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.