They were so willing to spurn their girlfriends. They did this, put their relationships at risk, when they both had children, that supposed ultimate proof of true love. I felt so confident and sure of my place, like I lived on a pedestal. I felt like a goddess, a wild demon woman. I felt like Lilith.
I was already committed to this thing with Matt, had already decided I would use any means to get between him and Frankie. I wanted to let go of the holy fear, the Puritanism. I wanted to serve Matt for myself and for him and not for anyone else.
On my lunch break, I was walking to the grocery store when I saw the brake lights of a familiar slate gray Chevy Malibu pull up to the entrance. A short brunette popped out of the car and ran into the store. I realized it was Frankie. Before the car could pull away, I ran up to it and peeped through the driver-side window.
It’d been about a week since I’d seen the two of them together, three days since I saw Matt alone. His elbow rested over the lip of the car door and he was wearing this Dickies work shirt with a gray crew neck underneath. God bless a man in Dickies.
“Well, howdy, stranger,” I said.
I glanced at Jett in the backseat and then back at Matt. He bit his lip and said mm, this short-burst moan before he opened his mouth.
“Hi, girl,” he said. “What are you doin’?”
“On break,” I said. I learned over into the car and licked my teeth. Cars behind him started to pile up in line.
“Shit—” he said real long, broke it into two syllables like sheee-yet. “Get in.”
I looked at the entrance and didn’t see Frankie. Matt’s glance followed mine and he winked.
“Come on,” he goaded. “She’ll be waiting for me in the store.”
I loved the inside of his car. Leather seats, fancy blue lights everywhere. A good car meant a man with money, which really meant a man who was attractive was a man wasting his money on stupid shit. He pulled into a nearby parking spot and looked at me like I was supposed to know what to do next. I got on my knees in the seat and leaned over the armrest, smiling, moving my ass. Matt grabbed my face in his hands and pulled my mouth into his.
“Aren’t you scared,” I mouthed into his mouth.
“Shit, yeah,” he said. Our mouths together, like darkness touching itself. He kissed me hard, quick, as if to make up for our short amount of time.
“I can’t stop thinking about you,” I mouthed to him again. I pulled my face away from his pouty lips. Even with the windows down, it was hot in the car. His hands moved to my body, grabbed my waist, my breasts. I looked over at the baby in the backseat.
That night, I lay down on my dirty carpet texting Jenny about my interactions with Matt and how fucked up it was he wasn’t leaving Frankie yet.
—i don’t understand what’s taking him so long
Jenny shot back,
—i told u tho
I called their house with a blocked number in case Frankie answered, so I could hang up. I stared at my body as the phone rang, in a full-length mirror placed sideways. Watched my body writhe amongst the trash on my floor in red lingerie. I tried to see myself as Matt might see me underneath him.
“Hello?” It was Matt. The phone always took the bass out of his voice, but he sounded so close to me on the receiver.
“Hi, Daddy,” I said. I had wanted to say it to him for so long, but the word sounded foreign in my mouth and I immediately regretted it. My body thrashed with the burn of a mistake. “I just wanted to hear you,” I said. I felt embarrassed, and touched the red lingerie all over my body. “I’m not wearing much.”
“Hm, really?” I could hear him speaking with that smirk he had.
Whatever was happening inside my body, these feelings, meant the love could last. Something told me he loved me, too. There was a pause. I imagined him taking a tube of Chapstick out of his pocket and applying it to his lips, the Cupid’s bow glowing like a diamond.
“Tell me what you’re wearing,” I cloyed.
“I can’t,” he said. I could hear Jett crying in the background, Frankie’s voice saying something.
“It’s Patrick,” he said to her. And then, “Look man, I gotta go. Dinner with the lady.”
He hung up.
DAUGHTER OF SWORDS
I CAME OVER TO Jenny’s with a bottle of vodka, asking her advice.
“You need some kind of power to help you with your shit,” she said. I thought about the billboard on Chelton Road. Every time you drove east, there’d be this big sign that said PORN in big block letters on it, which an image of a white man’s hands bound in the same thorny wire that crowned our lord and savior’s head.
“Jesus?” I asked.
“Fuck no,” she said.
Jenny flipped the tarot cards over one by one. The backs were blue with white flowers. She arranged them in the shape of a cross, and then added a pillar of four cards.
We sat in the basement amid a dozen lit candles. I poured vodka into my usual coffee mug. We were hunched, knees up to our chests, sitting on the floor with the cards laid out between us. I played a game. She’d flip a card over and I’d take a drink.
The card in the middle of the cross was a barn owl, like the one tattooed on my stomach. In the card, her wings were splayed wide and there was a sword in her clawed
