Vicky

A Story by Anna Ivanova

She was really into sex.

I was many years in by the time you came along, Vicky. Well, actually, by the time you re-entered the picture. We had bought a regal old house on St. John Avenue back in my old hood.

You were not the first, nor the last, but just someone who was in the middle of my Kansas City nightmares.

My girlfriend, Sylvia, came to town and stopped in for a visit. Between the two of us - Sylvia and I - we drank all his precious Amaretto di Soronno. That was about the time he arrived home from his "date" with you. He was angry about the Amaretto.

You were also not the first of my valentine's day self-massacres. Since I had previously set up three of what I had hoped would be romantic valentine's day hotel rendevous, stupid, stupid me was catching on to their non-workability. Torturous non-workability.

Now, prior to finding out about your dating status, I went to a thift store, which was my budget at the time since my husband was unemployed (I guess you must have paid for your dates with him), I found a cute, sexy red teddy and a pair of red velvet stilettos. Unfortunately, the teddy lacked garters, which for his purposes would have made it useless. I went to the fabric store and bought red stretch lace, from which to attach the actual garters. I worked on it in secret after he went to bed at night.

But something happened while Sylvia and I drank his Amaretto. A cloud passed over my brain, and it was a little bit too familiar to ignore. After his tirade about Sylvia and I drinking his precious Amaretto, Sylvia decided to leave since she no longer felt welcome.

I followed him around from room to room, only slightly intoxicated, and said to him - "Something is different about you. What is it?" I had learned long ago not to ask where he had been. Why bother asking a question when you know the answer will be a lie? Still, I could not let that cloud go. The alcohol had made me less fearful, and I knew that something was different. I persisted in asking that question - "Something is different about you." As he moved from place to place - to the bathroom getting ready for bed - to the bedroom setting the alarm clock (for me, because I still went to work and took my daughter to the sitters). Asking, over and over again - "Something is different about you."

Then, out it poured. Months of details I wish I'd never heard. "But why," I asked? It was perhaps the biggest mistake of my life, asking that question. You see, Vicky was really into sex. She was really good at it. Me, sewing red lace garters onto a thrift store teddy was nothing short of pathetic. Nothing in the world could disguise the fact that I was a lousy f**k.

He went to bed.

I went to the basement where I had my hidden sewing project, and cut the teddy into shreds with a pair of scissors. I ripped the lace garters off by hand, since they had been sewn on my hand, and took them with me upstairs to the bathroom.

I split them apart so they'd be doubly thick. Since I'd split them apart, I now had four pieces, so I tied the second two sections very securely onto the original two and tied them around my neck - two to go around my neck and the other two to pull in order to choke myself to death. I stared into the mirror as I watched myself turn a light shade of blue, my face without expression.

I tightened the pull as much as I could - until the blue started to deepen a bit - then came to in a heap on the bathroom floor, coughing. I felt like a total and complete failure.

Stupid, stupid me. One can hang themself and die, but cannot strangle themself. You just simply pass out and start breathing again.

I laid myself next to his snoring body and cried. Neither the first time or the last.