Fiction: In Your Hour Of Need

By John C. Krieg

 

She couldn’t choose a decent man to save her ass. The crisis of her life was her inability to make the right choices, or more appropriately, any choice at all. She lived her life rudderless to anything except her sexual trysts. They are all that mattered to her. Her need for the attention of a man devolved to oftentimes settling for the attention of any man. She conflated their attention with their nonexistent adulation while they just used her for her body, her income, and a place to crash.

When her beauty is all that a woman can use to carve out her place in the world she can become progressively more pathetic as she ages and her beauty fades. Just look at the burgeoning selfie craze of aging beauties decked out in tight spandex workout outfits showing off their toned abs sending out to the world the message of: “I’m still here. I still got it.” Rest assured, that if you have it, it will always shine through with the sad irony being that if you have to show and tell someone about your worth they are usually disinterested in your message. The internet click bait of public displays of affection, of hookups and breakups, of a star “breaking their silence” seem to mostly fascinate those who aren’t doing any of these things. The need to be adored defined Sonya’s very existence and when she didn’t feel valued she mostly felt miserable. Lately that misery was ever present like a gnawing form of arthritis that she just couldn’t rid herself of. Lately the misery dominated all of her waking moments. She was back to contemplating suicide again emotionally bubbling in a pot in self-absorption and self-pity with the pot about to boil over. That’s when I met her and fell for her beautiful loser mystic. I was working the late night crisis prevention hotline for the greater Centerville area, and let me assure you that when Sonya called I was convinced that I could save her. The only question I asked myself was: is she good-looking enough for me to make the effort? I know, I know – pretty shallow with overtones of misogyny mixed with hints of craven sexuality. 

I had volunteered for this unpaid position wanting to appear compassionate and empathetic but that was just a cover. What I really wanted was to have a relationship with a beautiful women who would look good on my arm. I had tried the dating game, the bar scene, and the strip clubs and had come to the conclusion that if I couldn’t get this woman through the normal channels then I would have to find one who needed a little work. Sonya fit that bill perfectly except to say that I would come to find out that she was a chasm of need that no amount of work could ever fill.

The night we met I was able to talk her down from the ledge highly suspecting that it was only three feet off the ground. This girl really didn’t want to kill herself, she just wanted someone to act like they cared that she might. She just needed to talk it out with someone, and I was there. We talked for hours, and despite it being against the rules, I arranged to meet her for lunch the next day.

I arrived early to the restaurant and secured the best table deep in the back shadows that was as private and intimate as the limitations of this place would allow. I left word with the hostess to please call me up to the front when my guest arrived, not that she had to as heads turned and there was a momentary silence when Sonya sashayed in. A heart thumping showstopper of a woman with long raven black hair and stunning radiant blue eyes that sizzled across the room like the beacon emanating from a lighthouse. Now in her mid-twenties she could have easily passed for 18. Her body was tight with rock hard legs and square level shoulders. Her lovely lady lumps were round, firm, and very impressive and she displayed her thin waist by wearing a cropped top. It was obvious to me that she wasn’t wearing panties judging by the way her miniskirt clung to her hips and perineum while not showing as much as a wrinkle over her supple ass. She knew what she had and wasn’t afraid to display it to her fullest advantage. The hostess didn’t have to summon me, I was already rushing to the front with only a slight momentary delay occurring because I had to adjust my pocket dragon which was already starting to breath searing fire. “Hello, I’m Alex,” I said to her extending my hand. “Sonya,” she replied not shaking my hand and brushing past me headed towards the table she noticed I had come from. Kind of cold. Kind of aloof. Maybe she was just hungry which could cause anyone to be rude. I didn’t know what to think, but when she seated herself and popped a dazzling smile up at me the pocket dragon assumed total control. A few woman in my carnal past had this kind of immediate effect upon me and I knew from my brief encounters with them that I would pay a price in anguish if I were to pursue her. Then I shot a quick glance down at her ample cleavage and knew there was no turning back. And so the chase commenced, and our whirlwind romance swirled up around us blinding me at least to anything that existed outside of its urgent centrifugal force.

***

At our first lunch together I noticed heavy makeup covering her left cheek which was confirmation that she wasn’t lying on our call from the night before. Her current boyfriend was knocking her around and every session was getting worse. I knew from my training that this was perfectly normal for abusive relationships. Over the crisis hotline I had advised a lot of women, especially the young naïve ones, that once the hitting started it wasn’t going to stop no matter how much he promised her that he would change. These guys don’t change, they just become better at finding the type of woman that will allow it. In that regard they become predators and live by the predator’s code of the softer the quarry the more ruthlessly you strike it. She was caught in a cycle that always spiraled downward, sometimes fatally. The usual path for this relationship dysfunction went from shoving, to hitting below the shoulders, to striking the face, to breaking bones. I apprised Sonya of the statistical evidence but she seemed completely disinterested. Nothing seemed to be getting her attention except when I told her that I knew a woman who told me, “The more I bled, the more he told me that he loved me.” “That sounds very familiar,” she told me.

***

 A few days passed while I tried to work up the nerve to ask her out under no pretenses. I was hoping she might call in on the crisis prevention hotline and then felt guilty because that would probably mean that she was being beat up again. Did I care about her as a human being, or was I only interested in playing beach blanket bingo with her? I didn’t like my answer to my own question, but I didn’t have long to continue contemplating it because I received a totally unexpected early morning phone call from her asking me to pick her up at the hospital. She had forgiven him, and predictably the cumulative event in the abusive relationship spiral had been achieved as her left forearm was broken and had been set in a plaster cast. That delivered the message that it was time to get out of that relationship better than I ever could, not that I didn’t weigh in and started reading her the riot act as soon as we got into my car. “Please just let this drop for now. I know you’re right, but can’t we just give this a rest for now?” she asked. She was exhausted, heartbroken, betrayed, and completely disgusted with the human race in general, and I knew that there was no way to reach her at that moment so I didn’t respond. She was also homeless as the apartment where she lived was currently being occupied by her former boyfriend, and she was sure that she couldn’t go home. She wouldn’t press charges so long as he allowed her in to get her things and vacate without being harassed. Since she paid the rent and the place was in her name I couldn’t understand why she just wouldn’t call the police and have him removed. All she responded with was, “Never call 911!” He could have the place for all she cared, but she would move and leave no forwarding address. She solved her homeless problem by announcing that she would have to stay with me for a while immediately after our first night together where she told me that I wouldn’t need to stay on the couch and aggressively straddled herself over me and tamed my pocket dragon just as soon as I got under the covers. Needless to say, I didn’t argue with this arrangement. In truth, things were happening so fast that I was reeling, and I wasn’t thinking with the big head. Could this really be happening? Was I really going to have everything I ever wanted; a beautiful woman that was into me and who really had no other alternative but to live with me, at least for the short term? I saw no need to question it. If she was using me, I would let her do it until she used me up. There was no doubt about it, she was a sexual athlete, and I was out of my depth.

She decided to stay. I decided to let her. We had our six-week honeymoon period with only an occasional flareup which would thereafter grow to become commonplace. There were some logistical problems right from the start. She didn’t have a car, a job, or apparently any real purpose in life beyond her perpetual quest to procure cocaine. Don’t get me wrong, I like coke just as much as the next guy but know that I could never afford it on a steady basis which helped me relegate it to the “only for occasional use” column of my drug use budget. I was fine with pot as my evening decompression substance and had reliable connections which meant that I was never without it. Sonya considered weed to be child’s play, said the high wasn’t intense enough, and besides that, it stank to high heaven. Only the white powered drugs were acceptable to her, and I considered it a sad irony that the one drug that I felt wouldn’t hurt her or anyone else and that I could afford to easily procure was taboo with her. Long story short, I refused to buy coke, insisted that she find a job to occupy her daytime hours, and be accepting of my lifestyle that bored her to tears.

Many of our differences were driven by the age gap as I was 12 years older than her, but the lifestyle gap was a much larger issue to deal with. Besides coke, there was only one other thing that she really cared about, and that was her physical appearance, especially as defined by the style of clothes she wore. For a girl without a job or any other definable source of income she had very expensive tastes and seemed dedicated to the pursuit of never wearing anything more than once. The mirror was her closest friend and how she looked was more important than how she was treated and definitely much more important than how she treated others. She emphasized dressing sexy oftentimes pushing the boundaries of being inappropriate. Side boobs, under boobs, semi-exposed boobs, boobs in pushup bras – you name it and she displayed it. Tight tight skirts, the shorter the better. See-through stockings, lace stockings, fishnet stockings; all held up by a seductive garter belt. Thongs, barely there underwear, and crotchless panties if she wore any panties at all. “Easy access,” she called that. Chockers around her neck, and leather where nobody would ever expect it. She left little to the imagination which made her extensive lingerie collection kind of redundant; not that the effort she made to wear it wasn’t thoroughly appreciated.

She was perfectly okay with being a trophy girlfriend which I was initially fine with as I wanted to show her off with the only problem being that she was agoraphobic unless she was outrageously high. Her fears ruled her life which meant that they would be ruling mine in no time at all. And, she had an insatiable need to always be in control which was validated when she set about separating me from my friends. Wanting a dream girl, or failing that, at least a hot one, came with a price that I was reluctant pay. For a guy finally living with a beautiful woman I was struck with just how lonely I was. I felt isolated because that’s exactly what I was. It would only get worse.

***

She was protective of her money. It had to be coming from somewhere, but she was loathe to revel the source. I knew that she had had a succession of deadbeat boyfriends who couldn’t pay for anything which seemed antithetical to her unexpressed stance that my money was our money but her money was her money. She always seemed to have cash on hand while she never seemed worried about her personal finances. Why would she? Because I was expected to pay for everything. In truth, I knew very little about her past and she wasn’t going to reveal anything. Even when we were right next to each other oftentimes there was a faraway look in her eyes. She seemed uncomfortable in her own skin. She was very much a mystery to me which left me at loose ends when she disappeared.

We had had a vicious argument the night before. When I got home from work she was bouncing off the walls hysterical and completely unreasonable. She took her shoes off and pelted me with them both. I have to admit that got my dander up. Before I could even ask what was her problem she let me know. “You leave me here all day with nothing to do? How can you treat me like this?” “What are you talking about?” I asked. “Jesus, it’s not up to me to entertain you 24/7.” “That’s it in a nutshell, isn’t it? You just don’t care. You’re such an asshole!” With that she threw her can of Diet Coke into my chest. It cascaded to the ground and fluid started to leak all over the carpet so I quickly picked it up and was in a state of shocked disbelief when she knocked it from my hand back down to the carpet where it started spilling out again. “Pick that up.” I told her. She laughed and started to walk away as if nothing had happened at all. But it had, and I was incensed, as I grabbed the half full can and threw it at her hitting her hard squarely in the back. She screamed like a stuck pig making sure that the entire apartment complex heard her. “You hurt me! You fucking prick! Now leave.” “Sonya, this is my place. If anyone’s leaving, it's going to be you.” She flew into me scratching at my eyes and I just took her arms and held them to her side twisting away from her kicks aimed directly at my balls. “Sonya. Stop!” “Fuck you, you pussy. Fuck you, you little woman beating bitch!” When she seemed to regain her composure I let go of her arms and she reached over and grabbed by right wrist then balled up my fist and started hitting herself in the ribs with it. I was sick and disgusted in knowing that this is what she wanted. She seemed to be coaching me in the fine art of abusive relationship dysfunction. This act was in effect saying: This is how you do it. This is what you’re supposed to do. I instantly grew nauseous. She had drawn me into a dance that I didn’t want to do. I had to get out of there before she saw me throw up. I did that in the bushes outside the entry door. Then I got in my car and drove around town for a few hours. 

When I got home she was gone so I went off to sleep physically exhausted and mentally repulsed by my behavior. Where I come from men don’t hit women – ever, or under any circumstances. But I hadn’t actually hit her, had I? I was disappointed with myself for even entertaining the thought. I was merely toying with semantics because she had been hurt due to my behavior. Up until now I had this image of myself as a stand-up guy, but that was now in shambles. She had taken that from me and I would never be able to look at myself in the same light again. I didn’t sleep as the replay of that ugly event played in a constant loop in my head. In the morning I went off to work dead legged and mentally discombobulated. She was nowhere to be found.

I fully expected to come home to a cleaned out apartment but her things were still there and nothing looked like it had been touched. So, she had me in a waiting game, did she? I waited for another three days before she showed up one evening, walked in like she owned the place, plopped down on the couch, turned on the television, and then instantly fell asleep. This was all new to me but I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of even asking where she had been or even what she was going to do next. In the dead of night she slipped into bed and curled my toes. In the afterglow I asked her, “Do you want to talk about what happened?” “No.” 

***

In less than two months I came to realize that there was no middle ground with her as she was the type of woman who either needed to dominate or be dominated, and though I knew that I was incapable of either, she was so hot that I decided to try to change her, to mold her like clay into the partner I so desperately wanted. This, of course, was a disastrous decision leading me headlong into a fool’s errand that I would never be foolish enough to completely give myself over to. Was it fun while it lasted? I’m not really sure, but the sex was phenomenal and initially outweighed the pain she inflicted everywhere upon me except in the bedroom until that fateful day when I just couldn’t take it anymore.

So started our endless procession to psychiatrists and relationship counselors. We went through a dozen at least and none of them was good enough for her until she found the one who unequivocally agreed with her. Surprisingly, he was a middle-aged man who told me that all woman really want is security, and if given that, few will ever leave a man. Why didn’t I make her feel secure? So her happiness was up to me, huh? Make her feel loved, and safe, and entertain her like the jester in the royal court. Be there always and forever in her hour of need with the only problem being that it just wasn’t for an hour; it was for all of eternity. Besides that, he ogled her from head to toe every time she walked into the room. Make no mistake about it, he wanted to bang her. But to mention that would make me out to be a small and jealous misogynist. Wouldn’t they both love that?

What about my feelings? All of his advice was emasculating in the extreme because I came to find out that nobody cares. It was all about her. Man up and take care of her. What unmitigated bullshit. But she was so hot that I put up with it.

***

We made it to a year-and-a-half. I took a leave of absence from the crisis prevention hotline because she made my life a living hell by flying into a rage over one thing or another whenever I came home late from working there. It really didn’t matter what it was that she was upset about because she was determined to engage in this sick scene no matter what. It was a drug to her in and of itself. Many times when I arrived home I would sit in the front seat of my car afraid to go in while wondering what would it be this time? What did it matter? Because it was always going to be something. Finally, I would go in to face the music.

I began to dissect her past relationships, and it occurred to me that if she couldn’t choose a decent man to save her ass, it begged the question of what kind of man was I? I struggled mightily with that answer.

She acquired a job as a receptionist at an engineering company to finally occupy her days, but they had a reputation as partiers which was apparently well-deserved because within a month I was convinced that she was drinking and using again. I refused to fall into the petty jealous boyfriend routine as I dutifully took her to and from her job until she found a ride with another girl who worked there. Then she started coming home later and later. She was obviously falling back on old habits. I didn’t like that but I held my tongue waiting her out. It seemed that I had devolved from the person who had to constantly be present and entertain her to an afterthought who was burdensome and unimportant. Her birthday was coming up, and I was determined to make it special for her. If that went well enough in the ensuing days I would work up the nerve to confront her to see if there was any point in us continuing on as an item. At her birthday dinner I gave her a card with a little poem written inside it. The poem read:

 

Who will listen to you in your hour of need?

Who will believe in you in your hour of need?

Who will help you in your hour of need?

Who will save you in your hour of need?

 

That would be me…that would be me

You can count on me in your hour of need

 

It came to a head on a nondescript weeknight when, as usual, it was least expected. She had come home relatively early in comparison to the last few weeks, and for that I was extremely glad. I was watching a basketball game when she came into the living room and told me that it was time to go to bed. “In a minute,” I told her, “when the game is over. There’s just a few minutes left.” She went back to the bedroom while the game went into overtime, and then double overtime. She came back into the room, walked up to the television, and turned it off. “Hey, I’m watching that,” I exclaimed. “It’s time for bed,” is all she said as she retreated back to the bedroom. She’s not my mommy. I’m a grown ass man and I have time invested in this game, I thought as I turned the television back on. The game was now going into triple overtime, and I settled back onto the couch when she appeared and was livid as she said, “I told you to come to bed!” “I know and I will just as soon as the game ends.” She turned the television off again. “Sonya I’m going to see the end of this game. It’s early, why are you doing this?” “I said come to bed!” “Just as soon as the game ends,” I said as I rose to turn the television back on. She grabbed my hand and pulled it from the knob and sternly said. “No!” “You’re not my boss,” I just as firmly told her as I reached again for the knob. She scratched my cheek deep enough to make it bleed. I looked down at the blood on my fingers as she began striking me shouting, “I said to come to bed.” I pushed her away just to get her off of me setting off an Oscar performance of her tumbling to the carpet and screaming, “See what you did. You’re hurting me again.” I reached my hand down to help her up and there was a tremendous teeth rattling crack of my jaw. She had connected on a roundhouse swing that I never saw coming and it really hurt. But I kept my cool. She was braced for the beating that she completely expected with her body trembling and her eyes turned back in her head. “This is entirely unnecessary. All I want to do is see the end of the game I’m watching.” She slowly rose and reached out for my right wrist, made my fist into a ball, and started hitting herself in the ribs again. “I’m not doing that, Sonya. Please.” She again turned off the television and then left the room. I turned it back on to see the end of the game. My team lost. I slept on the couch. At two in the morning she woke me and told me to go get cigarettes. “At this hour? You can get them yourself. The convenience store is right on the corner.” She came at me again, and I threw her off of me, rushed to the door, and left.

I slept in my car that night in a parking lot a few blocks away for fear that she might accost me again where we lived. She was gone when I went home to get ready for work. When I came home after work she was there, and boxes were strewn about the apartment. “Will you take these down to the parking lot?” “Sure thing Sonya, but tell whoever is picking you up not to show their face until I’m in the clear. I don’t need a scene where I live.”

It took over an hour to get all of her clothes down to the parking lot. I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of even asking where she was going, or with who? I left and went back to where I had spent the previous night. Arriving home the next morning the coast was clear. The apartment was eerily quiet. I was numb. Why couldn’t I have just gone to bed and let things blow over? Would that have been so bad? Why did resist her orders? I rail at being controlled when there’s no need for it other than to display dominance over another person and I felt that she was definitely doing that and I just couldn’t abide it. That’s why.

This had gone on for too long and had gone way too far. I was dismayed with myself because where I come from men don’t hit women, and while I didn’t specifically strike her, I had pushed her, maybe harder than I thought. It was beginning to look like I couldn’t go back to where I come from. Sonya wasn’t known for her kindness, but in reality had done me the favor of a lifetime because I don’t think I would have ever left her, or at least not until her body gave out, and that thought made me feel worse about myself. What kind of a man was I? I felt that I had failed her in her hour of need but knew deep down inside that there weren’t enough hours in the day to attend to her needs. She couldn’t pick a decent man to save her ass, and by unpicking me she saved mine.

Years later I ran across the psychologist who had a very public breakup with his wife and took up with Sonya for about two minutes before she moved out of the area. I had no use for him, but he wanted to talk to me. “Didn’t you know?” he asked. “About what?” “Where she got her money from?” “Didn’t know. Didn’t care. What we had wasn’t based on money.” “Well that’s not the way it was for the married man she was blackmailing. She had an abortion for him and then said all he needed to do was send her four grad a month for life and she would keep quiet. I suppose her suicide was a relief for him.” I was stunned. I knew nothing of her passing and wasn’t about to ask this shit-heel for any details. I wanted to say, “That’s what you get when all you want a woman for is sex.” But I didn’t because I would have had to ask myself what that said about me.

 

 

 

 

 

John C. Krieg is a retired landscape architect and land planner who formerly practiced in Arizona, California, and Nevada. He is also retired as an International Society of Arboriculture (ISA) certified arborist and currently holds seven active categories of California state contracting licenses, including the highest category of Class A General Engineering. He has written a college textbook entitled Desert Landscape Architecture (1999, CRC Press). John’s most recent collection of bios and reviews is: Lines & Lyrics: Glimpses of the Writing Life (2019, Adelaide Books). John’s most recent collection of fictional novellas is: Zingers: Five Novellas Blowing Like Dust on the Desert Wind (2020, Anaphora Literary Press). John’s environmentally oriented middle grade and young adult illustrated book entitled: Luke the Legendary Bloodhound has recently been picked up by Level Best Books.