“Did you see this?” she said, holding a piece of mail in her hand and waiving it in the air.  I could tell by her tone and the scowl on her face, we hadn’t won the Publishers Clearing House prize.

“What?”

“You bounced our rent check!  That’s what.”

“I bounced it?!”

“Yeah, you.”

“Well, it’s our checking account.”

“Yeah, well you’re the one responsible for balancing the books.”

“Oh, so because I do more than my fair share of work, I am also responsible?  No good deed ever goes unpunished in this house!”

“You’re not responsible because you take on the balancing, you’re responsible because you fucked up the balancing.”

“How the hell am I supposed to balance a checkbook when you have the debit card and spend through our cash?”

The fight went on like this for some time before I finally walked out the door.

My phone rang.  I didn’t answer.  I was in the car with no particular place to go other than away.

The phone rang again.  Again I didn’t answer.  I just grew even more heated.  Why should we talk when we’re both angry?

A text came through, “You’re being conflict-avoidant again.”

At a red light I texted back, “And you’re being annoying again.”

The light had changed and the guy behind me honked his horn before I had time to hit send.  I gave him the finger.  Asshole.

I drove to my office – my refuge from the storm.

She called again.

“What?!” I said, answering the phone.

“I’m sorry,” she said in a contrite voice.

I wasn’t expecting an apology.  I was expecting a continuation of the fight.  My tone was completely over-the-top.  But I wasn’t ready to apologize yet.  Her apology was met with silence.

“Are you there?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Did you hear me?”

“Yes.”

“And?” she asked.

If she was looking for a reciprocation of an apology, then she was sorely mistaken.

“Nothing,” I said.

“Come home,” she said.

“No.”

“Are you going to the bar?” she asked.

“I wasn’t planning on it, but that’s a good idea.”

“No!  Come home!”

“I might.  It depends on if I’m coming home to a hornet’s nest or not.”

“You won’t!  I promise.  You’ll come home to a horny-nest!”

“Lo, sex isn’t the answer to every one of life’s problems.”

“I’m not looking for answers, I’m looking to get off.”

I returned home, a little more calm.

We talked about money a bit more in quieter tones.  I explained that our finances are just a bit short right now, “but I’m confident things will be better next month.”

“That’s just the problem,” Lo said, exasperated, “you always think that next month will be better than this month.  What if it’s the same?  What if it’s worse?”

“So you’re saying that my worst quality is that I’m an incorrigible optimist? – I can live with that.”

“No!  I’m not saying that’s your worst quality, but that’s what you hear because you are an incorrigible optimist.”

I fixed myself a whiskey on the rocks.

We talked some more before agreeing to revisit the problem another day.  She suggested going out that night.

“Out?!” I asked.

“Yes,” she said.  “Let’s go out and have a good time.  Maybe you can watch me flirt with someone.”

“Here we are, scraping together the pennies from our spare-change jar to pay the rent, and you want to go out?  I’m sorry, I just find the idea of going out tonight repugnant and odious.”

“At least you can masturbate with your words.”

I shot her a look before taking another sip of whiskey.

“Well,” she said as she spread her legs on the couch and rubbed her pussy, “if we can’t go out, can you at least cum in?”

“Why this sudden erotic twist?”

“I don’t know what you mean.  I’ve always been erotically twisted.”

“I’m in no mood,” I said.  “You’ll just have to man the torpedoes tonight.”

“I know I don’t look so good tonight,” she said, referring to the mascara that had run when she was crying and the old sweatshirt she was wearing, “but I promise, I feel good,” she said as she put her hand between her legs and rubbed her pussy, revealing that under the oversized sweatshirt, she wasn’t wearing anything else.

“Can I just sleep here tonight?” I asked, feeling tired and comfortable on the couch.

“Are you drunk or just an asshole?”

“Can’t I be both?”

“No, you can’t sleep here tonight.  You’re coming in the bedroom. . . and I will be too, soon!”

We went in the bedroom and I got naked and in the bed.  As I waited for Lo to get out of the bathroom, I dozed off to sleep.  I awoke to find her straddling me, naked, grabbing my cock and using it as a dildo to rub her clit.  I heard her moaning and then fell back to sleep.

The next day I saw that she made a Facebook post at two in the morning.  I asked her about it.  She told me that she couldn’t sleep.  I asked her if she jilled it.  She said, yes.  I asked, “To what?”

“I used you.”

“What?”

“I licked your soft, little, good-for-nothing dick in your sleep until it got hard and then I used the tip of it to jill my clit.

“Yeah, I saw that, but that was right before I fell asleep, around ten o’clock.  You made your post after two in the morning.”

“Well, it worked the first time, so I did it a second. . . and a third.”

I went to sit up and get out of bed, but my body ached and I moaned.

“What’s the matter?” she asked me.

“Nothing.”

“You’re hung over,” she stated.

“No I’m not.  I’m sick.  I’ve been fighting off a cold.”

“You’re dehydrated.”  Her go-to diagnosis.

“No.  Didn’t you see how much water I drank last night?”

“I didn’t see you drink any water.”

“I drank it right in front of you.”

“You drank two whiskeys.  Don’t you remember?”

“Yeah, and what was in the whiskeys? – Ice!!!”

“Why do I even try?”

“I wasn’t even going to have one, but I was so agitated, I felt compelled to have a drink.”

“And how do you explain the second?”

“Well, after the first, my throat didn’t hurt anymore and I was feeling quite good, so I thought: if one caused that much improvement, two will be even better.”

“And was it?”

“Last night it was.”

“And now?”

“It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“Well, it was a bad idea.”

“I may be great at making bad choices, but at least I’m great at it.”

“You have to preserve yourself.”

“I’ll buy a jar of formaldehyde.”

“As long as you use it to keep your cock stiff and hard.”

“Watch it babe.  One of these days I’ll be dead and then you’ll miss me.”

“Yeah, but I’ll be married to a rich guy and I’ll have his money to console me.”

“Money won’t make you happy.”

“I wouldn’t know, but I’m willing to give it a shot.  Have I told you my plan?  I’m going to marry a rich man and then keep you on the side.”

“Stop promising and hurry up and do it.  I ain’t getting any younger here.  My plan is to grow old disgracefully, and you’re just the gal to help me do it too.”