Tide's Ebb (3 page)

Marianna rushed up the steps of her Park Slope brownstone, dizzy with anticipation. She put her key in the door.
That’s odd
, she thought to herself,
the second lock isn’t locked.
She walked up the stairs to their bedroom, unable to contain her excitement at
finally
getting engaged and finding true meaning for her life.

Instead, Marianna was in for the shock of her life.

When she opened the bedroom door, it was like a scene from one of those movies that Marianna would never watch.

Horror.

The TV droned in the background.  Bradley was hanging by his exquisite neck from the closet door, a silver Tiffany chain around his throat. His pants were around his knees, his still-engorged member in one hand. His other hand was clutched tightly around a long cord that he had slung over the closet door.

Marianna screamed, “Bradley!”

To her shock, Bradley lifted his head.  He was still alive!  He mumbled, “Oh! I didn’t expect you home so early. Would you mind? I’m just about finished here.”

“Uh, ok.” But then Marianna noticed the images flickering on the television.  It was one of the sex videos that Marianna had let Bradley make.
I guess it’s sort of cute that he’s auto-erotic asphyxiating to
us
!
Marianna thought, trying to make sense of everything.

But there was something unsettling about the images on the screen. Instead of Marianna’s luscious and creamy body, Bradley had somehow altered the video.

It wasn’t… it couldn’t be….

Marianna stood speechless, full of shame and regret. Suddenly, she could not breathe.

In the video, Bradley was not making love to her—he was making love to a donkey. Marianna’s body had been cut out, and Bradley had crudely superimposed himself onto a pornographic video featuring a donkey. Cries of “El burro! El burro!” filled the screen.  Men with mustaches lined up behind Bradley’s image.

Marianna was disgusted.

“Bradley! Stop it right now!”

Bradley hardly seemed fazed. “Marianna, darling, just a minute! It’s hard to focus on holding this chain ‘
just so’
with you interrupting. I could get hurt! Stop thinking of yourself for a moment.”

Marianna was in shock. “Bradley! You never told me you were into Tijuana donkey porn!”

“Does that matter? Remember, I’m a banker. Now,
please
, if you wouldn’t mind…”

“I… I think I’m going to be sick…” Marianna moaned, leaning against the wall.

“Darling, please… not here. We just got new carpet. Endangered wombat fur.”

“It’s over!”

“Well, no, I’ve still got a little ways to go,” he said, as he continued his twisted method of pleasuring himself.

“No, I mean,
us
. We’re over.”

A wave of cognition rolled over Bradley’s face—his eyes got wide. “But my family will be so disappointed. Mumsy didn’t think you’d mind at all. She’ll be so sad! I mean, you fit the type really well.”  

Marianna’s skin didn’t just crawl, she felt like it was slithering on its belly at a bar with a sawdust floor. “I. Fit. The. Type?!” She seethed with revulsion. “I hope you two are happy together… you… you… jackass!” She turned her back to the vile scene and walked out.

With difficulty, Bradley sprung up, his pants around his ankles. “Did I say something wrong?” He tried running after her, but his pants slowed him down, and his leash got caught on the closet door. He pulled against it—
he would go after her—tell her how he really felt
. His thigh muscles bulged as he strained against the weight of the closet door. But then he felt the Tiffany chain contract into the flesh around his neck, the cord taut, like his glistening abdominals. And he remembered how much he liked that sensation, so he turned back towards the TV and his own infirm amusements.

After leaving the house, Marianna wandered Park Slope in a daze, so lost that she nearly ran into a young mother with a large travel system (which is what baby strollers are called nowadays). The Park Slope mom unleashed an impressively original torrent of expletives—a product of the explosive combination of an Ivy League education and too much time cooped-up in a million-dollar brownstone with only young children and the nanny and the housekeeper. Truly, there is so much suffering in the world.

Eventually, Marianna collapsed onto the sidewalk in front of the dry-cleaners and cried. She was normally terrified of Brooklyn sidewalks and tried to avoid touching them. But she was overcome with grief—grief for what her life might have been. Grief, for everything that she had just lost in an instant. She sobbed, her whole body moved by this infinite sadness. Didn’t anyone care?

Finally, Ms. Pansy Yoo came out of the dry-cleaners, clearly upset.  Or was that Pansy’s sister, Eunice? Marianna could never tell the two Asians apart, for indeed, Pansy and Eunice were identical twins.

“Move off my sidewalk! You’re ruining business!” Ms. Yoo shouted.

Knowing what this woman could do to her clothes if she didn’t comply, Marianna struggled to compose herself and got up.

There was only one person she could call about this.

She scrolled down her contacts. Screech, Steve, there… there was Suzanne. “Hello. Baker, McPrice, Rhodes and Phleger. This is Suzanne.”

Marianna had so much to say, but she could only manage an involuntary snort, which sounded vaguely like a pig hunting for truffles.

Suzanne hesitated. “Screech…? Is that you?”

Finally, Marianna managed to compel her mouth to form the words: “He preferred an ass!”

Suzanne tittered. “I know! I’ve had the same problem! It just hurts so much.”

“What? Really?!” Marianna was incredulous—could auto-erotic Donkey porn asphyxiation be so endemic to modern society?

“Yes, lots of men like to stick it there. Freaking hurts! But let me tell you: anal sex is about the only thing that allowed me to keep my virginity through ninth grade in a Catholic school!”

“No, you don’t understand!” Marianna protested.

“Believe me, I do! I mean, seriously, my vagina gets insulted! ‘Am I not good enough?’” Suzanne said that last bit in a Mickey Mouse voice, which deeply disturbed Marianna. “But don’t you worry, honey—it’s nothing that a few Kegels won’t sort out! Your va-jay-jay will once again take the lead in the orifice free market! And, you know, sometimes they prefer the ass because their dicks are too small. In that situation, it’s really not too bad because it doesn’t hurt too much to put tiny schlongs in your butt. Well, not like it does with massive peeners! Look honey, I know you’re upset right now, but I can definitely give you a few tips! No pun intended—LOL!” Suzanne actually said the letters “L”, “O”, and “L”, which struck Marianna as odd.

“But… I think it’s over…”

“Sweetie, you need to calm down! A little bit of lube and some patience are all you need! Anyway, I gotta go right now! The quotation marks in this brief are all straight quotes and they need to be changed to curly quotes or we might lose this case and then the wrong billionaire will win and make even more money. You understand how crucial this is!” Suzanne hung up.

Marianna was devastated. Even her best friend couldn’t help her. Worse yet, she had nowhere to go. She couldn’t bring herself to go back home. Home, where her heart was broken. Home. Where
that happened.
 Was it just a dream? Tijuana donkey pornography and auto-erotic asphyxiation, both in the same room? Perhaps if it had only been one or the other, she could have contemplated going on, pretending that she had never seen the debasement of the donkeys. After all, these old money New York families usually had at least one member who fucked sheep. But, no, it was both auto-erotic asphyxiation
and
Tijuana donkey pornography. Marianna’s pride demanded that she not go home.

There was only one place where she could spend the night.  Reluctantly, she pressed “talk” on her phone.

“Hello?” Screech answered.

“Screech? It’s Marianna. I… need to stay with you tonight.”

“Oh?” he said amused. “You remembered what I said at lunch, huh? You’d like me to go downtown?”

“No, Screech, I live in Brooklyn.”

“Marianna, you know that’s not what I meant.”

And indeed, she did—Marianna knew that Screech, although he was a wholly unsuitable man, would be the perfect man for her tonight.

“Screech, just let me stay with you.”

“Anytime. Just come by at eight.”

That left Marianna with nowhere to go for hours.  She remembered what she had seen and again she felt short of breath. Inside her chest, her lungs started to burn, her bosom heaving as she hyperventilated.