FIFTEEN B (and B stands for BONUS!)

Since a lot a you are probably reading this and saying to yourself why the fuck is Bob teasing me with this shit about getting fired -- and then never telling me what happened -- I decided to ease your pain a little bit. Here's what happened:

I got fired from work today.

I was following my normal schedule and nothing seemed out a the ordinary: My soul and body were prepared for another round a crushing labor, and when I got done with the twelve hours a lifting boxes in and out a big long trucks I was gonna go to a bar and light myself up. But I still had the day a work to get through. So I prepared myself and went. When I got there, I saw my boss standing behind his pea-green podium. He said: “Where the hell have you been?” like he was mad I hadn't kept an appointment.

It was a strange question because it was Monday; I wasn't late; and if he knew me at all he'd know I spent the entire weekend drinking beer and fucking pussy.

“I’m five minutes early," I said and continued to the lockers to get into my jumpsuit as if nothing was wrong, because in my mind, what little of it there is, nothing was wrong.

“Where the hell were you Monday and Tuesday?” he said.

I stared at him. He seemed perfectly normal, healthy, fit, and not sweating or anything that would convince me he was suffering from a fever or delusions. “You might wanna check the calendar," I said. "It is Monday.”

“You check the calendar. It’s Wednesday. You’re two days late for work!”

Phil's a bit of an uptight prick. He's also a manger so sometimes he said things just for effect, and since he'd went to a managerial seminar in order to lie convincingly to his employees, you just couldn't believe what he said.

So I gave myself some time to ruminate on the possibility it was two days later than I thought.

Now, as far as I am concerned, it's impossible to sleep through two whole days unless you did something special. I hadn't. My weekend had been normal. I invited over my next door neighbor when her old man wasn't home and the broad that lived upstairs and I fucked 'em all afternoon. I fucked 'em so much I thought my dick was gonna fall off. Then I woke up this morning. No way it was three days later.

At least I didn't believe it until he showed me a newspaper. In the corner there was a date and the date said it was Wednesday.

So, it turned out Phil was right: It was Wednesday, and I was two days late for work, no matter how impossible that seemed. So, considering all a my other absences and write ups, I was pretty much fucked. Phil said he couldn't let me abuse the company attendance policy; it was an insult to SuperLogistics, LLC. and all hardworking Americans everywhere. I told him he can suck on my meat. Then I whipped it out and dared him to.

He did the only appropriate thing for a man like him could do: he called security. After a struggle, in which one a the guards copped a couple feels, they "escorted me from the premises."

That's how I got unemployed.

There, you happy now? Don't say I don't care about my readers!

FIFTEEN

I followed her back to the hotel. On the way inside the room, she slammed the door in my face; the force of it almost pushed my nose up into my brain and killed me, but my brain had been so stunted by The Cleveland Public school I had extra room in there and the only thing I suffered was bloody nose. I stood there on the balcony for a few minutes, cleaning myself off, begging her to let me in, if only to get some toilet paper I could shove up my nostrils. She only told me to fuck off.

I didn't have nothing else to do, so I decided to go find some beer to help me erase my memory of the situation. Because, it was a bad one.

Once I got moving around, I saw that this neighborhood was a totally different world from my neighborhod even though it was only a couple miles away. This place was rough while my neighborhod was just kind a scuffed up a little. Here, food stamps and welfare are career options. Even I was employed, sort of, so for once I finally felt good about myself, even thought maybe someone around here would look at me for advice in how to move up in the world. It took me awhile, but I finally found the trendy area I always heard assholes talking about to put me in my place again. There was a bunch a coffee shops and other shit all glowing in neon I didn't care much about; all I was looking for was a beer hole, and not some fancy place that served Euro-piss brew. I wanted good old American barley and hops and some cool Rocky Mountain spring water.

Of course, I don't find that kind a place; but what do I find? My old boss, the guy who fired me when I had all eleven thick inches a my dick hanging out a my pants, the story I was about to write at the beginning a this thing, but didn't have time because I had to start with the pussy. Anyway, he come strolling out a this restaurant like he owned the world and the moment I saw him I remembered I owed him a good dose a revenge.

Because no man fucks with Bob Collins and gets away with it.

So I rushed him from behind and punched him in the kidney, not hard enough to knock him over, but hard enough to get his attention, sort a like going up to someone's house and ringing the doorbell and saying, "Guess, what, asshole, someone's here for a visit!" Soon as I hit him, he turned around in pain, sort a rubbing the hell out a his lower back. When he saw me, his eyes went all wide and shit.

I smiled at him; and with that smile I was silently saying, That's right, motherfucker -- payback.

"Bob?" he stammered. "Imagine finding you in a neighborhood like this. What are the odds?"

"I don't know," I said. "I went to Cleveland Public Schools -- I ain't good at math."

Something must a been going through his head; I could see the gears turning; then, without no warning at all, he went and done a real bitch thing and kicked me in the nuts. Just like that, my undefeated record since I been with Janice was shattered. I went down, just like you'd expect me to, and while I was down, he ran away like a little girl.

FOURTEEN

"Lets go before the cops come sniffing around."

It was like the third time I'd warned her, but she wouldn't leave; actually, it ain't that she wouldn't leave, because she could if she wanted to; it was more like she wouldn't listen to me. The more I got to understand Janice the more I realized she wasn't going to do nothing no one told her to do. So, despite my rational arguments for leaving, she continued to squat over the old man with this weird look on her face, in some sort a demented defiance no sane person could ever understand, and I think she did it just to spite me, but if she didn't do it just to spite me, spiting me was a big part a her reason why she was doing it. Don't let her fool you on that.

She looked sorry for the old man. Maybe it was the way I beat his ass and took his money that brought on a sudden strain a conscience in Janice, but I don't know. I ain't gonna pretend I can see inside the mind of a woman. After all, the old man didn't deserve what I'd done to him; on the other hand, I didn't deserve all a the shit that happened in my life either. I don't see no one apologizing to me so why should I feel bad for him? The world is a cold hard place. I just couldn't conjure up too much pity.

Maybe I was just an asshole. You always gotta consider you're the problem in a problem. But, in this case, if I was the problem, it was because I was reflecting the world I was raised in -- a world a predator-men who took my time and energy, chewed me up, spit me out, and never said thanks for continually taking from me. Am I supposed to feel guilty that I did a little a my own cheing and spitting? I'm Bob Collins. Guilt ain't my forte.

The thing that really got me was as Janice squatted there, refusing to listen to reason or me, she took out one a her titties and inserted its erect nipple in the old guy's mouth. Once the thing was in there, the old guy started to suckle on it, like he was a infant. Janice smiled with pure mirth that almost radiated out a her, then pet his greasy gray hair back on his head and cooed in his ear while he sucked. I could almost see her get happier the more I grew angry.

Finally, I couldn't take it no more; you can't just do that, disrespect a man right in front a his face, and expect him not to get upset. Sure, I bet Janice and her friends probably wanted me to keep my tail tucked between my legs and pretend it was my dick, which had been cut off, at least spiritually, and just let her do whatever she wanted without challenging her on none a it. But I ain't that kind a man. I don't got no tail; but I do got an eleven-inch dong that likes to pound pussy into submission. With an anger so hot and extreme it could a melted lead, I kicked the old man so hard in the gut that he made this hideous wheezing sound like his intestines were gonna explode and he spit out Janice's tit with a loud exhalation.

I could see Janice's nipple wet with spit.

She looked up at me with a fire in her eyes. "You didn't have to do that!" she snapped. "That was just insensitive and cruel."

Like what she was doing to me wasn't any a those things.

I didn't pay no attention to the dozens a other curses and accusations she was laying on me, just pulled her to her feet as a couple porch lights turned on, and started to really put the pressure on us to get the hell outta there.

I walked her down the road to the hotel, and when we were outta eye-shot, I said, "What the fuck was that all about?"

She was all tense, with her body wrapped up tightly in her arms. I already knew, just by the way she was moving, I'd made a mistake. "You wouldn't understand, Bob."

I was taken aback by her lack a response. I expected a hailstorm of invective and a couple a dosings a feminist wisdom. What I got frightened me even more.

So, what do I do? Since I'm Bob Collins, I continue with my line a questioning, unperturbed. Who knows why? Maybe it's some personality defect in me.

"What kind a criminal goes around and sticks her tit in her victim's mouth?" I said. "That just ain't how it's done! You're a horrible fucking criminal, Janice. Horrible!"

"I am not a criminal," she said.

"No, you're not," I yelled. And with as much venom as I could get outta my voice box, I added: "You're just a whore."

I figured that comment wouldn't go over very well; and I was right. She took off ahead a me in that quick way she only used when she was mad. Even though I was mad too, I didn't mind too much, because her ass always looked real good when she walked away like that.

"Don't you wanna see how much money we made?" I yelled at her.

She didn't turn around to look at me, only yelled at the top a her lungs: "Stop trying to control me, asshole!"

Wasn't no one trying to control her -- especially not me. I got enough problems controlling myself and I had no reason to seek authority over someone else's decisions. Dumb bitch.

Maybe she didn't even realize it herself, but no one controlled Janice; she was a force to be reckoned with, a natural fury, a demon a self-possession. She made all a her own decision and everybody, including me, when along for the ride. How else could I explain the fact I was now married? Marriage was the last thing I imagined for myself. I had plans a fucking any woman I came across until the day I died. Beer and broads, that was my mantra. But now I was married. Somehow she'd connived me into it and here I was suffering the consequences -- and the marriage wasn't even forty-eight hours old. I started getting depressed when I realized she had played me like a violin. I had to get my mind off a the situation and I was wondering how much cash I got off the old guy anyway, so I took out the roll -- and unrolled it. The results were unimpressive.

"Fuck," I muttered. I'd just committed a felony for sixteen dollars.

THIRTEEN

Janice caught up to the victim. From the safety a the bushes, I could hear everything going on just twenty feet away. Janice asked him for a smoke, just like we'd planned. Everything seemed to be going well -- they were smiling and shit -- until the guy answered her request for a cigarette by saying he didn't smoke -- even though he had a goddamned cigarette smoldering and hanging from his parched lips.

Come on, baby, I said to myself. Don't quit now; don't let up. I knew my wife was smart enough to find some angle around his refusal to engage in the exchange that would break down his resistance and wariness. When it came to that sort a shit she beat me hands down. But what she came up with didn't really set to well with me:

She said she'd show him her titties if he gave her a smoke.

I started to get real heated, so heated I wanted to go out there and smack the shit out a her. She couldn't do nothing without making it an excuse to show her titties to a stranger. I just sat there behind them bushes watching her and I got so hot I finally couldn't take it no more and jumped out a the bushes, flexing my pecs in a real intimidating fashion. I was about to put my 18-0 record on the line and I was pretty sure I wasn't gonna lose.

I went right up behind the old man, as quiet as a fox on tiptoes, and stuck my finger into his back, just like I'd done when I was younger, right in his kidney. "Don't fucking move," I said in this real mean voice, "unless you want me to blow your guts out!"

He didn't move. I couldn't blame him. I can be a real intimidating motherfucker when I wanna be. And if I were him I wouldn't want my guts blown out.

After he put his hands in the air and froze like an ice cube, I rifled through his pockets while Janice watched me like I was some kind a animal. I thought I saw a sort a disapproval in her eyes; she was looking at me like I was some sort a animal or something like she didn't know me. Like she was having some sudden insight into my character. I was about to tell her to turn her whore eyes away if she didn't like what we were doing but I was too busy finding the thin money roll in the old dude's pocket. When I did find it, I tossed it in the air in victory, then stuck it in my pocket, sorta like the government does with part a my paycheck. Then I knocked the guy over and kicked him in the stomach. But I didn't fuck him in the ass. I leave that to Uncle Sam.

"Don't forget the smokes," Janice said.

I grabbed her arm, trying to drag her away. "We can buy our own. We gotta get outta here while the gettin's good," I told her.

But it wasn't Janice's style to be told what to do by a man, especially an alpha male like me; so she twisted free a my grip and started through the man's pockets herself, all the while he cursed her by saying: "Don't take my smokes. They all I got left in this life, bitch!"

It didn't matter at all to Janice. She didn't give a damn.

TWELVE

We honeymooned at the Riviera Motel. It was nothing special, just a two-story strip motel on the rougher side a Lorain Road. I couldn't complain -- it was no worse than my apartment. The walls were stained a little yellow, the mattress smelled a little like dead bodies, and the toilet flushed only one turd at a time. But the room cost $35; so, aside from the stains, it was a good deal.

Janice didn't have no money -- she'd spent it all on wedding preparations -- so I paid for the booze, the ceremony, the licenses, and the hotel outta my measly paycheck. After the first night I ran outta cash. We'd just gotten done fucking when I realized my wallet was empty.

"So how are we going to spend the rest of our honeymoon with no money?" Janice asked.

I turned from the window since I was looking out at a shitty view of an asphalt courtyard I really didn't give a fuck about while I shook out the last drops a cum outta Big Ole Cock.

When I turned around Janice was laying prone on the bed, wearing nothing but a hot pink g-string, her skin all balmy with sweat. "This is not how I expected to start out my marriage," she said. "Penniless, broke. This is unbearable! I should turn some tricks to get the cash flowing again."

"Fuck that!" I said.

"I'm not spending my entire honeymoon broke, Bob."

The acid in her voice corroded my heart.

"Do you have any other suggestions?" she asked.

I tried to think a something, but thinking ain't one a my strong suits. The only thing my brain would tell me was to fuck Janice again.

"I ain't any good with money," I finally said. "You know that. I can't just make it magically appear."

Janice said, "I can. I just shake my ass, and -- BOOM. Money."

It made me jealous.

I turned back to the window, hoping to come up with something she'd accept so she didn't realize she'd married a loser less than twenty-four hours ago, which, if you based your judgments on my accomplishments, is what I was. "We could always roll somebody," I said.

Far as ideas went, it wasn't the best; but, fuck, I ain't about being the best. I'm about scraping by.

She didn't seem too excited about it, but an hour later we had a plan, nothing elaborate, just plain and boring and functional, and we stood up on the catwalk in front a our hotel room, the hours dwindling away until I had to pay for another night, hunting out the victim. We found us a gray-haired man in some blue coveralls, just like I wear to work. You'd think I'd feel some solidarity for my fellow workingman; but don't let none a the political ideas fool you -- people are out for themselves. We took off after him like a couple a bloodhounds, tracking him for a couple blocks into a residential area, where I was sure we could find a good place to roll him. I knew we had to get him before he got home or wherever else he was going or else we'd lose our chance. So I pushed Janice ahead. I hid in a bush and watched her do her thing.

ELEVEN

We got married in a beautiful ceremony at city hall. Janice wore a pair a boy shorts and a tank top and some gauzy shit all over her head. She also had the remnants of a pearl necklace in the back a her hair. But that's s different story. I wore my work clothes: coveralls and a baseball hat. We exchanged rings and everything, kissed, signed papers, then we were done. We were fucking married.

We left outta there arm in arm, the way you see in the movies. Only difference was we didn't have nobody celebrating out nuptials. On the way down the front steps I said, "Hold on," and grabbed a bag a rice, which I'd hid behind a red grease rag, outta my pocket.

When I showed it to her she smiled and said, "Oh, Bobby, you think of everything. It's perfect."

She was putty in my hands after that.

But things weren't perfect. Never are. Never will be. This is the real world. This isn't no movie or some fairytale that works out for the best at the end. This was real life where people got fucked and the good guy don't always win. Big whoop. In time I'd learn just how true that was and what kind a fuck I'd married, and she'd learn more about me. But if you can't look past your partner's faults on your wedding day, when can you? So right about then everything seemed fine.

We broke open the bag and threw one handful a rice in the air after another till it seemed like we were in a blizzard of rice. We danced around. Then, one pigeon at a time landed at our feet, and soon there was a huge collection a birds around us. I kissed her. When I pulled away she was crying happily. "I love you," I said, even though I wanted to kick myself in the nuts for saying it.

"I love you too, Bobby."

Then we waited for a bus to come by.

Standing there on the front steps a city hall with the pigeons and rice all around us was the last time we were happy together.

TEN

After she said that, I freaked out and kicked the shit out a the bathroom door and fucked up the toilet so bad it sprayed water all over the bathroom. Then I beat the shit out a the toaster.

When I got it all out a my system, I went into the bedroom and laid beside Janice.

She settled her head on my chest. My nipple pointed at her mouth.

"We don't have to get married if you don't want to," she said.

I looked at her deep in the eyes. "Listen to me," I said. "I'll say this only once: That toaster had it coming. All it did was sit on the counter, doing nothing, for years. Freeloaders deserve everything they get. Ever-y-thing."

She sighed. I guess she knew I was pretending I wasn't upset by what she'd said. (She always did have cutting insight into what makes Bob Collins tick.) So I fidgeted around for a little while, either trying to bet my nipple in her mouth or Big Ole Cock in her butt, I wasn't sure which -- just anything to get her mind off a the situation. She slapped at me.

"Just tell me what you really think, Bob."

"I just never been married before," I said, rolling my head into the pillow. "Kinda freaks me out a little."

"If it makes you feel any better I never been married before either."

"Yeah, but you're like fifteen. You can't get married. Legally. Unless we go to some African country. And I ain't about to leave the borders a this fine country."

"Bob, I'm eighteen and I'm ready to settle down, ready to enter a life of marriage with a man. I've had enough of running around. What do you think?"

"You wanna know what I think? I think financially speaking we can't get married."

Her cheek turned warm on my nipple. I think it was tears leaking out a her eyes. "It all boils down to money?" she said with a bit a disappointment I, in all my maleness, didn't give a fuck about.

"Don't it always?" I said.

Janice said, "Here I am asking you to get married and all you can think about is money. You're so romantic."

She went on bawling and I knew I'd really stepped in a pile a shit this time. I never should a opened my mouth. No matter what I might say or what I might write in this here book, the truth was I hated to see her upset. The more upset she got, the more my maleness wanted to please her. I saw her laying against my chest looking powerless and broken. Every desire in my body wanted to combine together to please her -- in a way that wouldn't force undue expectations on me. Because I wasn't sure if I would fulfill them.

"Jesus Christ, do you take everything I say seriously?" I asked. "I just said all a that shit about moving in so you would sleep with me one more time before I have to go to work. To tell you the truth, after I got you to move in I was going to quit my job and let you pay for everything. You'd make the perfect fuck toy for me around here. But getting hitched it a totally different can a beans. We get married, I gotta pay for insurance and all a that shit. Put it this way, if you're my girlfriend, you a luxury; if you're my wife, you're a burden. See what I'm saying?"

"No," she said in the tightest-lipped, angriest voice I'd ever heard her use.

I guess my monologue didn't work as planned.

"That's bullshit," she said, "and you know it. You won't have to buy insurance for me; I'll keep working. That should reduce your financial burden."

"No wife a mine is gonna work," I shot back. "She's gonna spend all day cleaning house and cooking food. She's gonna whip herself into a horny frenzy everyday so when I come home there's dinner on the table and a horny bitch waiting for me to finish eating."

"That's revolting, bob." She folded her arms right up under her titties. I slapped one and watched it jiggle. "I can't believe you would have teh gall to say something that offensive!"

I heard what she said, but wasn't really paying attention. The jiggling titty had consumed all a my attention.

"What were we talking about?" I said.

"The future of our relationship, asshole!"

I snapped out a my coma. I didn't like her tone a voice so I decided I'd dilute it with a little of Bob's magic charm.

"Relax, baby, I'm just fucking with you. You know your Big Bobby is a big softy." I said this in my sensitive-guy lisp.

"Let me put this another way," she said. "We get married, I keep working, and you don't have to worry about supporting two people. I make enough money for the both of us. It would be stupid for me to quit."

"I don't want my wife whoring around," I said. It was a simple point, and I sorta thought is was simple to understand. Janice didn't understand.

"I've been working the last few months and it hasn't bothered you, why is it a big deal now?" she said defensively.

"It does bother me, bitch. I just never said nothing about it because I know how happy it makes you. Besides, you get all political, acting like I'm trying to repress you, so I just bite my tongue. You can use your pussy any way you want, and a ll a that shit, but that don't change the fact I don't want my wife fucking other dudes."

"If I keep working we'll have more money than we'll know what to do with," she said.

I admitted that was true, and said: "So it's all about the money? How romantic."

"And this whole monogamy thing," she plowed on, "is just not natural to the human species. Even when I'm having sex with those other men, it's strictly a body thing. It doesn't have anything to do with my heart. Look, Bob," she added, then lifted her head to look me directly in the eyes, "I'll lay it out for you: We love each other. We should get married. But we shouldn't have to make personal sacrifices to accommodate the other. Just because we're getting married doesn't mean we have to give up who we are."

Her words were sparkling in the air like dewdrops and I almost couldn't get past the beauty of them; and the fact I would never be able to make heads or tails out of any a the profound things she said. But just to make the conversation move on, I said: "And who are you, if you don't mind explaining it to me?"

"I'm just a girl who likes to fuck as many men as possible. I shouldn't have to give that up just because we're getting married."

I thought about that, then had a remarkable thought: "Does that mean I can still get drunk every night?"

"Let's not go that far. Every once in a while I'll let you have a beer, but no husband of mine is going to be a drunk."

She stroked Big Ole Cock to lessen the blow.

But it didn't sound like a good thing to me. I mean, from what she was saying she wanted to keep fucking other men but didn't wanna let me drink beer. Something about that just seemed wrong. Big Ole Cock was between my legs telling me to fuck her; my brain, on the other hand, was telling me her ground rules weren't fair. All a the information was confusing me. I didn't know what day it was.

She patted my chest, then rolled onto her side and went to sleep. The longer I laid there, unable to sleep myself, the more I started to feel like a bitch. I wasn't allowed to tell her to stop fucking other men, but she was allowed to stop me from my primary source of nutrients, beer? Is that what feminism was really about? I needed to do something that made mefeel better so I fucked her delicately in the asshole. When I was done, I lay on my back, staring at the ceiling, unable to reconcile the hypocrisy a her position.

I thought about the marriage proposal the rest a the night, as I lay there, and the rest of the next day, the whole time I was at work. I went over the pluses and minuses a our relationship. I came up with a few things. We ain't been seeing each other for long, but she'd touched me in a way no other broad ever had before. Around her I felt invincible, and I'd been 18-0 in fights since we'd met. On the other hand, she was young. She might get sick a being married and run off with some other cocksucker when my money runs out. Then again, she might do that even if she was thirty. So that wasn't no reason to say "no" to the marriage proposal. Then, on the third hand, she might get tired a taking Big Ole Cock all the time, 'cause she said I went too deep sometimes. On the fourth hand, she might leave me if I didn't marry her, might say the relationship wasn't going nowhere -- and I just didn't wanna give up that snatch. Plus, she made her money whoring. That wasn't a good thing. On the fifth hand, she made a lot a money; that was a good thing. It took me a lot a convincing myself marrying her was the right thing to to but I convinced myself marrying her was the right thing to do. Sometimes you meet a broad that'll make you do things you wouldn't normally do -- like give up beer, for the most part. Janice was that girl for me.

Too bad I didn't know what this decision would cost me.