Our husband’s home looked just like this:
Wood paneled walls but they are orange. A green rug. A Tiffany lamp, with the motif of a lily. The building was A-frame, set back in a large and pleasant wood. Here you have Red Pines. Here you have Eastern Elms. Here you have the one called Sequoia. We liked sitting on the deck in white Adirondack chairs. That’s where the view was best. Not of the forest, vast and deep, but of his car coming up the long gravel driveway. Light blue station wagon, passenger door rusted shut. The sound it would make — jalopy jumping up and down on the rocks, jalopy skidding as it hit one sharp bend — was what our little world revolved around.
I suppose there was a time when this could have been enough for me. When I could have been happy, standing there in my pink frock, my red bow, waiting.
: -)
Before any of this happened, I was a little girl.
We were an incalculable mass of daughters. We were daughters who would be wives. I wore my hair long, in two braids. We all did. The boarding house was by the sea. It was an old cape codder. A Home of dusty blue. The stairs inside were screamed up, like one of our town’s hijackers had tossed his latest grenade, setting it off and collapsing the space. Our mother ate bowls of green Jell-O and cast her long rods into the sea. How her hooks would gash open their mouths, the skate. How they would bleed out on the cold white tiles of the kitchen. We skipped rocks and little fish would touch us on the toes. A pleasant feeling. She called us her brood. MOM’S BROOD! She taught us how to be good. How to prepare steaks. How to hem a pair of men’s trousers. How to spread our legs wide. In the evenings during these days we read an ancient scroll called WWW on the iPhone 11 and on this we learned all the facts about becoming a wife.
FACTS ABOUT BECOMING WIFE
- A wife gathers berries on the side of the road. She wears a fit-and-flare skirt. A pair [of] taupe colored block heels. When she leans over to pick the fruit, you can see her whole entire pussy, dilated enough for a fist. Go ahead and try it for yourself!
- On cold days, she’s virginal. Sitting on a wooden stool, humming while she works on her knitting. A pie on the ledge, cooling.
- To be an earthly thing like that. Heavy and alive.
That was always my greatest dream. To become a wife. A wife in a flock of wives. Wives and the way that they spoke to each other, their sonorous ways of communication: henlo friend, im sooo horny, ;- ), tell that slick fuck of a man to hurry up and get that dick of his wet.
I did know what they meant by this, these wives. I wanted to be like them, just like them. I wanted that slick fuck of a man. I wanted to hem his trousers, spread my legs wide and prepare him a steak. Back when I was only a babe, I knew I wanted it so bad, to be a wife, the best thing that could happen to you if you were a girl.
: -)
It didn’t take long for the Jennifers to find me.
Because, you know, a little girl grows up. A little girl takes her hair out of her two long braids. A little girl runs in fields and wades in streams. In some kind of marsh, the little girl feels a trickle of blood go down her leg for the first time. Her pupils grow wide upon making eye contact with a great blue heron. The sky is a horrible shade of purple. A little girl points her iPhone 11 at it. At the sky. She goes to bed. In her brain, with her body asleep, a voice screams HOW ODD THE GIRL’S LIFE LOOKS — BEHIND THIS SOFT ECLIPSE. I THINK EARTH FEELS SO — TO FOLKS IN HEAVEN—NOW. She wakes up one morning and in the cold of her shower she notices that, for the very first time, she has a pair of breasts. She runs down the stairs of the cape codder, naked, to show all of the daughters and the mother. Look, she’d say, I got these bigass titties on me. And the mother looks at her, with pleasure and with horror, and says: Damn shawty. You really do.
This is what happened to me. I woke up with these bigass titties on me. I ran through marshes when the sky was purple and blood trickled down my leg. Our mother held me in her arms. Genetically, she said, It doesn’t even make sense that they’re this nice.
And when this happens, when you grow up, they find you. You’re ready to be a wife. One night in my bed, I noticed a girl. This was Jennifer 3. Sitting there with her square sunglasses, her leather jacket, smoking her sticks called Marlboro Reds, and wielding a great sword of destruction called Glock 20. Jennifer 7, said Jennifer 3, that’s your new name. I nodded obediently. It’s time for you to be some guy’s wife, she continued. You don’t have any say in the matter. I’m abducting you. If you disobey this most righteous directive then I will blow your brains out with my fearsome Glock 20 gun. She put the Glock 20 gun up to my temple, for effect. This worked.
: -)
I learned how to be a wife with ease.
They put me in a white dress then they shoved me in the Phaeton, with a blindfold. There were other girls in there. Girls just like me. Girls who had recently gotten boobs and gotten blood dripping down their legs. Girls who had been selected due to their beauty, to become wives. The Phaeton made stops. I heard a fast stream rushing. I could feel, through the open window, the whip of the winds. A radio played. Its mechanical voice whispered get out you bitch, your husband is waiting for you. It would say bitch ass cunts. It would say Fine ass pussy in this vehicle. Female Body Inspektor Cumming Through.
When I arrived at my husband’s house, the first thing I tasted was the dirt. The first thing I felt was the sun on my face. How it dizzied me. Then the untying of my blindfold. Then, sitting in the dirt, I made eye contact with the wives. There were half a dozen of them, these wives. Jennifer 1 with her long black hair, twisted into her bun cover. Jennifer 2 with her green eyes. Jennifer 3, the famous Jennifer 3, she was smoking one of her Marlboro Red cigarettes with her sunglasses on. Jennifer 4 and her yellow braids with the ribbon. Jennifer 5, stoic Jennifer 5, polishing a rifle, and Jennifer 6, in a pair of thick reading spectacles, eyes cast off at the woods, so lovely and so deep.
: -)
The marriage went like this:
We all stood in a pine grove. The wives were in their blue smocks, special for marriages. The wives were in their sunglasses. Me in my white dress (a long thing, which covered the whole of me, save for the head). A pair of blue shoes, to match their smocks. Birds: a blue heron perched in the creek. Fish: a redband trout. It was a hot day. It was a stickiness inside of me. When he came down the path a feeling in my heart was gratitude for having found my place. My husband. My husband. A shorter man, shorter than me. Bald, so you can see a girl’s reflection on his top. A thick mustache. Eyes of pure blue, the pupils enlarged. This is what most husbands look like.
Sup, he said to me so confidently.
Husband, I responded, matching his confidence My pussy is mad wet for you
ASL, he said in response to this
She’s 14, said Jennifer 3, she’s from the cape codder next to the wharf. It is famous for its hijackers.
Nice, said my husband. cool area. Cool age. 14 is dope. Can you skateboard?
What piano concerto is this? I said, noticing that a piano concerto was playing.
Steel Drum Riddims, said my husband
Oh, haha. Nice, I said to my husband, Absolutely love that song. And by the way, skateboarding isn’t my forte.
Do you like music
Yeah. It’s awesome
Me too. So um. Do you have any questions?
Ummm haha no not really. Lol.
Here, have some chewing gum first
My husband motioned for me to get down on my knees, and accept this gift. So I got down on my knees, to accept this gift.
Does my breath stink. I asked my husband.
Yeah it’s gross.
This was fair. I took the gum in my mouth. It tasted of peppermint, which of course reminded me of my happy childhood. It reminded me of the stones we threw in the sea. It reminded me of our mother and her skirts. It reminded me of this one porcelain bobble. It reminded me of a hilarious video we used to watch on our iPhone 11 called She’s British, but he’s American. This was a hilarious video because the man says to her. You’re my British cousin, but we’re not related by blood. Take off your shirt. Then the cousins, British and American, did some nasty stuff. He put his tongue inside of her asshole while grabbing her small titties. This seemed logistically complicated to me, but we were all about age 8, an age where there is much to learn. Another memory I associate with peppermint chewing gum is this: we are running through another one of our fields. A field of tall grass! And a thought comes rushing into my head, rushing: bugs rainin’ down, bugs rainin’ down.
My husband made eye contact with me. Pure blue, pupils enlarged. Spit out your gum, said my husband. I did this and then he grabbed me by my throat. He put his mouth on my mouth. The tongue from his mouth went inside of mine, pulsating, screaming. My husband. He pulled down my panties and jammed himself inside of me, thrusting his cock inside of me while I was on my hands and knees. A feeling bubbled up inside of me, a private one. The girls began to clap. The girls always clapped at signs of true affection.
That is the story of how I got married.
: -)
For a while, I was the favorite one. We played a game called Honeymoon.
That is what happens when you are a new wife:
A roadside fair. The woods were replaced with a two lane highway. I saw brand new kinds of jalopies. Yellow, like the lemon soap our mother used when she scraped out our bowls of food. Red, like when the fish hook gets caught as you’re yanking one of those guys out of the sea. A mechanical bull, inside of a religious building. A kind of music played called Madonna: RAY OF LIGHT. A table called Roulette, where your husband grabs you by the waist and puts down his currency and everyone looks at you. Fried strips of clams, among other kinds of bivalves on offer. A strong alcoholic beverage in a brand new shade of blue. Apple orchards and a blueberry patch. A club where there are sluts dancing, all done up in a pink light. He pierced the nipple of my left breast with a thumb tack while we drove past a riviera. We made love while I had my binoculars pressed to my eyes: we were by the bayside and I wanted to see skippers and schooners and cruisers. I wanted to see speedboats. I was laid out in the sagebrush while he pushed himself into me. My binoculars dropped to the ground and I realized I was in the field of perception of one of those owl birds. We made love again. He put his thumb in my ass. He squeezed my nipple so it stood straight up. I got on my knees and sucked his cock. When he wanted to get all that stuff out of him so we could finally stop making love and I could finally have my bathroom break, he pressed my face into the ground.
He told me I was so good at doing that kind of stuff.
He told me I was one of the best to ever live and do that stuff.
He said to me: child you are perfect.
He said to me: look at these bigass titties.
He told me that he had big plans.
And that he would give me the world.
He said to me I could spend as much time playing on my iPhone 11 as I needed to, reviewing my rare and ancient scrolls. When I saw other wives in parking lots I thought to myself: everything is good and we are all exactly the same.
He promised me a trip to Tokyo. He promised me something called a 16-piece omakase. He promised me unlimited access to pornography. He promised me a dog. He promised me a dolphin. He promised me a full Brazilian. He promised me a hotel room with rose chintz on the walls. He promised me a baseball card. A four count start, at the beginning of a popular music song. A submachine gun in a monogrammed suitcase. A surfboard. Bingo cards. Deviled Eggs, on a silver platter. A ballerina in a jewel box, pink velvet trim.
Let this be clear. Before things got bad, I saw the whole world in a short amount of time. I rode horses through the flood. My husband kissed me on the neck.
When I came home the Jennifers would whisper sweetnesses into my ears. They would take me into our Jacuzzi tub and pour the water over my head. They would clip my fingernails and dress me in a robe. They would say to me: Jennifer 7. We are so happy you’re making him happy. And I would smile because I knew that they were correct. The most important thing a wife can do is make her husband happy. Because when you have a husband who is happy then the wives are also happy and the world — which is called Earth — is bright and shining.
: -)
There was of course a moment when this stopped. Because the blood had stopped.
15 candles on a birthday cake. A dark room. A hush had come over the forest (so lovely and so deep). I was wearing a pink dress. I wish to remember this moment the way it was before everything else. Happy birthday, they sang to me, Jennifers. My husband and his camera. The flashbulb and how it went off. My face, shaded in by the dark of the night, slightly done up in orange because of the candle, because of the flash. How I stood up after blowing out my candles. How I made a wish. How my body, shaded in by the dark of night, slightly done up in orange because of the candle, because of the flash, revealed to my husband, to the Jennifers, new information.
A little too much birthday cake! Jennifer 3 said.
My husband laughed.
My husband said to me, Jennifer 7, A moment please?
The bathroom in the back of the house was of wood and it smelled like honey. My husband turned the light on. My husband unzipped my dress. My husband had me stand in front of the mirror.
Do you see that, he said.
I looked at my body in the mirror.
A happy girl.
That’s me! Right?
When was the last time you menstruated, wife?
I thought about this for a second. It had been three times since the blood had come on down.
Too much birthday cake, I said, looking again at my body. My stomach was swollen and hard. Like I had swallowed a ship of Theseus. Like I had swallowed a whole mechanical bull.
Don’t be dumber than a hoss, said my husband.
Go to bed, said my husband.
I went to bed.
: -)
That night, when I slept, I remembered being a little girl.
And how there was more to it.
How we all looked like our mother.
How we viewed everything that happened with such happiness.
How perfect it all was, to be an incalculable mass of daughters. Daughters in the springtime. Daughters in the water. Daughters with their arms linked.
Here’s an example: all of us kids were in a car on the bridge. All of us being MOM’S BROOD! A bag of sweets. Gummy candies in the shape of our favorites and most cherished invertebrates. The sea — viewable from the window — had never been calmer. A big quiet streak of pale baby’s blue. When the man stopped our car and told us to get out, none of us were even scared. When the man (a respected hijacker from our town) pressed the barrel of the gun to the back of our mother’s head and she just said: Ok, let’s just get this over with.
: -)
There was another thing that happened to me in my sleep.
I got everything I ever wanted in my whole life.
And if you were to take a knife and press it into my wrist, I would not feel a thing.
: -)
Her name was Dr. Casey.
When we drove over to see her, my husband put a bag on my head with a smiley face. The bag was plastic. The purpose of the bag was for me to be dizzy and take a nap. The nap was so that I would be fresh eyed and happy to see Dr. Casey. So I could explain to her all about the new information from my body.
I woke up in a white room that was also light blue. A silver bed. I was undressed and my feet were up in the air. The plastic bag was no longer on my head. My husband held onto my hand. Dr. Casey had her head in my pussy. Dr. Casey was a very kind looking woman. Dr. Casey had on a special light blue hat that protected her hair. The light blue hat looked as if cotton candy. As if me and my husband were back at the fair.
Mrs. Matthews, said Dr. Casey, congratulations to you and your husband on this little wonder.
My husband squeezed my hand.
We’ve been trying for a little while, he said, we’re so happy.
Now Mrs. Matthews, I was just taking a look, you’re in really great shape.
She’s about 16 weeks, Dr. Casey said to my husband.
That’s great news, he replied.
Mrs. Matthews, said Dr. Casey, would you like to see your baby?
Baby? I asked.
We’d love to see our baby, said my husband.
Dr. Casey put a cold, light blue gel on my stomach, the part that was like a mechanical bull, like a ship of Theseus.
She pointed to an iPhone 11. The iPhone was next to the bed I was lying on.
There’s our little one, Mrs. Matthews, she said, squinting at the iPhone 11.
Perfect, Mrs. Matthews.
Your child is perfect.
: -)
Back at home, I became a Jennifer full time.
I cleaned the floors and I made our husband dinner. I took breaks on the porch and smoked Marlboro Reds in one of my pink frocks. My husband no longer took me on trips, unless it was to see Dr. Casey. I woke up each morning and noticed my stomach, my mechanical bull, my ship of Theseus, kept growing larger. So large I felt as if the whole world was being sucked inside. Like I was one of our vacuums. One of the vacuums us Jennifers used to clean the floors. When I closed my eyes, I imagined this. Me: a vacuum. Me: sucking up the whole earth inside of me, until there was nothing left.
The Jennifers explained to me that I was going to have the opportunity to become a mother. You become a mother because our husband fucks you so good and hard that a baby grows inside. A baby is the best thing that can ever happen to you. A baby is soft. A baby is like a rushing stream. A baby is like when you’re smoking cigs with your husband while playing the honeymoon game. A baby is the same as five million bucks. I asked the Jennifers if this had ever happened to them before and none of them responded. They just smiled and touched me on the belly. You look beautiful, Jennifer 6 would say. Get up and do more house cleaning chores, fatty, Jennifer 3 would say.
And my husband: he would come home from one of his drives and sit at the end of our dining table and sup in silence. I would ask him if I could fix him a scotch or put on a LaserDisc or show him an ancient scroll on my iPhone 11 and he would mutter to himself. He would not return my gaze. He would accept any of my little cheer up tricks. Then he would go to his room, bringing Jennifer 5 with him.
And I’d sit there, at the end of the long dining table, looking out the window. I would serve for myself, from the freezer, a scoop of chocolate ice cream. I would hear them in the other room. Fuck baby! You are doing that stuff to me so good. Or: Yeah do it from behind. Love that good stuff in my hole like that.
: -)
When your husband does not want to fuck you anymore because you’ve been knocked up by his dick, you have to leave.
You have to leave because you can’t give him what he wants. You fix him ahis scotch, you massage his feet. This is different from playing the honeymoon game. This isn’t allowed. This makes your hair feel like it is on fire. This makes you do a last ditch effort. This makes you ask for something that you really, really shouldn’t ask for.
: -)
My husband, our husband, with his binoculars, on our porch, his porch.
This was morning time. The sky was a steely kind of purple. It was like a grape. Like a sword. He stood there, holding the hand of Jennifer 5. A song was playing on an iPhone 11. It was the song the Waltz of the Blue Danube. It was a pleasant tune and this put me at ease.
Ahem, I said out loud.
My husband did not turn around, he looked through his binoculars.
Tsk Tsk, said my husband, Jennifer 5, why don’t you fellate my cock?
A pleasure! Said Jennifer 5.
Jennifer 5 got on her knees and pulled my husband’s cock out of his pants, to fellate it. She made a noise like this: phhghhhhss. My husband made a noise like this: Ah!
Jennifer 7, I know you’re there. I’m ignoring you on purpose.
Oh! I responded, that makes sense. I figured that you were ignoring me on purpose.
You should have known better than to get knocked up, said my husband. I’m punishing you. But in a way that shows you that I care. I could easily just push you down the stairs super hard, killing both you and your baby, then throwing your limp and bruised and swollen corpse off the deck, but I’m not a psychopath.
Totally! I said.
My wives are my playthings, they don’t have offspring. These are the rules.
Do you want me to kill my baby instead of you doing it?
Heavens no, said my husband, but you’ve really embarrassed yourself. Just look at you. Doughy!
I love you, I said to my husband.
Thanks, said my husband.
You’re welcome.
Obviously it goes without saying, you’re going to have to go into exile. At least until the baby comes.
My husband began to convulse. He was doing his worldfamous “nut stare.”
Mmmm, he said, fuck. I’m going to ejaculate now.
Then I watched, with happiness, all the happiness in the world, as my husband took his cock out of Jennifer 5’s mouth, and ejaculated, all over her face.
: -)
It’s not so bad to go into exile. I set out with a knapsack and a can of water. I set out with good walking shoes, an apron, and a baseball cap which read BEAST MODE.
It was warm outside. I could hear the sounds of birds. I could hear the sound of the wind, rushing through the pines. Birds that perhaps, just hours before, my husband had seen out of his binoculars. It felt nice, to feel the air on my skin, to be making my way into the wood. Exile did not seem much different than a walk. And I had taken plenty of walks. To sagebrushes, to gardens where me and my husband had felt so secure, a tea served at a marble table in a Mediterranean environment. Of my childhood, all of us in the sand, looking for horseshoe crab skeletons, a rusted out bean can. Our mother, polishing a rifle, sitting out in the dunes in her green wicker chair. My baby would have all of this one day, a cape codder, a home of dusty blue. My husband wouldn’t be mad at me. Our baby would have an unremarkable childhood. It would play in the sand. It would skin its knee playing on a hot black top. It would pop a wheelie on its gala apple red Razor scooter. It would lick the blue juices off its finger, after traveling great distances to visit the berry patch. It would get lichen underneath its small fingernails from playing with logs in streams. I pressed my hand up against a tree and looked down at the ground: mud and twigs. The remains of a small and dead animal. I poked it with my toe, this revealed maggots.
There was a light rain, at one point. The landscape did not vary for many hours.
Exile, when you do it right, you get vile, you get disgusting. And I did. I got vile, I got disgusting.
: -)
There is a story I once heard when I was a little girl that if you do a bad job being a wife, there are no more people left. Everyone disappears! There was a point where this became startlingly clear to me. Where I realized that there was no one left. That I was alone. That I could keep walking in the forest and never find a clearing. That I could go to the opera in the city and the violins would play for no one.
: -)
And so I slept in a boxcar. I slept in a field.
I woke up on a bench in a park, surrounded by hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of deer. It became harder and harder to walk. My pink dress had become tattered. For three nights I slept next to a vending machine in a bus terminal. I did not get on any buses, but then again, none arrived. I ate pink cakes that tasted like plastic. An entire carton of curdled whole milk. A package of beef jerky. A microwaveable hamburger. A drink called ClamStarr RAww. A handle of vodka, from a far off land called Belarus. My stomach grew larger. The streets were empty, depopulated. The weather was bad. My breasts leaked in the night. I remembered when all of us were daughters. Daughters dancing in better weather. Daughters in autumn. When I dreamed I saw my husband. I saw the Jennifers. I saw our perfect home. I saw my perfect baby. There was one day, while passing a newsstand, I thought I saw, in the papers, a portrait of my husband. But no one was at the newsstand, and I have never been a thief.
I never wavered in my devotion. I thought of him while I walked. How I didn’t need to be his favorite. How it would always be a pleasure to serve him. I would do whatever he needed. I would get to live in my dream home with the Jennifers and my husband. My dream and how it would be full of fruit cups and wars on the television. Baked pies and five million dollars. My husband would look at me from across the long dining table. He would take Jennifer 1 or Jennifer 2 into his bedroom to fuck her and I’d sit there in appreciation and watch. My husband, my skilled husband. I’d grow larger and larger until I was the largest woman who ever lived. Then one of the Jennifers would take a pin to my stomach and pop me and then there would be a baby and our life would be perfect. I didn’t even have to keep my baby. I would even kill it if I had to. I would send it to boarding school. I would give it away to a king. I would go back to being 15 years old. I would go back to being birthday cake and candles. I’d be small and I would be fey. My husband would take me on honeymoons and on ferris wheels and to breakfast and to the fields. Autumn would become winter. I’d always be Jennifer.
: -)
This next part is about how I gave birth to my son.
[the sound of a guitar, screaming like it is coming out of a white-capped wave. like it is the ship of theseus, and they are row row rowing their boat]
A burst of pink light.
How come when you look at the sun in the forest, shaded by the trees, you feel like you are going to live forever? How come?
: -)
I named him Glock 20 after the thing I found most beautiful in the world. He had blue eyes just like his father. He had a shock of red hair just like me.
: -)
I knew exile was over because it became spring.
Because my babe had grown strong, he had taken milk from my breast. He had considered lilies. He had considered steamships. iPhone 11s. A drawing of an elephant in the sand. He took my baseball cap, which read BEAST MODE, and sucked on it so he could grow strong.
The house showed itself to me. It appeared in a clearing. It appeared as easily as it had gone away, as easily as I had gone away from it. And the Jennifers were there, smoking their cigarettes. A young girl stood next to them, miming their movements. When the Jennifers swept, the young girl took her hands, making a motion with the actual air as to indicate the sweep. When the Jennifers did target practice out the window, the young girl took her fingers, as if to indicate the presence of a gun. Jennifer 8, I heard one of the Jennifers call in a sing-song tone of voice. Jennifer 8. She was perfect. This made me so happy. I know this might be hard to believe but looking at her, I was so happy. I really was. I was so happy.