The Fickle Fuck of Memory

(Trigger Warning: Story contains physical violence and substance abuse.)

Shock from spit hitting her face allowed me seconds to make my next bad decision. Shoving her, hard, into the closet. Falling backwards, disappearing into a sea of one use outfits and landing on a pile of stiletto heeled shoes. Slamming the door shut, putting my full hundred and forty-five-pound frame against the door. Flop sweat forming on my brow. A thought flowering in my mind. Did I need to do something yesterday?

Birthday? Did I miss work? No one called. Shit, did she have her phone on her? No, she was only wearing a thong and crop top.

The door shuddered as Leighton threw herself into it, cheap wood splintering from the force. A wave of traumatic nostalgia washed over me. Dad could kick this open in one go when on a proper drunk.

“You fucking spit on me, Bryce?!?”

“It was either that or hit you, god damn it.” This was true.

“I’d at least respect you if you hit me. You ugly fuck. Spitting is some pussy shit.” She roared.

I pictured for the briefest moment, opening the door and high kicking her in the ovaries as she charged. Her crumpled mass on the floor, deciding how much further to go. A jolt of pleasure shot through me. Shook it off, I wasn’t that guy. Except for that one time. Plus, I’d have to deal with her brothers again.

What did I forget? Rent was paid. Mentally cycling through every bill I might have missed. Excluding the credit cards, which were never paid, I should be good.

The bangs slowed. Maybe the tequila caught up to her.

“I’m sorry.” She moans.

“For what?”

“For being naughty.”

“Not doing that shit tonight, Leigh.”

A familiar trick, the first few times she’d played it we had mindmelting sex. Fourth time she kneed me in the balls, a lottery of violence each time after; win a blow job or a steak knife to the thigh.

“Fuck you. What’s the plan, Bryce? You going to hold me here all night?”

“I’m holding you here until you calm the fuck down.”

“This is as calm as I’m getting motherfucker.”

Nails scratch against the other side of the door. If she breaks a nail things will get worse for me. I shouldn’t have eaten the Pringles.

The trouble started a few hours earlier. Home from a double shift at the bar, I rooted around our barren fridge to find a few cans of Coors and a single pickle floating corpse like in its jar. I grabbed the Coors and searched the cabinets. Half a bottle of tequila tucked away behind moldy white bread, some saltines and two cylinders of Pringles-one was sour cream and onion, the other pizza. I grabbed the pizza flavored, sprawled out on the couch and started watching Euphoria debating whether I would jerk off or not.

Four beers and one can of Pringles later, still hungry, my fatal mistake was made. I grabbed the sour cream and onion Pringles. I’d have them replaced by tomorrow night. No big deal.

The sour cream and onion were her, the pizza flavored mine. It had been this way since we first met. She had come off her shift at the Red Rocket. A strip club named after a euphemism for a dog boner always confused me. She wore tight leather pants and pasties clinging on like aged velcro. Her mouth, fueled by uppers, a machine gun of vulgarity. Normally refusing service for someone like her was the right call. Unfortunately, I was in a dry spell with a propensity for bad decisions and craving something easy. We chatted, kept it light, poured extra shots for her, complimentary ones for myself. I acted nonplussed by her demeanor and she acted like I wasn’t a loser. By the time I closed we were both shit faced.

“Do you serve food here?” She slurred.

“Kitchen’s closed. I think we got some Pringles in the office.” I mumbled.

There were two flavors available. She hated the artificial tomato flavor, gagging before it even touched her tongue. I wasn’t picky about either, so in one of those strange exaggerations of flirtation, I defended pizza and decried sour cream like a presidential candidate stumping for the masses. In this moment creating some sort of rubicon that I was unaware I should never cross.

Did I forget an anniversary? Some obscure one that means fuck all to you but the world to your other half. Nothing came to mind.

Leighton got home three hours later, repeating the same zombie shuffle I’d done earlier. Nothing in the fridge, nothing in the cabinet.

Nothing in the cabinet.

“Hey, didn’t we have Pringles?”

“I ate them.”

“Yeah, thought I had sour cream in here.”

“I ate them.”

“You fucking what?”

An hour of screaming led to an hour of silence ending with thirty more minutes of screaming and finally, my spit in her face. Granted, there was maybe a tiny bit more to it than the Pringles.

Bartending in my mid thirties hadn’t been the original plan. Not that I knew what the original plan was anymore. Tattoo artist? Travel Writer? Mom had worked two jobs and saved every penny hoping I’d need the money for medical school. The sole good deed dad accomplished before abandoning us was “borrowing” her savings before my grades could disappoint. The current plan, one I decided on three years ago while spiraling into depression, trade school. Plumbers did well enough. I filled out the first application, stopped at the second.

Leighton was equally lost. Tired of the stripping, but not the money. She transitioned to OnlyFans, lasted four months. I even shot a couple vids with her, without showing my face of course. Longevity is hard in the sex performance space or whatever you call it. Eventually you get philosophical with it, moral and ethical questions arise. Are society's rules and your rules one in the same? How many different liquids can you put on your feet? How many places on the body can your boyfriend cum? For Leighton it was on the face and while I never minded seeing the act, performing it was a bit different.

Did I leave my keys in the car?

Three months into our relationship, licking crumbs of coke from a bag that once held an eight ball, I told her she wouldn’t have to dance anymore. Six years later, she was aging out. Being the third oldest dancer at the club actually meant she was the oldest, the other two had fucked and sucked their way into tenured positions. Celebrity strippers in their 40s traveling city to city existed. Those women were artists though. Leighton was a tradesman waiting for a retirement that wasn’t coming.

And there was the abortion last week.

“I’m going to fucking kill you, Bryce.”

“I know, that’s why you’re in the fucking closet.”

That wasn’t why she was in the closet.

She was in the closet cause she said she was leaving me and I simply refuse to allow that. She’ll stay in the closet until she cools down or until I cool down. She’s performatively sobbing now. I know it’s performative cause I made her cry for real that one time. What the fuck was I forgetting?

A sudden stillness behind the door alerted me. Quiet, loud quiet, the kind you experience around someone who just got bad news.

“I’m serious Bryce, I need you to let me out. Now.” She’s saying it with a cold tone that’s new to me.

“Are you still leaving me?”

“Yes.”

“Over fucking pringles.”

I hear hangers sliding, loose clothes rustling.

“This isn’t about Pringles. It’s about this, what’s happening right now. Do you really think this is okay? Spitting on me? Throwing me in the fucking closet?”

She’s trying to trick me again. I know it. Maybe a beating is in order, it worked last time. More faint sounds of movement. What is she doing in there?

“I’m asking one more time. Whatever happens after that is on you.”

“What the fuck does that even mean, Leighton?” Teeth gritted, slamming my head into the door.

“I want to leave, let me out, please.”

“You can come out over my dead fucking body!”

A shell racks into the Mossberg Maverick 88 that I keep in the closet. Purchased after her brothers kicked the shit out of me the first time. I’d bragged about how I’d end her family's blood line if she ever called them again. Was it the shotgun I’d forgotten about?

A fist explodes through the door and out my back. My legs seem to vanish as the floor rushes up at me. Leighton screams, hopping over my body as she escapes the closet. I reach out for her foot but time is lagging. She’s squealing out the front door before I can push myself up. Wait, I can’t push myself up. A warmth spreads across my body, the smell of piss and copper filling my nostrils. I’m dying.

Mother’s Day. It was Mother’s Day yesterday. I forgot to call my mom.