Wendy Rainey: New Writings

 

Rima

 

You lie on the floor,

naked,

head buried in a book,

cat asleep at your feet.

When the sun shines on your body

I take it as a sign from God

that you are mine.

Drowsy, you drink from the glass of wine beside you.

It isn’t long before you drop the book,

your head falling to the side.

Eyes closed,

I watch you drift off to asleep.

 

I don’t know what you’re dreaming,

but somewhere there are horses

galloping in the scorched hills,

wolves chasing them,

howling.

 

You wake, stretching like a cat,

nipples erect,

legs open.

The scent of you in my mouth.

I come to you like a starving dog.

I have no need now for God

nor any of his mercies.

The Ben & Carol Show

 

Ben had been unhappy for some time now.  After seven years of marriage, three kids, a dog, and a mortgage, he wanted out.  But his wife wanted to go to marriage counseling. Carol, the great believer in “the talking cure.” Carol, of the flaming red hair and infinite freckles. Audacious Carol, who liked to tell men with lingering eyes, “Yes, the curtains match the carpet, creepo!” It used to be that Carol’s laugh made him feel good about himself. The first time he heard it, he thought it must have come from the seat of her soul. He felt as if he was the luckiest guy on Earth. And she was sexy. Oh, so sexy.  Once, when they first started living together, Carol ran out of moisturizer.  “Ben,” she said, “I’m all out of Jergen’s, go ahead and give me some of your juice.”  She walked towards him as he lay in bed. “I’ve got dry skin,” she purred, “I can’t go to work looking like this, for Chrissakes.” A few moments later she was rubbing his semen into her skin, even dabbing a little behind her ears. He liked the idea that she would go out into the world with his scent on her.

 

That’s the way it used to be, but now when he came home from his job teaching English at the local junior high school, all Carol had time for was making dinner, walking the dog, and getting the kids ready for bed.  She refused to do the dishes anymore. Ben resented buying the bulk bags of paper plates she insisted they eat off of, just to save her the hassle of cleaning up. At night she worked on her computer with her office door closed. She said she was getting her resume ready and brushing up on her computer skills so that she could re-enter the workforce. That night he had forgotten to knock on her door.  Ben walked in and found Carol naked in front of her laptop. Her face flushed, her pierced nipples erect and pink as though they had been stimulated. Nirvana was blasting on iTunes. Half a dozen Budweiser cans littered the floor. She made some excuse that it was too hot to wear clothes so she took them all off.  But he noticed that she exited whatever screen she was on as soon as he approached her. He asked her point blank if she had been exposing herself online.  She broke into raucous laughter. He watched her body convulse into giggles. Her ample breasts jiggling so vigorously they slapped each other, hiding the head of the snake tattoo slithering between them. What used to turn him on, now just made him feel sick. “Hey,” she said, grabbing her t-shirt off the floor, pulling it on over her head, “Let’s go out this Saturday night.”  She stood in front of him, watching his face. “Let’s have a romantic dinner, just you and me.  I’ll ask Beth if she can babysit.”  She pulled him close, kissing him.  He reached between her thighs, his fingers exploring aggressively. Abruptly withdrawing his hand, he said, “Sure.  Let’s whoop it up on Saturday.  What the hell have we got to lose?” Ben wiped her wetness off his hand onto her arm and thigh. He picked up her panties from the floor and threw them at her face, “I’ve got papers to grade,” he barked, kicking beer cans out of his way, slamming the door behind him.

 

He walked downstairs with his dog, Champ, to the cramped utility room he had set up as his office, poured himself a glass of Scotch and worked until 1:00 A.M. grading English exams. Champ slept at his feet.  As he placed the last exam on the finished pile, he wondered how many times he’d caught his wife in a lie.  A lie here and a lie there added up to a lot of lies.  He knew she was seeing someone.  Well, she could take her idea of going to marriage counseling and shove it, because the truth of the matter was that he just didn’t feel the same about her anymore.  He tried to remember who he was before Carol and their three kids. He’d always imagined that he’d be a writer, or at least a poet. He had met with some success just after college. Several journals published his poems, and a prestigious New York magazine published two of his short stories, and paid him! He was riding high off that when he met Carol. He knocked her up six weeks in. He felt trapped, but the truth is, he had wanted her to entrap him. He enjoyed being dominated by her. Nothing turned him on more than when Carol took the reins. He knew he had made his own bed, and for several years he happily lay in it. But what might have he become had they never met? Surely, not a goddamned junior high school teacher, cow-towing to those smug little fourteen-year-old shits and their self-serving parents. He looked up at the poster of Charles Bukowski hanging over his head. Grizzled beard, pit-scarred face, world-weary eyes that twinkled with wit and fire. He knew he didn’t have the balls to be someone like Bukowski. At twenty-nine, he wondered if he even had the courage to be himself. “Who the hell am I?” he muttered. “Whoam I?” His eyes rested on a photograph of his three children. All of them had Carol’s emerald green eyes, her freckles, and her wild red hair. He both loved and hated them simultaneously. They made him ache in some inscrutable way that disturbed him. Sometimes when he hugged them, he had to put them down and walk away, for in his confusion, he felt that he might squeeze them too hard. Crush them. 

 

He poured himself another glass of Scotch and looked out the window.  A light was on on the second story of the house next door.  He knew it was Beth’s bedroom.  He looked closer and could see her at her desk, typing on her laptop. He felt a tinge of guilt as he grabbed a pair of binoculars hanging by a cord on a rack next to the toilet paper and tampons. He positioned himself on the ledge of the window, half-hidden by the curtain. She looked up for a moment. He turned away so quickly that he tripped, falling over a crate of gin bottles, landing on a jumbo pack of Pampers on the floor, the binoculars flying out of his hands. He was certain she had caught him spying on her, but she never looked at him.  He looked at her again through the lenses, and noticed that she was pulling up the straps of her nightgown, adjusting the garment on her body.  He caught a glimpse of several objects hanging from the ceiling, but couldn’t quite make out what they were. After he adjusted the focus knob on the binoculars, he saw photos, drawings, paintings plastered on the walls. He gasped when he realized that one of the objects suspended from the ceiling was a giant penis. He saw her unmade bed in the background. A black bra hung on the bedpost. He watched a smile creep across her face as she typed for another moment, then got up and stuck her head out the open window.  Looking up at the stars, she unfastened her pony tail, shaking her hair, arching her back slightly, letting her thick black mane cascade down the length of her body. Her sheer nightie was practically invisible in the moonlight. Her body appeared lit from within. Ben felt himself growing hard. He unbuttoned his jeans, knowing he should walk away, but he didn’t. “Fuck you, Carol,” he whispered over and over through clenched teeth, until he was finished. He busted open a pack of baby wipes that he grabbed from the rack. Champ, who had woken up amid the ruckus, had been staring at him the whole time, cocking his head to the side, as Ben cleaned himself up, wiping the concrete floor underneath him. 

 

The following day, Beth received a text from Carol, asking if she was free to babysit on Saturday night. Carol texted that she desperately needed a date night with her hubby. “Oh, to be 18 again!  You’re lucky you’re too young to even know what I’m talking about!!!” Several emoticons in various states of emotional distress followed Carol’s initial text. Beth thought about her exchange with Carol the previous night on Zoom. She thought about how Carol sat there, cool as fuck, in the raw, while she went on and on about her college days; backpacking in France, hitchhiking in Sweden. The red-light district. The three surfers she did in Malibu when she was 16. “We dropped acid all night long. Oh, I really knew how to put on a show back then!” Beth recalled that a few weeks ago, Carol had burst into tears on Zoom, her head in her hands, sobbing. Her bare breasts heaving on camera. While she listened, Beth sketched the various snake and serpent tattoos visible on Carol’s body. “I wanted a life of adventure, goddammit!  I wanted to travel. I wanted to fuck everyone. I wanted to live without limits. But I got thisinstead!”  Beth thought about how she could see Carol from her bedroom window, naked and chatting with her online. “Don’t let this happen to you, Beth,” Carol warned. “Don’t ever get married!”  And below, on the first story, she could see Carol’s husband, Ben; grim-faced, working away in his dingy little office, muttering to himself, throwing back one drink after another. She had told Carol that she could see her husband diligently working, but that he was also spying on her. Carol encouraged Beth to go to the window and “give Ben something to dream about.” Beth had positioned her laptop so that Carol could see her moonlit performance. 

 

Beth had emerged from the womb an artist.  There was never any doubt in her mind about who she was. She had her first gallery show at fourteen. Her art teacher considered her his star pupil, a prodigy. Her room was cram-packed with her own original work; sketches, illustrations, and oil paintings lined the walls. There were nudes, abstracts, and folk art everywhere. She had carved “pagan talismans,” from oak, suspending them from the ceiling. Photographs were plastered on every available surface, even in her bathroom. Beth had been sketching, photographing, and recording Ben and Carol surreptitiously for several months. In the new studio her father had built for her downstairs, she had constructed a three-foot diorama of Ben and Carol’s house made of plaster, wood, glass, and various textiles, replete with action figures of the entire family. She had already completed a dozen murals depicting different scenes from their lives. Her next art installation project, a multi-media event entitled:  The Ben & Carol Show, was already halfway completed. Patrons would crawl through a dark, narrow “birth canal” to get to a large, circular space called “The Rumpus Womb;” Playful, chaotic, dream-like.  A hint of violence. A bombardment of shrill domesticity mixed with poetry, soaked in Scotch and regret. Skydiving into deep space on acid while the chicken casserole burns. Strobe lights, flashes of geometrical color, stardust, blood, birth, primordial ooze, and sexuality.  She was constructing talking, larger-than-life-sized replicas of Ben and Carol’s genitals, out of plastics and other materials. The genitals argued with each other, screaming, crying, pleading, laughing, singing, cooing, and coddling. She had begun work editing video loops for several short movies that would be projected onto the walls. She had written songs on her keyboard with lyrics lifted from conversations with Beth, and intel she had gathered on the couple. Her original music would provide background ambiance while patrons experienced the extravaganza.

 

She arrived at their door at 9 o’clock that Saturday night. It was no surprise to Beth that Carol and Ben were in the middle of a marital row.  As she reached down to pet Champ, she adjusted the hidden camera in the front pocket of her denim jacket. She could feel Ben glaring at her and at his wife as she gave her instructions for the children’s care.  Beth pressed her ear against their bedroom door as they shouted at one another. She set a nanny cam between portraits of the family on the mantle. She put a cam in the kitchen, one in the foyer, and one in the living room. Finally, the couple emerged from their bedroom, arguing in hushed tones.  Beth watched Ben slam the door behind them. They were still bickering on the way out, Carol, screaming in the driveway when Ben tried to shush her. Beth grabbed her Canon, adjusting her telephoto lens. They were sitting inside their Honda. She filmed Carol straddling Ben, kissing him on the mouth, her head slowly travelling downward.  Beth paused on Ben’s face a few moments later. Something between pain and pleasure crept across his features. Carol’s head finally popped up, laughing full throttle. Ben peeled out, burning rubber down the street. Beth still had her camera positioned, filming the neighbors pointing at the Grey Honda zooming away, when the baby started crying.  She set the camera aside, went to his room, picked him up and laid him on the changing table to check his diaper.  He shot her with his warm jet stream, wetting her t-shirt and bra all the way through to her skin.  Beth put a new diaper on the child and set him back in his crib.  She walked to the washing machine, stripped from the waist up, threw her t-shirt and bra into the washer, added soap, and pressed start. The machine churned as Beth looked through a stack of Carol’s clean, folded clothes in a nearby laundry basket. She reached for one of Carol’s tees.  Just then, Beth, half-naked, turned around to see Ben walking toward her, his mouth wide open. He stopped and stared. She stood there, bare-breasted, smiling at him. She walked over to the kitchen table, reached for the camera, turning it on herself and Ben. She turned around as she heard Carol’s footsteps approaching from behind.  Carol was holding Beth’s pay for the night in her hand. She was already talking, “Worlds shortest date!” she chirped, before she saw Beth’s exposed bosom, the look on her husband’s face, and the camera. With Canon still in hand, Beth grabbed the money from Carol’s hand, pocketing it. She then grabbed Carol’s face, kissing her on the mouth. Carol, kissed her back, grabbing her left breast, squeezing it. The two migrated to the living room, falling onto the sofa. Carol and Beth were taking each other’s clothes off. Ben, looking shell-shocked, ran out of the house hyperventilating. He fell to his knees on the front lawn unable to move or speak for several moments until the automatic sprinklers came on. Champ, who had escaped from the house, was barking, and frolicking in the spray. 

 

Crouching in the hedge in front of the living room window, Ben slowly raised his head to see Carol and Beth naked on the sofa, laughing and kissing. When the two women saw Ben in the juniper, they both called to him to come inside. Carol picked up the camera, walking to the living room window in the nude. Her long, kinky red hair falling to her shoulders. Her corresponding triangle on full display. He was on all fours, covered in mud, shivering. She focused the lens on him. “Ben, get your goddamned ass in here, right now!” she commanded. For the first time in ages, Ben felt his heart leap for joy. 

My Sister’s Party

 

I was just about to leave my sister’s party.

We hadn’t been close since we were kids.

Her invitation had come as a surprise.

Grabbing my purse, taking one last sip of wine,

I heard one of her friends,

someone she had worked with

for decades,

You never mentioned

you had a sister.

Her friends looked at one another.

They looked at her,

waiting for a response.

My heart sank

as I rose from my chair. 

Walking to the back door,

opening the screen, 

I turned around,

to look at her.

She was throwing her hair back,

talking with another group,

pouring wine into their glasses.

I walked out the door,

down the steps,

to my car.

I turned around again

to look at my sister

one last time.

Music pulsated through the air,

all the way down to the sidewalk.

She must have said something funny

because the whole party

burst into laughter.

The Slumpclod

 

We found the Slumpclod

pizwacked in the bramblespur.

Tizzywinkled and all a’frowny was he.

Jaked across the bloomsy crawcrows

of splinty titters and wizzled pugsnog,

til his rumrum barbled wiffy. 

Gripidity burned his crainy,

as if a great herd of Shazzymod 

sprungbum him to vertitude and back.

 

Up rose the Slumpclod 

on furlocked gallopolids. 

His torbids grubbing in the slishslosh,

his gubbash splewing blizzymodos

as fumulous as a crankering gargolia. 

And off he galumbered 

back into the bramblespur.  

 

Banjorious were we,

raising our grippies in a hoopidy hay hoho,  

jigzagging under the GodEye of night.

For we, too, felt the vermerations

of the beast.

 

Oh, bellodius Slumpclod,

fill us with bloomsy crawcrows

jaked across splinty titters 

of wizzled pugsnog, 

tizzywinkled and all a’frowny, 

and we will follow you,

sprungbum to vertitude, 

jigging and zagging,

a’hoopity hay ho ho, 

into the bramblespur,

under the GodEye

of night. 

Editor's note: Rainey says of her poem 'The Slumpclod': "I wrote The Slumpclod after reading Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll. I immediately became fascinated, smitten, ensorcelled by the poem years ago after reading it to my charge when I was a nanny. I read it again recently and wrote The Slumpclod in honour of Carroll's poem. Just a fun romp into absurdity."

Wendy Rainey is author of Hollywood Church: Short Stories and Poems and Girl On The Highway. She is a contributing poetry editor on Chiron Review. Her poetry has appeared in Nerve Cowboy, Trailer Park Quarterly, Misfit Magazine and beyond. She is a 2022 recipient of the Annie Menebroker Poetry Award, and a runner-up in the 2022 Angela Consolo Mankiewicz Poetry Prize. She studied poetry with Jack Grapes in Los Angeles and creative writing with Gerald Locklin at California State University, Long Beach.