been grand, except for a few small things. For one, I’m feeling weird. Something—I can’t say what it is—is making me antsy, and as a woman who is simultaneously paranoid, a little violent in nature, and a meticulous planner, not knowing what the source is, is giving me the jitters.
I guess that’s why I’ve been crabby and searching for any reason to argue with Zeus lately. That, and the fact that, despite all attempts—and trust me, we attempt a lot—I have not conceived a baby. One period, however, does not make me sterile, I assure myself, even as I worry and feel a wave of paranoid angst trying to invade me.
See? This is why I now know that Chilli and I would have been a bad idea. I’m a nut, and he’s a nut, and so together, we’d have been more than just a little nuts. Zeus, on the other hand, is steady, rock-solid, and a pillar of strength that I lean on, even when he doesn’t know it.
“You seem upset. Talk to me,” he whispers, his breath tickling over the nape of my neck and sending chills of squirminess down my spine.
“Do you think that we know too much about each other? I mean, not that you should ever stop telling me things, because secrets are not okay, and I am slightly paranoid, so if I get antsy, I will stalk you, follow you, and kill you for any secrets that you may be keeping. But, uh, do you think that maybe we’re a little too open about things? Like, doesn’t it make you feel a little…squeamish, knowing that I have to wear tampons the size of warheads?” I ask, curious about how he can be not grossed out by that.
I mean, this is superficial and a little unfair, but I am not exactly okay with knowing that he has to trim his pubes or risk making a mound in his briefs. It’s just weird. Thank God that Zeus is a fastidious manscaper and takes his upkeep seriously. I like me a metrosexual man who understands the value of being groomed.
“I like knowing things about you,” he says with a yawn, shrugging forcefully enough that I feel it. “You’re important to me, babe. If I know the stuff that’s important to you, then I can help if you need me to.”
Like when I forgot to buy products and found a new box under the sink in my hour of need. Or when I almost killed myself because I ran out of feminine wipes but found a new pack in my vanity drawer. I won’t even think about how he knows those things—things that I never told him—but I will say that it was nice having someone take care of me, even when I didn’t know I needed it.
“That goes both ways, I guess. I should know your stuff, too, and not just the fact that you’re willing to take a dump in front of me,” I mutter, giggling when he pinches my side.
“I don’t need much, I guess. Just you. Give me you, and I’m all good.”
Aw, that’s so sweet. And total bullshit! I tell him so, convinced that if he gives me some crappy, manufactured story about how I make his world turn, I will kill him. I’m an equal opportunities kinda gal, and by that I mean that I want power in this relationship—power that I’m not getting because I never have the upper hand. I buy ice cream, but I get the flavor wrong. I get him socks, only to find out that he can’t wear anything with polyester in it unless I want to see his feet raw with oozing sores. I rent a movie but end up watching it alone while he reads some stinking tome that makes me think of old men and pipes.
God, I think he’d look super awesome if he wore glasses, smoked a pipe, and played the naughty professor—
Stop that!
I have no power here, and it occurs to me that that’s because I don’t know much about Zeus Hart, the man I married, and he likes it that way.
The bastard.
“But it’s true! See? I’m happy right now, and all you’re doing is being here.”
“Zeus. Come on. Give me something. What were you like as a kid? Do you like vanilla or chocolate? Why don’t you eat spinach—but like Ma’s lasagna that contains half spinach? Are you into sprinkles or chocolate mousse poops?” I ask, nudging him playfully and expecting a chuckle or some sort of joke.
What I get instead is a growled curse before he jumps out of bed and stalks away, his muttered words indecipherable to my ears. In fact, I don’t think that I would be able to make them out at all, even if they weren’t just grunts, because I’m so shocked that all I can do is sit up and call after him, filled with bewilderment.
What the actual hell?
Are we fighting? Why? Is this because I called it chocolate mousse poops? Because that isn’t weird; it’s cute. What the hell?
********************************************************************
“Adonis says that Zeus has personality issues, but then again, Adonis has also called the Pope a patriarchal dictator that can be likened to the CIA,” Cleo snorts, grimacing about what she calls Adonis’s sudden and unsexy conversion to feminism.
I chuckle along with her because she isn’t wrong. Ever since the man found out that
HR offered me a salary below the halfway mark of what Zeus had earned in the same position, he’s been on some ranting tear about equality in the work place. Personally, I think that he’s trying to focus on anything besides the fact that a water pipe burst at the venue where he and Cleo were set to get married in three weeks—and that he found a sledgehammer, a ski mask, and a pipe wrench in a duffel bag in Cleo’s closet.
No, I don’t know if she pulled that one off, or if it was just a sick and sad coincidence that saw them calling off their seventh attempt at matrimonial I do’s. All I know is that Cleo’s jitteriness dissolved when the wedding planner called with the news, and the fact that he apparently insisted that they’ll have to wait for the venue to be fixed, is sounding like complete bullshit.
At this point, it’s ridiculous how long it’s taking for her to knuckle down and get over her anxiety about weddings. But, well, that’s Cleo for you. Love her or leave her; she is not ever changing.
“Adonis is about to go nuts if you don’t stop your antics and marry him. Come on, Cleo, what is the problem?” I ask, staring across my desk at her, where she’s picking at her lunch and biting into her lip.
“This isn’t my fault. It’s like fate keeps throwing things in our path. Maybe we don’t have to get married, ya know? Maybe we’re just fine the way we are,” she argues, looking as guilty as hell and struggling to meet my eyes.
“Cut the shit, Cleotapra. Everyone and their freaking mother knows that you’re sabotaging the wedding. Hell, you didn’t even bother to hide the blue ink that mysteriously got spilled on the dress that Mom locked in her spare closet. The place isn’t haunted, Cleo, and your hands were blue for two days,” I point out, blowing out a sad sigh when she huffs and lets her shoulders slump.
“I don’t know, okay? I just…when I’m planning the wedding, it’s all fine. I see the perfect dress, and then I see the perfect venue, and don’t even get me started on the cake tastings, because I love those, Rosetta, do you hear me? I love them. But when the time ticks closer, and I think, ‘I am going to walk down that aisle’…I get so anxious that my body just seems to take on a life of its own. Then I do things, Rose—bad things that involve destroying property and setting rats loose in someone’s place of business. That caterer almost went under after the health department closed them down for two weeks. I did that, and I wasn’t even considering how the people working there would be affected,” she whispers, sniffling into a hanky that is the color of a putrid orange.
God help me, I never, ever want to see one of Cleo’s wedding dresses. They must be as ugly as hell. I wouldn’t put it past her to wear something that looks like the late Princess Di’s marshmallow frock.
“I just don’t get it, Cleo. Adonis is great.”
“I know that! Oh my God, don’t you think I know? I feel so guilty every single time something happens, and he looks so despondent and disappointed. He knows it’s me, and yet he keeps kissing me and saying that next time it’ll work out. Yesterday, he—he said that it doesn’t matter, that he’s just happy we’re together,” she sobs, her mascara streaming down in black globs. “But it does. In my heart, I know it does, and I swear, Rosetta, I do want to get married. I really do. I love Hart, and I want us to get married. I just can’t seem to get over…the anxiety,” she whispers with a shake of her head.
The trouble is, I don’t know what to say about it, either. Cleo just isn’t getting there, and despite therapy and a long talk that involved Mom’s threatening her with bodily harm, she isn’t any closer to walking down that aisle than she was months ago.
“I’m sorry, sweetie,” I sigh, jamming a tater tot into my mouth.
“Yeah, well, I’m not the only one with problems, apparently. Your husband freaked out about telling you about himself, and flew to another state to escape you,” she snorts, giggling when I curse and throw a tot at her head.
Which she catches in her mouth, while giggling. Dammit.
“He had to go meet with some archeo-something or other before they break ground on the resort,” I explain, though I don’t really know that that’s the complete truth.
In reality, I went to sleep in a huff after his vanishing act, woke up to breakfast and a note that he’d see me at work, and then received a kiss and a goodbye as he ran out of the office an hour later, on his way to Utah. Our conversations over the last two days have been stilted, and have revolved mainly around work because I’m too chickenshit to ask him about his little man-trum.
Pathetic, but there you have it. I’ve officially turned into one of those losers who cry when the boy they like is mean to them. Gross.
“Yeah, and yesterday, I made new reservations at a different venue,” Cleo snorts, her eyes dancing when I hiss and curse at her.
“You know, this habit you all have of meeting for lunch without inviting the rest of us is starting to really hurt my feelings,” I hear from the doorway, popping my head up and glaring when I see Tee and Sin standing there.
My last conversation with Tee saw me opening a package the next morning—a package containing fleas, which I admit may not have been quite as gross as I thought they were, but I swear I scratched myself raw thinking about those little shits getting into my hair. Although, to be honest, I don’t even really know if there were actual fleas in the box. Tee likes to use psychological warfare, so the note that she sent saying there were fleas, could have been a lie.
“The one genuine feeling you have can go suck on Satan’s balls,” I tell her, shoving three tots into my mouth because I am not sharing with her.
My tots!
“Fire balls. I remember eating those as a kid,” she giggles, ignoring my meaning entirely and pulling Sin in behind her before shutting the door. “So, I heard from Chilli, who heard it from Pop, who heard it from Adonis that Zeus skipped town to get away from your harpy ass. Congrats, I think you have Britney Spears beat by a day in the divorce stakes.”
“Screw you, you mental amoeba! He has to work. Chilli’s looking to break ground sometime this century, and Z is trying to clear it all so that they won’t find any surprises once the digging starts.”
It’s a lie, but also the truth. Zeus left to avoid me, which is bullshit, because all I wanted to do was talk. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think that he doesn’t want me to get to know him, which is weird because it’s the one thing he keeps saying. That knowing each other is important. With Z, though, it’s become blatantly obvious that it’s a one-way street. Not that I don’t know him; I just…don’t know intimate details, or even the superficial stuff that most couples get out of the way early on. I only know that his favorite color is black, because it’s so Z that it couldn’t be anything else. He hardly speaks, unless he’s interrogating me about my feelings, and he sulks around the apartment when I don’t immediately tell him my every secret desire and wish in life. Suddenly, it occurs to me that I am married to…me. The male version of me, I think, cringing inwardly.
I’ve become the sappy, gross person who says things like, “I feel sad,” or—my personal worst and a shame that I will never get over—who cries while watching Cats & Dogs, which I only ever used to watch when I felt like laughing. At how pathetic the story is. I’ve…lost my edge. I’m not the stalker anymore; I’m the stalkee.
Oh, my God. That’s not romantic! It’s scary.
“Chilli said that he ran into the office at five in the morning, when Adonis is usually on his second cup of coffee—”
“Third,” Cleo pipes up, grinning affectionately.
“Excuse us—third cup of coffee. And he demanded the green light to fly out immediately. Immediately, Rosetta. As in, he ran like the hounds of hell were on his tail,” Tee murmurs, dodging Cleo’s fists as she steals one of her fries and grabs her milkshake.
“That isn’t a very nice thing to say.”
“But it is true, Rose. You started getting too close to him, and he bolted, which begs the question—”
“Don’t you say it!”
; “Why doesn’t he want to share all of himself with you?” Sin finishes, ignoring my threatening glares and the onyx paperweight I lift from the desk.
“Dammit. I said don’t ask that question. Now I have to ask that question and admit that I am the stalkee, and I don’t like it one bit. I thought that it was supposed to be super romantic, and yet here I am, being watched and analyzed under a microscope, while he sits back in the shadows. Darn it—now I know how Chilli felt,” I huff, snarling when Sin snorts.
“And me?”
“Screw you. Paris wasn’t stalking you. He was wooing you,” I sneer, flopping back in my chair when it occurs to me that I may or may not be a little to blame here.
I’m not exactly the soul of sappy wonder, and I think that for Z, maybe, it’s hard to be like that because neither one of us is really equipped to be…romantic, I think, my gasp horrified because I once thought that I was absolutely the soul of romance. I think that maybe, possibly, we may both be a little weird and—gulp—unromantic.
I think…
“Oh, shut up and stop wailing at the ceiling!” Tee yells, snapping me out of it and making me realize that I am kneeling on the carpet and wailing my feelings aloud like some Shakespearean actress of old.
Ahem. I’m going to need to work on my flair for the dramatic.
“I’m totally romantic.”
“Name one thing that you’ve done for Zeus that makes you romantic,” Cleo says, her eyes daring me to answer honestly.
I’d lie, just because I can and because I am super awesome at it, but honestly, I can’t think of anything good enough to lie about, because I am horrifically trapped in a silent trance in which I search frantically through my past for one instance of romance.