Husband Dot Com (4 page)

I walked up to my husband-to-
be sitting at a blackjack table. He was looking pretty flush with a mile-high, Mack Daddy stack of chips in front of him. I stood quietly behind Trent, watching him play cards. I started to second-guess my feelings for him and it caught me off guard. I felt strangely hollow in the midst of all the excitement. My guts internal, "check engine" light, kept flickering off and on—the bastardly thing would not quit flashing a bright orange warning sign. Unsure, was my state of mind, about the man I intended to marry. I thought that it must be a case of frickin cold-feet. I believed that Trent was the mythical "one"—eighty percent of the time. The other twenty percent of the time, I told myself that the forever love concept is a bunch of malarkey we are brainwashed to believe so that we don't all become an unruly bunch of immoral whores. Since I did not want to eternally smash around in the rouge waves of Trampland, I sold myself on taking the marital high ground. I was knee-deep in the process of convincing myself into some kind of outlandish relationship submission. So there I stood, uncomfortably muffled and frozen on the extremely elaborate casino floor.
He glanced behind the mahogany high-back chair and noticed my tall shadow lingering behind him. Leaning forward, I softly whispered in his ear that I lost my last twenty dollars to a greedy slot machine. Regretfully, that night I decided to leave my favorite credit card upstairs in the hotel room. I ever so sweetly mentioned to Trent that I was in need of a few bucks to keep playing the one-armed bandit. I wanted to try my luck out a few more times until Trent was finished playing cards. I only wished to spend a bit more time on the lively casino floor before we retired for the evening.
Trent stopped everything and screamed at me, "No, you are done for the night,” in a loud and belittling tone! I could not believe my stunned ears. The card dealer looked at me with an unsaid expression of dismay that was clearly defined across his brow. Every eye in a stones-throw radius was on me, and yet I felt somehow invisible. I was so ashamed inside that moment to be standing beside a man who treated me like a tiny bug that he squashed under his four-hundred- dollar patent leather shoes. There I was, feeling like a young girl who wet her polka dot panties on the playground—the only exception was that the playground was for adults only. Everyone was staring at me. I was standing inside my own golden spotlight of embarrassment. My startled brain went numb as his painfully cruel words slowly churned like barbwire in a metal blender. My emotions felt naked and exposed—they needed a dark place to quickly hide!
My first thought was to pull the fire alarm and run out of the bustling casino screaming
, “Trent is a rude, cheap asshole!” 
I wanted all of Nevada and any bordering states to hear me roar! My face had red hives developing as the seconds went by. I remember staring at the green velour of the blackjack table right before the fury of my rage overwhelmed me. As an automatic gut reaction, I yelled loudly right back in his tightwad ear, “You are not my father!” I placed my pride in my pocket and abruptly headed the other direction—away from his ugly mug. The beautiful glow of the evening had turned pitch black and the shimmering lights that illuminated moments before had instantly disappeared into the darkness.

I am a strong woman—with a sprinkling of Irish. Thanks to the spun
ky shamrocks, I also have a red-hot, push-button temper. So, I did not take to well to Trent trying to run my life, or my gambling for that matter. That crazy lunatic had seriously screwed with my good time.
I was outrageously pissed off! Running across the casino floor as fast, as my heels allowed me to move without breaking something, felt like an impossible feat. My deflated heart was in shambles trailing behind me like clanking, rusty old soda cans. By a narrow margin of a small miracle, I somehow made it to the elevator—unscathed. My tears of indignation were burning red streaks down my face. The constant ringing in my ears latched onto Trent's words. His presence filled me with chewed-up bits of hate and disgust—in the very depths of my being.
Storming into room 512, I was a much-wronged woman. I immediately tore off all of my clothes and made myself a hot bubble bath. I just so happen to be addicted to bubble baths and Diet Coke—even more so in a crisis! So there I was, floating around in hot water like a water-logged flower, it was my nonalcoholic equivalent to a huge glass of wine—an instant sedative for a girl on the verge of flipping out! I knew I needed to calm down somehow and at lightning speed. My earthly mermaid-girl solution for every life trouble has always been to immerse myself in hot water and bubbles. Grappling with hurt beyond belief and being furiously derailed by a man who claimed to love me was nothing less than devastating. We were a few days away from our wedding and Trent was treating me like yesterday's garbage. There was no bliss to be found in the middle of the desert on that dreadful evening.
Moments later, Trent ripped a gaping hole right through my bubble-filled sanctuary. He was livid at me for embarrassing him at the table in front of total strangers. I felt a sharp twinge of injustice because he was mad at me, when I was the injured party in our ruthless matchup. How could that bastardly beast of a man not have understood that? Trent was trying to pin that fight on my almost innocent head! As if asking a loved one for a few measly dollars in Reno would be considered a federal offense. I was simply in my happy place of slots and video poker before that controlling ox of a man took a machine gun to my mood. I was a wet lily pad floating in a bathtub that was overflowing with vicious man-made tears.
Trent threw a stack of hundreds on the wet bathroom floor. He said, "Here is your fucking money!" Trent must have had me confused with a Fremont Street call-girl who was used up and thrown out of a dirty white limo. Didn't Trent know that the hooker ranch was only an hour up the road? The cheap fricking jerk should have taken a cab there if he was in the mood to throw hundreds at a woman! Then maybe Trent could have had a mind-blowing blow-job thrown in for kicks and giggles. I was so outraged at him. How could he have the audacity to belittle me with money, as if I were some lesser species than he? Things went from horrible to horrendous in a matter of seconds. I questioned at what point Trent falsely assumed that he had the right to employ himself as my gatekeeper, or better yet my tightwad pimp of a fiancé. I was not about to acquiesce to the tight metal dog collar that he was trying to squeeze around my unwilling neck!
When we first met, I knew Trent was the type of guy who would give me a run for my money. In a depraved way, I had always had a thing for men who were a challenge. Looking back into the rearview mirror of my distant youth, I had the hard-to-get concept incorrectly programmed in my brain. In a backwards approach, I never wanted men to chase me—quite the contrary. I wanted to ferociously chase men to the finish line and win. Like any good huntress, after I had my prey under my beguiling spell, I would quickly lose interest.  It took me a few decades to get it right and let men chase me. Although, to this day, I still struggle with letting men lead the way. It has always bored me to tears trying to keep my claws retracted. However, Trent was a tiger that played chicken with me until I caved. He was a quite callous cat to tame. I did not realize in the beginning of our courtship that I was way over my man-chasing head with Trent.
 

On our first date, Trent ordered a tiny appetizer for us to sha
re and we were on a dinner date—sans the dinner or dessert. When Trent did not even inquire of what I had wished to order, I should have known what a tight inconsiderate bastard I was dealing with even then. Cheap and rude is what his behavior was in a nutshell. In the South, they affectionately call it “Showing your ass!” Trent's lack of table manners told a bigger tale of how he was planning on treating me in the months to come. Why I did not dash out of that eating establishment like the fire alarm was pulled—I will never know to this day. I must have hit my head on the steering wheel as I pulled into the bistro’s parking lot. Of course, I was in no way surprised that Trent was behaving like an out-of-control toddler on the Reno Strip. I was baffled by who I was more furious with in that hotel room—Trent or myself?
Being in Reno mere months after our doomed first date was very much like ballroom dancing with two broken feet—never good. Trent looked like a wild boar screaming at me. Blinding me were Trent’s sharp pit bull teeth. He growled at me like a rabid foaming-at-the-mouth dog! Trent's red London-broiled face was going to blow like a two hundred and fifty pound volcano! His crushing and poison-filled words permeated the hotel room and suffocated my heart. I was pulverized to my core at a time that was meant to be total joy. Instead, our time together was overflowing like a tin cup of misery with a frothy venom topping.

Knowing deep inside that love did not resemble anything like the anger that was swirling around in that hotel bathroom really frightened me. Trent behaved like a prison warden towards me. I would never bend down and pick money off the floor—for anyone! Although, I did have a little birdie in my ear saying, “Hurry, pick up the money, catch a yellow cab and fly home!” My gut was yelling, “Get away from this ghastly man as soon as you can!” Sitting in the airport waiting for the red-eye may have been a better future plan than staying in that love-lost hotel room that was imploding all around me.

By staying, I had given Trent the green light to rip my heart out. We had an epic verbal bloodshed that lasted until the sun rose over the majestic desert mountains. The gold bands of shimmering light began to fill our room as our battle was losing its steam. We both pretended to be sorry by the time our brutal words had turned to dust on the Egyptian cotton sheets. We finally fell asleep on the luxurious bed from pure mental exhaustion. At that point our rest was only a catnap. The day of lights and excitement had kicked off without us. I woke up as numb as a prize-winning fighter that did not win a thing—except a bruised spirit. The aftermath of the night stayed with us from that point on. I had a hangover of hate that followed me around like a black cloud on a leash.
We were in need of a last-minute miracle before our wedding day arrived. Our friends and family arrived in Reno one by one. I put on a dull veil of excitement for them. I could not stop rewinding the movie from the night before in my mind. I tried my best to give them a half-assed D-List performance. It was a futile effort to disguise my red eyes and sad puffy face. During our greetings, I felt guilty that everyone was arriving in Reno to celebrate our new life together and I was so miserable. Everything appeared perfect on the outside, yet our relationship was decorated with a typhoon of negativity. Trent and I had a beautifully wrapped love affair on the exterior. When the precarious gift known as our relationship was finally unraveled, I realized that there was nothing inside the box, except a few pieces of dollar store tissue paper and one demolished heart—mine.
My super-sleuth sisters could see right through me with their supernatural x-ray goggles. I gave every attempt not to look them square in the face for very long, because I knew they were on to me. I still wanted to pretend that I was swimming in a pool of bridal bliss. I felt ashamed in a fragmented and emotional way. I could not convey anything to them without completely breaking down. My eyes were screaming, "
Help me,"
yet the words failed to transpire. I had become a stranger to myself—unrecognizable. My wedding plans were everything that I thought I had always wanted. By then all I truly wished to do was to hide underneath the comforter in my hotel room. My family and friends spent money and time to come thousands of miles away from home for our wedding. They came bearing gifts and well wishes. Although I was surrounded by loving people, I was standing on a sandy mirage totally alone.
Trent had secrets—dark ones. I had previously witnessed Trent's well-disguised skeletons long before our big steel bird ever touched its wheels down on Lady Luck’s infamous runway.

I
knew Trent had had a dirty laundry list of indiscretions from his past in the "Lifestyle." That means "swinging" for any good-girl-types that may not be following my rhinestone breadcrumbs. I did not even know what in the heckfire that word meant until I met Trent. Better yet, I seriously though it described people who were into nudity and hung their fleshy appendages out on nude beaches in seemingly exotic locales. I genuinely thought the "Lifestyle" was all about naturalists who got their kicks by tanning their white butt cheeks in public places. In my mind, they were a modern-day tribe of like-minded souls who roamed the earth in search of perfect-wide open spaces to gloriously spread eagle. It was my naive belief that their only goal was to show off their flesh-colored hardware. Well, boy was I ever wrong about that one! Apparently, I must have lived under a giant coral rock a thousand feet below sea level? How could a swanky Florida native like me not have known the code words for swinging?
Trent's swinging buck naked from the chandeliers past was old news, or so I thought. I was a foolish girl who tricked my heart into believing that I would be his shiny new future. Nothing like a good sprinkling of denial to get a fabulous relationship off the ground! My cheap, plastic magic wand was apparently cracked and broken. I couldn't seem to get the fairy glitter to evenly dispense all over my nonsensical life. Where is a delightful fairy godmother when you need her, anyway? Maybe, I should have been trolling around online looking for fairy godmothers instead of husbands? Seriously, I forgot to ponder the crucial piece of Trent that must have really gotten his rocks off by swinging in the first place. That chunk of him did not vanish into thin air because he wanted an instant family. If big, smoking sex stacks of humans made Trent's one-eyed worm wink, then how could I ever compete? I was only one person with two ta-ta’s, and one kitty, for that matter. I was spray painting outrageous amounts of denial all over my life with a ten foot pressure washer. Just call me the ultimate queen of pick-and-choose reality.
So, flashing back to Reno now and our wedding-day drama. My mom and I were in the hotel spa having our hair glamorized—in true bridal fashion. The pretty stylist that worked on my hair was named Veronica. She had immense chocolate-brown eyes and the most mesmerizing voice I’d ever heard. Veronica must have moonlighted on the psychic girl’s channel. Not only did she blow out my hair, but she thoroughly blew my mind. She was halfway through giving me the most rocking style of my life, when she blurted out of nowhere, "You don't have to go through with the wedding." I could have levitated right out of her chair and knocked myself out on the hairspray-covered ceiling.