And yet . . .
“E.T. phone home,” I say to myself in the closet—and then I take another slurp of Hen, which Ken calls “the preferred drink of the brothers,” meaning black people.
Definitely racist.
If only I had some Reese’s Pieces.
Here in the closet, I even do the freakishly long E.T. index-finger thing, pretending my nail is glowing as orange as my Hennessy when I hold it up to the bedroom light striping the inside of the closet door.
“L . . . eeee . . . it,” I say, just like the alien whenever it talks to the little boy Elliott in the film.
I hear the front door open and the alarm beep.
Every muscle in my body stiffens.
I hear her laughing as he punches in the code—our birth dates mixed up.
My month, his year.
Her voice is childlike and makes me think of Smurfette, or maybe it’s because she calls Ken “Papa.”
Seriously, she calls him that. Papa. Like he’s Ernest Hemingway.
“Disarmed,” says the robot security system.
“Angry hysterical wife in the closet,” I whisper. “Beware.”
What I haven’t told you yet is that I have Ken’s beloved Colt .45 in my hand.
He claims you can stop a speeding truck with this gun just by firing a shot into the engine, so I’m pretty sure I can cut short the impending sexcapade.
I’ve convinced myself that I’m going to shoot them both dead.
Imagine that.
Their heads exploding like wet piñatas.
He must be feeling her up, because she’s giggling now as they climb the steps toward me.
“Is that your wife, Papa?” I hear her say, and I imagine her pointing to our portrait at the top of the stairs. Ken in a gray pinstriped Armani suit. Me in my best black Carolina Herrera cocktail dress. Both of us looking like some Tony Montana–inspired version of American Gothic. She doesn’t sound all that concerned that Papa may be married.
“She’s dead,” Ken says. “Woman’s cancer.”
He’s a pragmatic man, after all—not very creative, but effective.
And for a second I actually believe him and allow myself to feel dead.
Nonexistent.
Already gone.
Nothing.
“Sad,” muses the girl, who apparently prefers one-syllable words, except for the Papa business. “Did you love her?”
“Let’s not talk about uncomfortable things,” Ken says, and then she’s screaming and laughing again.
“You’re so strong!” she says, and I vomit a little into my mouth as I imagine him carrying her toward me.
Thresholds.
Ken often boasts that he’s never cheated on me with any of the “actresses” in his movies, as if that—if it is indeed true—is an amazing accomplishment. He’s always telling his employees, “Don’t get high on your own supply,” meaning, Don’t fuck the girls we film and sell—but it’s apparently okay to fuck the rest of the female world. That’s the type of ethics Ken subscribes to. My Catholic husband.
I wonder if she’s a hooker playing a role, because she sounds too dumb to be real.
It’s funny how the possibility of her being a prostitute somehow gives me pause and definitely makes it harder to shoot her in the face, maybe because a whore would only be doing what Ken paid her to do, i.e., her job. But if I kill him, I’m going to have to kill her, as I don’t want any witnesses, and the only way I’d get a lenient sentence is if the judge is a woman who believes the murders were a crime of passion. No woman controlled by passion and with a huge gun in her hand could resist taking a pop at the girl screwing her husband.
I put two hands on the Colt .45, readying myself, preparing to burst into the room, firing away like a Quentin Tarantino character.
I try to channel my inner Gloria Steinem and Angela Davis—my inner Lynda Carter even.
Be pissed!
Take control!
Be a true feminist!
Through the slats in the closet, I see that Ken’s latest is, of course, tiny, blond, and maybe all of twenty years of age.
If she weighs one hundred pounds, I will happily eat my hand.
A size zero.
A college student who probably cannot even drink legally.
A child.
Ken is forty-six years old, but looks younger.
He’s a bit like Tom Selleck circa 1983, with his throwback moustache and his chest hair, which has suddenly made an appearance.
His tie and jacket are on the floor.
She’s got his shirt unbuttoned.
Off goes her dress—over her head.
Her pink bra and cotton panties make her look even younger.
They’re sort of dancing now, looking into each other’s eyes, swaying their hips almost like the slow part of “Stairway to Heaven” is playing and they can’t wait for the fast part.
(Ah, junior high dances, your memory haunts me even at a time like this.)
She’s sucking on her bottom lip like it’s made out of hard candy.
I tell myself to wait until he does the deed, so I have undeniable proof. I will pop out of the closet like a neglected-wife-in-the-box wielding Ken’s very own hand cannon as soon as he sticks his stubby little wang into her.
It doesn’t take long for them to slip into bed, and even though they are under the covers—my Calvin Klein Acacia duvet—I can tell he has officially committed adultery because he’s doing that little annoying there-is-a-bug-in-my-throat cough thing he does just before he is about to ejaculate.
It’s only taken about ninety seconds.
And yet I don’t spring out of the closet but just watch the blue comforter rise and fall with the final dying thrusts of Ken’s infidelity—his covered ass like an air-starved whale resurfacing spastically every other second—and all I can think about is how his girl du jour looks like the actress who plays Khaleesi on Game of Thrones.