Chapter nine:

 

 

I’m home and the woman upstairs is being banged by some new john. The thump, thump, thump of the bed against the floorboards makes me agitated tonight. Normally it doesn’t bother me so much. It even provides some small semblance of comfort most nights. It’s one of my constants, something I can rely on. The world and its people continue to fuck no matter what’s happening. We could all go down in a burning mass and people would still be fucking their lives away while the earth crumbled beneath their trembling knees.

But not tonight.

Tonight it grinds on my every nerve.

I think about Carrie, and what she’ll think when I bring her here and show her my home—her new home. She never cared about things like that before. Her house was the shittiest on the street.

Her porch paint was always peeling.

Her lawn always overgrown.

Her windows forever dirty.

But perhaps she’ll care now.

Perhaps she likes the things that Mister Fancy Asshole gives her—things that I can’t afford to buy her, not on my minimum-wage job. Perhaps he takes her to nice places and buys her nice things—things that he should be buying for his loving wife.

Oh Carrie, what are you doing?

First things first, I’ll need to get a better job. But who’s going to employ someone like me? Someone with my history? The thought makes me angry again.

She’s done so much with her life, I can see that with her fancy coat and shiny hair. And all the while I’ve done nothing with mine. She’ll see that too. She’s moved forward and I’ve stayed still.

Of course, it’s not all my fault. I wasn’t always free, not like her.

She escaped.

She got out.

Ran away.

I pace my apartment, going from one room to the next, thinking of ways to make it nicer for her. Better for her. It’s clean, of course it is, but it’s not good enough for her. She deserves better. Much better.

A lamp here. A rug there. A picture hung to cover up the cracks. But it will never be perfect, not like she deserves. But then that was what we were about. We were the imperfect ones. The ones that didn’t fit in.

Her, with her lice-riddled hair and abusive father.

Me, with my overbearing mother, hard-working father, and my own obsessive nature.

We were perfect in our imperfectness.

My stomach rumbles in hunger but I can’t eat. It’s not food I’m hungry for anyways. I stand at my spot by the window and I think of her. One hand down my pants, tugging on myself.

And it’s like she’s here with me.

Her hand on my cock.

Fingers wrapped tightly around it, pulling it up and down.

Her mouth kissing my neck.

Stroking me.

Sucking on my earlobe, and God, I can’t take it…

I make myself cum. And it’s the best fucking orgasm I’ve ever had, barring the one I had with her. And I’m whispering her name and thanking her, like I always do. And I can’t wait for us to be together again.

Like we always used to be.

Before she disappeared and they told me she was dead.

Long before the blood that climbed the walls and soaked into our clothes.

I can explain to her, and she’ll understand. I know she will.

And then I’ll understand why she left me.

I won’t go to the police and tell them about her, because that part of our life is over. I’m not dwelling on the past, on the shoulda, coulda, woulda. I’ve moved past all that. I’m not angry. I never really was with her. How could I ever be?

She was my love, my life. She was my everything.

And it’s all going to be okay now.

I smile, and then I clean myself up, and then I laugh and know it won’t always be like this—coming into my own hand in my kitchen. I turn and start to make some soup for myself, because fuck it, I’m hungry and I can’t let myself wither away. Not today.

I pull out a can, it’s leek and potato, and that makes me happy. I think I deserve something good tonight. And this soup makes much more sense to me. The consistency and the color work in harmony with one another.

I open the can and tip the soup into my pan, and I smile because I know that one day soon I’ll be making this soup for the two of us.

And a tea for her and a coffee for me.

We’ll have breakfast in bed, and make love three times before noon.

We’ll take long walks on Sundays. And we’ll get a fucking dog and call it Shep or Fluffy something equally stupid like that because we’re going to be so deliriously happy. We’ll be one of those annoying couples that holds hands and kisses in the rain. And I’ll love the rain, not hate it like I do now.

“It’s all going to be okay,” I say to myself. “It’s all going to be okay now, Ethan.”

The banging upstairs has stopped, and I hear the man groan as he comes and I cheer for him.

Loudly.

Probably too loudly.

And then I clap.

And if he were here I’d probably pat him on the back and tell him well done, because good for him. At least he’s fucking living!

His wife might be a miserable, ugly bitch for all I know. She might nag and nag and never fuck him. Never even give him blow jobs no matter how hard he works. This might be the only way he can get his kicks, and who am I too judge so harshly on that?

I’m no one, but I won’t always be.

Soon I’ll be Carrie’s no one.

Which means I won’t be a no one at all.

I’ll be her everything.

And she’ll love me like I love her.

Like we promised we would forever.

And she will always fuck me.

And always give me blow jobs.

And she’ll never make me go see a prostitute because she’ll be a good fucking wife. And a good fucking mother.

“Fuck,” I say with a laugh, dragging my hands through my hair.

Because I realize that this is it.

This is the turning point of my life. The moment that people wait for, where everything changes and things start to get better.

We’ll get married. And one day she’ll be carrying my baby in her beautiful stomach. And she’ll still fuck me even then. She’ll worry, and I’ll tell her it’s okay to have sex when you’re pregnant because I read it in one of our baby books. And she’ll be happy and smile because I read the fucking baby books like she asked me to. And then she’ll give me a blowjob because she’s so happy to be my wife.

And I’ll be happy because I’ll have a beautiful wife, full and pregnant with my child, on her knees, sucking my dick like the good fucking wife she is.

And then we’ll fuck afterwards anyway, because she can’t stay away from me because I make her so horny.

And could life get any more perfect than this?

Fuck no, I’ll scream from the rooftops as I come.

And then I actually do cum, again, right here right now, in my pants while I stir my stupid fucking soup and think of Carrie’s lips wrapped around my hard dick. I cum all over myself and I feel it running down my leg.

And then I laugh instead of get freaked out, because…

This is everything!

Thump, thump, thump…

Someone’s at my door. The sound of their fists hitting my cracked red paint vibrates through my apartment. I’m pulled from my reverie and brought back down to earth with a euphoric crash.

“One minute,” I yell to whoever it is.

There’s cum on my hand and stomach and trailing down the inside of my thigh. I stand at my kitchen sink and clean it quickly. I rinse the sink out and squirt some bleach down it, hating not being able to clean it properly. But it’s okay, I tell myself; it can wait two minutes while I answer the door.

I pull my top off and throw it in my machine and I notice that there’s a stain soaking through my pants, but I can’t do anything about that now because I’m walking to the front door, looking for something to throw over myself because I don’t like answering the door half undressed with cum stains on my pants.

Whoever it is knocks again, louder this time.

“I’m coming,” I yell again and peer through the peephole, almost laughing at my own statement.

And when I look through the peephole I see it’s the prostitute from upstairs, and she looks really pissed off, and for a fleeting moment I wonder if she knows that I just came all over myself and she’s annoyed because I didn’t ask her for help.

But I wouldn’t ask her for help.

Not ever.

And especially not now; not with Carrie back in my life.

Because who needs an ugly whore like her when I have beautiful Carrie to bring me pleasure?