“But you
“I buckled. It was like a land-for-peace swap.”
“Molly?” said the counselor. “How about you?”
“I made him a sandwich last week, and he took off the top piece of bread and added potato chips. He’s not the man I married!”
“I need my space,” said Serge.
The counselor looked at him with concern, thinking, You never make the potato-chip sandwich around your wife. “Let’s talk about your space—”
“His
“She’s completely unreasonable,” said Serge. “I even gave her the double balloon — the one with the heart balloon inside the clear one. That’s supposed to get me off the hook. You know the rules. Tell her!”
The counselor took a deep breath and wrote something in the file. “How about we start with intimacy? How’s that going?”
“Sex?” said Serge. “Exhausting! The woman’s a machine! Molly may look like a wallflower, but she’ll suck you dry! Half the time my testicles are like little walnuts….”
“Serge…”
“…The closets are filled with all these costumes and props and this plywood thing she built with leather straps. Then there’s her incredible Tibetan muscle control that’ll make your hat spin….”
“Serge!”
“What?”
The counselor had his hand up. “Details aren’t necessary.” He made a notation in the file. “Intimacy not a problem.” He looked toward the other end of the couch. “Molly, what would you say the problem is?”
She stared away.
The counselor read his file. “You told me you got engaged and married almost immediately. You had to expect some surprises.”
Still silent.
“Molly, since it was your idea to come here, I’m going to need your help. You have to open up.”
She hesitated, then turned her head. “I need a quieter lifestyle. I’m scared all the time. I never know what’s going to happen next.”
The counselor got a new expression. “Has he ever struck you?”
“Oh, no, no, no. He’d never. That’s not what I’m talking about.”
“What
“His job. I… I can’t take it anymore.”
The counselor glanced at the file. “What’s wrong with social worker. It’s an honorable profession. You must learn to support his career.”
“I thought I could. I was proud at first, watching him talk at the meetings. All that respect. But then the other stuff started. Strange phone calls. Clothes always ripped like he’s been wrestling. Sometimes he stays out all night. Then he rushes in and hides something and tells me if anyone asks, he wasn’t here. Once I saw him digging a hole behind the apartment building.”
“That’s the business we’re in,” said Serge. “I’m sure you have your own unorthodox methods.”
“I just want it to stop,” said Molly. “I want a safe family, dinners at home, maybe children. But his insane rhythms are making me a wreck.”
“Rhythms?”
“Everything’s crazy all the time. When he isn’t running all over the place, there are souvenirs and gadgets spread all over the bed. Or he gets into his books and suddenly decides we’re going to live like the pioneers and only allowed to eat roots, so I try to be understanding and eat roots with him for two solid weeks until he jumps up from the table and says he’s always hated roots and he’s going out for tacos, and I don’t see him until the next morning when he’s covered in mud and cleaning a claw hammer in the sink. Then there’s his best friend, Coleman. He’s there all the time, almost like he’s living with us….”
“I thought you liked to entertain,” said Serge.
Molly’s head snapped toward his end of the sofa. “Having some drunken oaf break all our shit isn’t entertaining!” She turned to the counselor and began enumerating on her fingers. “He broke one of the dishes that was part of a matched set, a lamp, the TV remote, a glass picture frame on the wall, a leg on the couch. I found a spaghetti sauce handprint on the bathroom ceiling. Oh yeah, he broke the toilet roll holder, snapped the shower rod out of the tiles, and I had to throw out one of our guest towels because it looked like he had — I don’t even want to know….”
Serge’s head fell back against the wall. “Those fucking towels again!”
Molly spun toward her husband. “What is your stupid friend doing using the guest towels in the first place!”
“He was a
“They’re the
Serge threw up his arms. “To this very day I don’t understand the towel rules!”
Molly turned to the counselor. “He said my towels cost more than blow jobs.”
The counselor raised his eyebrows. “You did?”
“In certain countries.”
“Coleman’s an idiot!” shouted Molly.
“He is not!” Serge shouted back.
Another knock at the door. It opened. “Where’s the rest room?”
“Down the hall on the left,” said the counselor.
“That’s what I’m talking about,” said Molly. She folded her arms, gave Serge a look, then stared away and refused to talk.
“There!” Serge pointed at Molly. “She’s doing it again! What the fuck
“Serge, please calm down—”
