The Average American Marriage (2 page)

some chapter

He Smiles

I
get off work at six. I get home at six forty-five. I eat dinner with Alyna and the kids at seven. Alyna gives the kids their baths at seven-thirty. So the thirty minutes from seven-thirty to 8
P.M.
on every weeknight are mine. I can usually get in at least two games of
Modern Warfare,
sometimes three. I'm in the middle of my second game of Team Deathmatch on the Paris map and somebody on the opposite team just got Juggernaut when my son, Andy, comes out of the bathroom naked. I just catch him out of my peripheral vision, trying not to turn my full attention away from the game, when he says, “Look, Daddy, he smiles.” He's four. He says fucked-up things that make no sense all the time. I stopped trying to figure out most of the shit he says a long time ago, but the phrase “Look, Daddy, he smiles” implies that my son wants me to look at something, and I'm curious who this “he” is. So I look away from the game and see my son standing by the hallway that leads back to the bathroom. He's completely naked, hair still wet from his bath, and he's holding his cock, looking down at it and laughing. But he's not just holding his cock. He has the head kind of turned sideways so the hole in his dick is horizontal instead of vertical, and he's pinching the head with the index finger and thumb on each of his hands, stretching the hole and twisting it up on the ends so it does, in fact, look like a tiny smile. I look away from his cock and back to my game as quickly as I can, wondering if I did shit like that when I was his age. Probably.

He says it again: “Look, Daddy, he smiles.”

I say, “Yeah, I saw it.”

He says, “No! Look longer.”

I don't know what the fuck I'm supposed to do. I'm sure there is some way to respond to him, some proper, child-psychologist-approved manner in which I am supposed to interact with him at this point in his psychological development that won't leave any lasting negative effect, but all I can imagine is me saying the wrong thing and Andy ending up with a limp dick for the rest of his life or feeling like a woman trapped in a man's body or becoming a pedophile. I try to ignore him and hope he'll wander back into the bathroom, where I assume Alyna will know how to handle it. But he says it again, this time with more urgency: “Daddy, look! He smiles!” He really wants me to look at the little show he's putting on with his fucking cock, really give it the attention he feels it deserves. So I do it.

I look away from my game of
Modern Warfare
and stare right at my four-year-old son's dick as he twists it up as far as the skin will stretch. He starts bouncing up and down, doing a little dance, happy that I'm paying attention.

He says, “Can yours smile, daddy?”

Again, I have no idea what to say. I reason that I probably shouldn't make him feel isolated or strange or different from his dad in any way. So I say, “Yeah, mine can smile.”

He says, “Make him smile. I want to see.”

I imagine myself comparing smiling dicks with my son for a few seconds before Alyna comes out, sees him mangling his cock, and says, “Andy, you were supposed to put on your PJs.”

He says, “Look, Mommy, he smiles.”

Before I can even take note of how Alyna reacts, she says, “Yes, he does. But once it's nighttime he needs to sleep.”

Andy says, “Okay, Mommy,” drops his dick, and lets my wife hustle him off to bed. Even though she barely fucks me anymore, she's a good mom. That's the last thought I give the situation before getting in one more game of Free-for-All, in which I get demolished by a player I assume is a guy based on the gamertag 420BONERKING who goes 30-4. Then Alyna comes out of the kids' bedroom, turns off the Xbox, and says, “They're asleep. Game over.
American Idol
. Then bed. I'm exhausted.”

This is the exact announcement Alyna makes every night, with only minor variation where the name of the reality-TV show is concerned. After she watches
American Idol,
she says, “I'm going to bed. You coming?”

I say, “Yeah, just need to check some work e-mails real quick,” then I wait for her to go into the bedroom and I go to the office, where I turn the sound on the computer down as low as possible without turning it completely off, jerk off to some pregnant porn, blow my load in my hand, go to the guest bathroom, wash my hand, then go into the bedroom to find Alyna already asleep and snoring.

The last thought that crosses my mind before I enter dreamless sleep is a memory of fucking Casey, the girlfriend I had before Alyna, in a tiny hotel room with the window open on a trip we took to Catalina Island when we were young.

chapter three

Meeting with My Boss

F
or the last three hours I've been sitting at my desk drinking green tea because it's supposed to help me live longer and trying to write a proposal I know no one will ever read. I decide to reward myself with a long walk to the bathroom to take what I hope will be the longest piss of my life, followed by a liberal washing of my hands. I assume I can waste at least ten minutes on these two activities.

I open the door to the first-floor bathroom just in time to hear what sounds like somebody dumping a can of Dinty Moore beef stew onto wet concrete, followed by a long exhale. I look under the door of the only occupied shitter and don't recognize the shoes, so I have no idea who's responsible for my burning lungs as I walk to a urinal and unzip my pants, disappointed that my only minutes of respite from a job I hate have been ruined by the unknown guy opening a portal to the foulest pit of hell directly in his asshole.

Just as I'm starting to get jealous of whoever it is, because I assume they'll get to spend more of their work day in the bathroom than I will, I hear a flush. Then the door opens and my boss, Lonnie, steps out, still zipping his pants back up. He breaks one of the cardinal rules of bathroom etiquette and looks me directly in the eye through our reflections in the mirror. My cock is in my hand and I'm pissing as I feel obligated to recognize our shared glance in some way. I nod. He returns it.

My cock is still in my hand when he steamrolls the rest of the cardinal rules of bathroom etiquette and starts a full-on conversation with me. He turns the water on at the faucet closest to me and says, “Glad I caught you in here. Save me a trip to your office this afternoon,” and puts his hands under the running water. No soap.

I'm trying to maintain some shred of composure in the situation so I don't say anything. I just nod again.

He says, “Know that intern, Jim or Stan or whatever?”

I nod.

He says, “Just told me he's leaving at the end of the week. Still have a mountain of old reports and proposals that need to be filed. Rather not pay someone to come in and do it, if you catch my drift. Mind rounding up another intern to replace him?”

I try to just shrug my shoulders as if to imply through body language that I'm responding with an attitude of compliance, but I can tell he won't get it. Instead I shrug my shoulders and say, “No problem,” while my dick is still in my hand.

Lonnie says, “Great. Just call USC or UCLA or wherever we got this last one from. Or even CSUN or something. Guess it's closer. Probably the way to go. Thanks.”

Then he does a shitty job of drying his hands with one paper towel and pats me on the shoulder. My cock is still in my hand and he still hasn't used any soap. I finish pissing, zip my pants back up, wash my hands with soap for much longer than necessary, dry them, and then go back to my desk. I stare at the proposal for a few seconds and then decide to take the long way around the first floor to the kitchen to slowly refill my green tea.

chapter four

Human Garbage

A
lyna gives me shit when I call her and tell her that my buddy, Todd, wants to meet me after work for a few beers. She says, “You know I don't care if you want to get beers with Todd, but you have to give me more than three hours' notice.”

I wonder why she'd require more notice. I know she has no plans that my impromptu after-work beers could possibly be ruining. I assume it's just some personal-consideration issue she thinks is at play, even though it's really not. I say, “He said he had something important to talk to me about. I'll be home before ten.”

“Okay, but seriously, before ten. And you owe me a foot rub.”

“Okay. See you at ten.”

“You said before ten.”

“I meant ten at the latest.”

“At the latest.”

“Yeah, that's what I said.”

“Okay. Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

I hang up and catch myself literally shaking my head in disbelief at the shit I have to deal with in order to meet a friend for a few beers after work. I wonder if other married guys go through similar shit. I wonder if other married guys at least get to fuck their wives with some regularity. That would make the shit more tolerable, at least. I'm guessing they endure the exact same shit.

I close my spreadsheets, shut down my computer, lock the door to my office, and wonder how Gina, our receptionist, likes to be fucked as I tell her good night and head out to my car. As I drive to meet Todd, I decide it's doggy-style with a finger in her asshole.

Todd's already sitting at the bar in Firefly on Ventura when I walk in. He's on his second beer. He says, “What's yip, deuce?”

I say, “What?”

“I tried texting ‘What's up, dude?' to you today and the swipe shit on my phone turned it into ‘What's yip, deuce?' so I'm making that my new ‘What's up, dude?' So what's yip, deuce?”

I sit down next to him and say, “Same old shit, man.”

“How those kids treating you?”

“As well as kids can treat you, I guess. They cry, they shit their pants, they require constant attention.”

“Sounds fun.”

“It's not.”

I order a beer and say, “So what's yip, deuce? What'd you want to tell me?”

“Dude, nice usage. Nikki wants to move in with me.”

“And . . .”

“And I think I'm gonna cut her loose.”

“Seriously? I thought you were into her. You guys have been together for a long time, right?”

“A year, dude. Longest girlfriend of all time. I was seriously into her. Her tits are great, she loves to fuck all the time, she usually smells pretty good, sometimes she cooks me shit, she's even pretty cool—knows about movies and TV shows and shit.”

“Then what's the deal?”

“She's human garbage, dude. She's fucking twenty-eight. She waits tables and still thinks she's going to be a singer and a model and all of this other bullshit that everyone but her knows is a fucking pipe dream. I can't fucking listen to her tell me about how she's going to get a band together and start doing shows anymore.”

“Sounds real bad.”

“Fuck you. It is. She's just annoying as fuck with this singing shit, and now I guess because we've been going out for so long, she's comfortable enough to fart around me. And she pisses with the door open.”

“So the romance is gone.”

“Do you know how fucking fast morning wood goes away when you walk into the bathroom to piss because the fucking door's open and you see your girlfriend grunting while she's taking an actual shit? I don't think I can deal with it anymore, dude.”

“That sucks, but you gotta do what you gotta do, I guess.”

“I know, but then what the fuck do I do? I ain't getting any younger, dude. I doubt I can find another chick that I like even remotely as much as Nikki, and I'm pretty close to outright hating her.”

“That doesn't sound good.”

“It's not. It sucks dick.”

“So why did you want me to come out? Are you asking my advice here or what?”

“No. I'm going to pull the plug. But I figure I should fuck her a few more times, cum in her ass, cum on her face once or twice—fuck, maybe even get some video of it. You know, really concentrate on getting some good memories to jerk off to once it's all over. And then in a few weeks she'll bring up the moving-in thing again and I'll say I don't want to and that'll probably be it. What I want to ask you is, can I count on you to step it up with going out and being a wingman?”

“Fuck, man, I have kids and shit. Alyna wasn't real happy about me even coming out to meet you tonight for a few beers.”

“Thank you for validating my choice to dump Nikki with that statement. I'm never going to get married. I can't fucking end up like you. I'll kill myself. No offense.”

“It's all right.”

“Don't you ever miss when we'd go out and get hammered and wrangle some random bitches?”

“Yeah, of course, but we're fucking old now, man. I miss it in the way a pro baseball player who's fifty probably misses the way he could hit a five-hundred-foot home run when he was twenty.”

“Dude, no offense again, but you were never a pro baseball player of picking up chicks.”

“Whatever, man. But right now we're the creepy old guys sitting at the end of the bar who we used to fucking make fun of when we were young. I'm not too into that.”

“Really?” Todd indicates the other end of the bar with a head nod. I look in the direction he's nodding and see a guy who's definitely creepier and older than Todd and me. I say, “Fuck, man. That's some serious old and creepy. We're getting there, though.”

“That's not how I see it at all. We're in a sweet spot, dude. Old skanks will fuck us because we're younger than they are but not too young to be able to pick up a check at Crustacean or some shit, and young skanks will fuck us because we have our shit together enough to even be able take them to a joint like Crustacean. Look at those two bitches.” Todd nods toward two girls sitting on a couch in the corner. They look young, probably in their early twenties. He says, “Let's try to pick them up tonight.”

I say, “No.”

He says, “I'm not saying we fuck them or anything, just see if we can still do it.”

I say, “Just to see if we can? There are only two outcomes and they're both bad. One, they fucking laugh at us and we confirm my suspicion that we're way too old to be doing shit like this. Or two, they're actually into us, which is even fucking worse because I can't fuck them, so instead I go home gritting my teeth so fucking hard at the thought of one of their tight asses on my dick that I give myself TMJ or some shit.”

“Why can't you fuck one of them?”

“I'm fucking married, dickhead.”

“We all make decisions. Now don't be a fucking pussy.” Then he gets up off his bar stool and makes his way over to the two girls.

I stay where I am and watch him from across the room. He sits down next to one of the girls and starts talking. He talks to them for a minute or so, and neither of them seems receptive at first, but then he makes some kind of face, clearly telling a joke or some funny story, and he gets one of them to laugh. Then he points over to me and both of the girls look in my direction. Todd beckons me over with a wave of his hand and I find myself getting up from my seat. On the surface I know I'm doing this to help my friend, to not be a dick to him in his time of need. But below that, I can feel myself hoping that I can still pick up a chick, that I haven't become too old and too married to get one of these two girls to think of me as someone whose dick she wants in her pussy, that I have any small piece of the person I used to be somewhere still inside me, that I'm still alive.

I sit down next to them. Todd says, “This is Sandy and this is Kayla.” I try my best to be amicable, to laugh when it seems appropriate, to be interesting and charming, and it seems like I'm making some headway. After maybe half an hour of talking to these girls, Sandy, a recent graduate of UCSB who came to Los Angeles to pursue a career in acting, touches my arm as she tells me the name of her cat is Valentine. It seems like she's flirting.

Todd, too, seems to be making headway with Kayla with exaggerated stories about his travels around the world as a reality-television producer. It slowly occurs to me that I would have no trouble finding girls to fuck if I were to find myself single again. Then Sandy says, “Is that a wedding ring?”

Before I can answer Todd says, “It was. His wife died almost two years ago, but he keeps the ring on to remember her.” I shake my head at Todd, silently offering my disapproval at his lie but not wanting to blow it for him with these girls, who both immediately offer their condolences to me.

We drink and talk about nothing important with these two girls for a few hours, until I notice that it's almost ten. I want to stay. I want to see how far this could actually go. I wonder how pissed Alyna would be if I got home late. I could text her and tell her we're having a few more beers, but I know it wouldn't matter. She'd be pissed, with or without the text, if I didn't get home by ten. I say, “Well, ladies, it's been great meeting you. I have to be up early for work tomorrow, so I'm going to call it a night.”

Todd offers his objections, and the girls follow suit, but I tell them I have a very important meeting early in the morning. The reality is that I have a wife, a living wife, who will not suck my dick for a period of time that is even longer than normal if I come home late.

I give Todd some cash for my drinks, say good-bye to Sandy and Kayla, get hugs from them both, hope Alyna won't smell their perfume on me, and head out to my car. I make it home a few minutes after ten, which Alyna is not happy about but is not genuinely pissed about, either. I rub her feet as promised to soothe any animosity she might have. I'm still a little buzzed when I get in bed, so I try to coax my wife into fucking me by rubbing my erection up against her ass when she rolls over. She ignores it and pretends to sleep.

I don't jerk off once she actually falls asleep. Instead I stare at the ceiling, happy. Knowing that a random chick I met in a bar would have fucked me, that if I had to I could still go into the wild and hunt for my dinner, calms me more than blowing a load into my hand ever could. I think that for a few minutes, then I start thinking about Sandy's tits and about what it would have been like if I had fucked her or gotten her to suck my dick. I slide out of bed, leaving Alyna sleeping, and go into the office.

I search for a clip of a girl getting fucked who looks as close to Sandy as I can find. I find one of a blond bitch with smallish tits, a big ass, and shoulder-length hair that is similar to what I remember Sandy's looking like. I scroll through the video until I come to a segment that has her riding the guy's cock in a POV shot. I jerk off for less than a minute and blow my load all over my hand. I clear the computer's browser history, go to the bathroom, wipe the semen off my hand with one of the wipes Alyna uses to clean the kids' asses, sneak back into bed undetected, and sleep peacefully.