Sweet Baby James

We were laying on the futon (not even a real bed, what kind of a grown man doesn't have a real bed) in James' shitty apartment on Stillwell Avenue, the mismatched sheets loosely covering our entangled naked bodies. We'd just done something that James thought passed for lovemaking but I knew to actually be missionary sex of the non-kinky variety. It wasn't his fault he was straight laced about sex...half the world was straight laced about sex. It wasn't his fault he was 6"9 and built like a goddamn linebacker while I was 5"1 and nearly got flattened to death under him. No, wait, that one WAS his fault, the fucker could've let me be on top, but whatever. He took the used condom and flung it across the living room. It landed on the floor in front of the big screen TV.

"Tell me again why we have to use those things," he said, somewhat grouchy, "I never had to use them with my ex."

"Yeah, and how many kids do you have with her?" I gave him a pointed look, knowing damn well he had three kids with his ex, and she was living somewhere in a house, a real house, with his bedroom furniture, while he was in the shitty apartment using a futon for a bed. Not that I blamed his ex for his lack of bedroom furniture...No, it was his own fault for not having a job, not having money to replace the bedroom furniture she took when she left.

"I take care of my kids," he sat up, starting to look angry.

"Well I'm not ready to HAVE kids," I said, just as angry. I sat up and lit a cigarette. "In case you forgot, I'm only twenty-three. I haven't finished my Master's yet, there's things I wanna DO before I have kids." And that was true. I was twenty-three and did NOT want children. James was thirty-nine and already had three from his ex. If he wanted more, he wouldn't get them from me. Him wearing a condom when we had sex was the one ironclad rule of our relationship, the one thing I put my little foot down and insisted on.

"Just admit that you're scared," he said, "you're scared that if you get knocked up, your mother will kick you out the house and never speak to you again."

"James," I said between drags on my cigarette, "my mother doesn't like you. She thinks you're too old for me. She'd shit a brick if she knew we were fucking. If I get pregnant by you she'd be really mad at me. Mad enough to hit me. Mad enough to hit you. But after she's done being mad, she'd want me to have the baby. She still wouldn't be thrilled about having you around, but she'd want me to keep the baby...she just wouldn't want me to keep YOU."

"So then how come you don't let me fuck you without the condom?" he asked without missing a beat.

"Because I am not ready to have children," I said, "can you get that through that thick skull of yours."

"You mean you don't want my kids," he said, "you wanna fuck me but you don't want my kids. That's what you really mean."

"All right fine, I don't want your kids. Happy now, I fucking said it." I put my cigarette out in the empty coffee cup that served as an ashtray, reached for the bottle of Canadian Club I'd been drinking from that evening, and poured myself another tumbler of the stuff. "I drink, I smoke, I swear, would you even want me to raise your children?" I downed the whiskey in one gulp, made a face, and said, "Goddamn, and can't you for once spring for Chivas Regal, why do you always get this cheap shit?" I poured more Canadian Club in my tumbler.

"I buy you cheap whiskey 'cause you drink it like water. Anybody ever tell you you drink a lot for a girl? And you wouldn't drink or smoke while you were pregnant, I wouldn't let you."

"Wouldn't let me?" I looked at him, tumbler of whiskey in hand, shocked that he'd said such a thing. "And if I drink so much, why the fuck are you even with me?" I downed the whiskey, lit another cigarette, and answered my own question. "I'll tell you why. You're with me because I either don't notice or don't care that you have no job, no money, no bedroom furniture & you have to fuck me on a fucking futon that you don't even fit on, and nobody else in her right mind would have you. Isn't that right?"

I wasn't surprised when he slapped me full across the face with his big paw. It still stung like all fuck, though.

"Christ," I muttered, "I wasn't finished. I hadn't even got to the really shitty part. The really shitty part is that I KNOW DAMN WELL you have no job, no money, no bedroom furniture, & you have to fuck me on a futon that you don't even fit on, and nobody else in her right mind will have you, AND I'M STILL HERE BECAUSE you're not too bright."

"What?" He looked baffled and really mad. "I'm not too bright?"

"No," I said, "no you're not. If you were, you might've wondered why a woman sixteen years younger than you, from a good family, with a future, wants to hang around your ass. I mean, yeah you got a big dick, but that's ALL you got."

He slapped me again, harder that time. "You don't want my kids, you think I'm a fucking idiot. You really think I'm gonna let you talk to me with such disrespect in my house?" his big right hand reached out and grabbed me around the throat. "I'll teach you to respect me, d'you hear me!" I heard him alright, as his fingers squeezed my neck. "You fat, saggy-breasted drunk, you think you're hot shit?" He shook me so hard my teeth rattled in my head. He roughly turned me on all fours. "I'll show you to respect me if it's the last thing I do!"

He let go of my throat to push my ass cheeks open and enter me through the back door. Up till then, we'd never done anal...I'd never done anal before in my life, and I wasn't expecting it that night. And James didn't knock at my back door, no, he charged through as though his member were a battering ram. I started to scream, but he said, "Not one sound, bitch!" as he held my hips in a vice grip. I tell you, he rode me like I was a Roman chariot, and goddamn it I liked it.

After that night, I still drank too much, I still smoked. James still wasn't too bright. But I DID respect him, because what I needed, he gave me great.