What She Didn't Know (What She 1)

“Ask me any-fing,” I slurred. “I’m an open fucking book.” I propped my elbow on the bar and set my chin in my palm, because my head was suddenly too heavy to hold up.

“When you’re with them, do you ever feel guilty?” he asked. He winced again, almost like he’d hoped he could bite the words back. But it was too late.

“No. I never feel guilty. Not anymore.”

“But you did, early on?”

“Oh, yeah,” I said. “I felt like an asshole. Here I washhh, a smart man wif a beautiful girlfriend, and I coulda said no fank you, I don’t want to fuck four beautiful women. I just want my one beautiful woman. But my woman, she wasn’t just one woman. She was four of ’em. She was four fucking p-people. Why wash she four people? Because her father was a shadis… shadis…” I stopped and stared at Mal. “What’s the word?”

“Sadistic?” he supplied.

“Shadistic. That’s it.” My chin fell off my palm and I had to reset it.

“Her father was sadistic?” Malcolm prompted.

“He was a shadistic bassstard who made my beautiful Lynn split into four beautiful women. And what’s bad is that I want to fank him. Why? Because I luf all of them. Every. Last. One.” I picked up my drink and tipped it up, but most of it ran down the sides of my mouth. Malcolm lifted the tail of my t-shirt and wiped my face with it.

“We had better get you home, dude.”

“Home?”

“Yeah, you know that place where you live with Lynn? The love of your life? And the three other loves of your life? That place. Let’s go there.” He grabbed my elbow and helped me to stand. I fell back onto the barstool.

“I might oughtta stay here a sec,” I said.

Malcolm motioned toward the bartender. “Can I get a cup of coffee? Strong?” he asked.

The bartender gave me a look and came back with a steaming cup of hot coffee. Malcolm reached into my glass and took some ice cubes from it, and dropped them into the cup. “Fanks,” I said.

“I’ve never seen you get this shit-faced, dude,” Malcolm said.

I knew it. It was usually me holding Mal’s head over the toilet, wiping the puke from his face, and cleaning up his mess.

“I fink it was my turn,” I replied with what I hoped was a grin.

Mal laughed. “I think I owe you a few.”

I drank my coffee and felt a little better.

“You ready to go?” Malcolm said.

“You should go on home,” I said, standing a little better on my feet after the coffee. “You got a wife and baby to tend to, you lucky fuck.”

“Why did you say it like that?”

“A wife and baby? That’s my dream, dude.”

“You want children?”

I nodded. “Pieces of me and Lynn. Damn straight.”

He laughed. “You can have that, man. You’d just have to manage it.”

“Too hard,” I replied. “It would be too much.”

“For you or for Lynn?” He stared at me as we walked back to my apartment.

“Both.” I took in a breath. The night air was cold and it stung my lungs. “And the rest of them.”