I brought the bucket and set it on the floor next to your side of the bed because I loved you.
You reached out and grabbed my wrist. “No tequila. Never again,” you said.
Then we did it three times.
You only used the bucket once, but you missed. Later that night, I started puking and choking. You rolled me over onto my stomach. I don’t remember any of that, but I knew that you did it because you loved me, too.
We didn’t drink tequila again. The next time we went out, we drank whiskey and did some blow.
On the way home, you ran into a parked car. The squealing, scratching sound was terrible, but we laughed as we drove away. We couldn’t stop laughing.
I gave you head the rest of the way home because I adored you.
The next morning, my shirt was missing. When you went out to the car to look for it, I knew you cared about me.
Then I remembered tossing my shirt out the car window. I remembered that we did it in the car at least two times before we staggered into the house and passed out.
Later, when I saw the vomit that ran down the side of the car door and dried there, I thought to myself that we should probably keep some kind of bucket - or at least a bag - in the car for emergencies.
When we wanted to try something new, when we were craving some adventure, we chomped handfuls of mushrooms and went driving around the countryside; rolling down dusty, washboarded back roads until it got too fucking weird and we parked our dented car in the middle of nowhere.
We did it I don’t know how many times, but we woke up, naked and hungover, and found that crazy old farmer tapping on the window. When you told him to stop looking at my tits and to “get his wrinkled ass back on his fucking tractor,” I knew you would protect me.
I straddled you right then and there because I needed you.
When we got evicted, you threw the tent in the car along with anything else that would fit and told me, “We don’t need this stinking shit hole.”
We set up our tent at the far end of the RV park on the highway.
We drank a bottle of Old Crow and watched the sky turn black.
We smoked a joint and wondered if the world was about to end.
We only did it once.
Then the tornado came.
We never saw it, but we heard the shouting. We heard a fence crack. A window break. Our tent poles snapped as the wind beat against the flimsy nylon.
When you ran outside and left me alone in a soggy tent that was caving in around me, I knew you didn’t love me.
I lay on the plastic floor, spreading my arms and legs, trying to hold it down to the ground, even though I really hoped I would just be swept away.
Then everything stopped.
Quiet.
Still.
I ran outside and found you naked, searching around in the wet grass and fallen branches.
“What the hell are you doing?” I asked.
“I’m pretty sure I dropped that roach around here somewhere,” you said.
I crawled back inside the tent and wished that for just one moment, I didn’t despise you.
Rasmenia Massoud is the author of the short story collection, "Human Detritus". Her work has appeared in various publications on the web as well as several stained cocktail napkins. She is from Colorado but now lives in France where she spends her time confusing the natives of her adopted country by speaking French poorly and writing about what she struggles most to understand - human beings. You can visit her at:
http://www.rasmenia.com/
