Let me go by, I’m going home.
How’re you getting home? Carrie’s not driving you anywhere.
I can walk. It’s not far.
Let me drive you home.
You’re drunk as shit.
I’ll walk you home.
I’m not sucking your dick.
Fine let me just walk you home.
He moved around, from one foot to another.
I don’t want you to walk me home, Eric.
What if I said I wanted you to be my girlfriend?
I’d say you were lying.
Really, Maddy.
I’ve got a boyfriend.
That fag you hang out with?
I’m on my way home, get out of my way.
She pushed him aside and he started yelling after her. Whore, cocksucker, fuck socket, hobag. VD-having, stinking, rotting cunt. Don’t come back to my house ever again.
She walked home and it took a while. She threw up again in some bushes on the way. She wanted Mark to come back and to smell him and feel him and she wanted to tell him that they still beg for it from her, they still want her and what do you think about that Mark? I’m yours and I’m the slut of all sluts. She wanted to say, Markie you haven’t taken it away from me I still have it. I still have what it takes. She thought, I could show you my insides, I could turn myself inside out for you, me, me, who everybody wants, me, who can swallow the whole world. But when he came back she didn’t say anything. They kissed, they held each other, they made love. Maddy said let’s move in together and he said okay. He said let’s get married when we graduate.
9
They told her parents first, standing side by side and then they drove over to his parents’ house, side by side, and told them. Afterwards Maddy straddled him in the car, pushing the full weight of herself against him. He felt crushed, suffocated, overwhelmed. She fucked him like that, sitting on top of him. She said, do you love me. Yes, he said. Oh, I love you she said, oh, contracting her muscles around his cock, moving forward and back again, saying does this feel good? Yeah, Maddy. Yeah. He came inside of her and then he pushed her off, quickly, aggressively, and laying her against the seat, he pulled her hips up to his face and ate her until she begged him to stop. His own come dripping down his chin, he dropped her off at her house and went home and went to bed.
The next day they went to City Hall. Maddy wore a short white dress and had her hair combed down demurely instead of frizzed out. She wore hardly any make-up. His parents talked awkwardly with hers. Mark and Maddy were married. It didn’t take long. Everybody signed a piece of paper. They planned on saving money and going on a honeymoon when they could afford to go somewhere special. That night, they rented a room at the Marriot Hotel, the nicest hotel in South Bend. They ordered a bottle of champagne and then another and then another. They fucked and fucked again and by the third bottle of champagne and the third time he entered her, they were laughing. They started laughing so hard and Mark’s cock went limp and fell out of her.
Oh, baby, look you’re bored of me already. We’ve been married less than a day and already you’re bored of me, Maddy said and she pushed him on his back and started giving him head, hoping to revive his erection.
No, no. I’m not bored of you baby. I’m just drunk.
Maddy pulled his cock out of her mouth for a moment, saying, you’ve fucked me when you were drunk before.
I just fucked you twice.
He lay back, feeling her on him, her mouth working away, but he was not aroused. Come up here and kiss me, he said and she flopped next to him. He leaned over and licked her neck, saying, how could you ever bore me?
I don’t know.
You could never bore me. I just swore my life to you. I fucking worship you.
The next morning they took a long bath together and ordered breakfast delivered to the room. They watched a movie, hungover and tired, and checked out of the hotel an hour late. Maddy had found an apartment and Mark said okay and they were planning on moving in that day.
10
Their apartment was perfectly fine and in a decent neighborhood. It was the top floor of an old house. They had a separate entrance and could park the car in the driveway. There was a tree in the front yard and some grass. Maddy hadn’t looked for long — maybe she could have found something a little bigger further away from the central part of the town. But they couldn’t wait. They were eighteen and impatient. Maddy got really excited about it, cooking and cleaning and buying lace curtains for the bedroom. They smoked pot in the living room, had sex in the kitchen.
The air didn’t move around well in the apartment. This bothered Mark. He took it as a bad omen, but he didn’t say anything to her. There was no cross circulation.
He had never spent so much time with someone in such a small place. He had had his own room at home. Every night she lay next to him. Every morning he woke up next to her.
The place didn’t contain Maddy that well. Before, Maddy and Mark spent a lot of time in his car, or at his parents’ house if no one was home. Or they went out to eat, sitting in some booth. Everything and every place had been momentary, transitory. But once they had their own place, time stopped and he learned new things about her.
She walked around in the apartment, back and forth, back and forth. Into the kitchen, out to the living room, into the bedroom back to the kitchen picking up this, putting away that and always cooking. Her face was in the fridge or in a drawer or in a cabinet. Her hands wrapped around a bowl of cookie dough or a vacuum cleaner or a basket of laundry.
When they sat around together, smoking and drinking on the dark green couch (a gift from her parents), watching a movie, he could feel her next to him. She’d get up during commercials and go into the kitchen — do whatever — go into the bedroom, fluff a pillow. If they were watching a video and there were no commercials — she’d get up anyway. He’d say, Maddy, you want me to press pause? She didn’t give a shit. She’d say, no that’s alright, and go into the bathroom and put green stuff on her face. I’m just putting on a facial, she’d say. I’ll be right out. And he’d hear her tinkering around in there. He’d hear the cabinet shut and open and shut and open and the water run. He wouldn’t be able to pay attention to the movie. He’d miss what happened.
Then she got pregnant. She went off the pill without telling him.
When she told him, she was excited and red in the face and ashamed. Sweetie, she said, I’m pregnant. No way. Not until we have money. I’m nineteen, he said. We’re too young. He took a day off of work to drive her to the clinic. She sat silently next to him. Her face was puffy from crying.
I don’t want to get an abortion.
I know, honey.
I’m scared.
Maddy bit the palm of her hand and looked at Mark hunched over the wheel.
I’ll be with you, he said.
They won’t let you past the waiting room.
I’ll be there when you get out.
I know. But I’m still scared, she said, the pitch of her voice altered. Her palms were salty and slick And she sucked on one of them.
Don’t be scared, Maddy. It’s a quick operation. It’s much less dangerous than childbirth. You don’t even have to go under.
I know. It’s not that shit that bothers me.
Mark shifted in aggitation, saying, well, what’s bothering you?
I’m just not excited about this okay.
We can’t have a baby.
I know. You’re right. I was wrong. I don’t want to have a baby. I just don’t want to have an abortion, she said and she started to cry. Mark pulled over.
Oh, honey don’t cry. In a few hours this will all be over, he said. He tried to lean toward her — to kiss her.