Charise

“The secret to
my happy marriage?

Once a week
I go to different
places like
Home Depot,
or Lowe's
or anywhere you see all those
Mexicans hanging
around the parking lot
looking for day-labor.

I look for the
most handsome,
cleanest looking
young man,
I don’t care
if he can speak English.

I tell him
I have some
light handyman work
for him to do
and we negotiate
a price.

He follows me back
to my place,
but before he gets
to work,
I ask him to wait.

Then I slip away
to the guest room
where I change into
lingerie,
something from
Victoria’s Secret
that shows off my legs
and my tits.

Then I call him
into the bedroom,
and I’m stretched out
on the bed
with an unmistakable smile.

You remember
that thrill of a new lover,
that feeling
of a young, hard body
on top of you,
warm muscles
and a strong throbbing,
hard and deep
inside you?

Well, I do,
because I get it
every week.

After he’s done,
I pay him
and he leaves.

Then,
when Randy comes home,
just before
he falls asleep,
I play a DVD
of the sex tape
I secretly made with
the day laborer,

and remind him

“This is for
fucking that
fat slut receptionist
in your office.”

One of these days,
I’ll tire of this
and forgive him.

Or not.”

Norman

“Be gone.
I’m giving you
the chance to escape
unbloodied.

You might think
you’re a badass
picking on little girls,
but some of them
have fathers,

and I have
a long memory,
a longer anger
and an infinite hatred
for bullies.

You came sniffing
around the wrong
schoolyard,
because I can
and will
make a call
and you’ll vanish,

but first,

I know this freak
who was raped
repeatedly
when he was a little boy
and I never turned him on
to Jesus.
I just kept feeding his
homicidal rage,
and he can’t hold down
a job,
and he doesn’t have one,
except when I call on him.

He’s a freak because
he likes to tape everything
he does
to my referrals.

Ever see someone
tasered almost to death,
brought back,
and tasered again
and again and
again?
Your mom will love
that one.

When Norman
ties you down
and shoves
the spiky, kinky
corkscrews,
barbed wire
and what not
up your backside,
he’ll strip out
the audio of
your screaming and pleading,
and remix it
to a house beat
and play it
on a boombox
outside the window
where your dad works.
He’ll understand,

besides
didn’t your father
ever tell you
not to pick on
little girls?”