Everyone Wants to Steal my Man

By Carly Berg

Everyone wants to steal my man, that’s my problem. I woke up with a big fat hank of skank hair tangled through my fingers. Lots of hair. The eager beaver deserved it for attempting to steal my man. Every time I gave the horny hog’s hair a good yank, she hopped and mushed up her mouth. She went whoop, whoop! She was an excellent whooper.

At the end of the veranda, an angel strummed a harp. Sunlight sparkled across a sky blue lake and jasmine scented the breeze. Lime-green birds flitted among the bougainvillea and the Greek statues.

I tried to get up from the chaise and go find my man, but a serving girl leaned over me just then. Her tray gleamed so bright my hangover thrummed and I had to cover my eyes. She was plumply pretty and smelled of peaches. Disgusting.

“What would you like, ma’am? I have mimosas, fruit pastries, hot, crisp bacon ---“

“You see this hair? This is what happened to the last poop-dog who tried to steal my man. Stay away from him. I’ll decapitate your head!”

“Oh, no ma’am. I don’t require men.” She looked both ways, then lifted her tunic.

I had left my rubber gloves at home, so I went ahead and pushed on her whore’s area with the bunched up hair hank, to make sure it wasn’t a trick. But nothing was there, only smoothness like a doll’s crotch.

She swayed away to the harp’s melody, gone to fetch a selection of nail polishes for my manicure.

“Madeleine!” My old neighbor approached like a wave of nausea. She once tried to steal my man. Probably thought lounging in bed all day hooked up to oxygen put her above suspicion. The slattern was probably just too lazy to bother breathing on her own. “What on earth happened to you?” she said (she had a stinky personality, too).

“What on earth happened to you?” I said. She most likely got bone skinny on purpose. Trying to make my man think me a fatty, in order to steal him.

“No, I mean it. Here.” She pulled a mirrored compact from her purse.

When I screamed, the serving girl rushed back, nail polishes rattling on her tray.

She told me not to worry. She led the penis-poacher away.

The top of my head was missing.

The serving girl came back and turned on a machine. She hooked me up to it with little suction things all over my chest.

“Am I dead?”

“Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry for your loss.”

 Dead. I’m dead! The words echoed through my head and popped out my new blowhole.

“Don’t let it get you down, ma’am. Just get on with your day. Why don’t you tell me about your man?”

Why don’t I tell her about my man? She was overly interested in my man. Ah, female parts or not, the reason she did herself up was to go about tempting everyone’s wiener. That much was clear now. “Where is my man?”

“He’s in jail. He shot you in the head.”

“That’s terrible.” That’s wonderful. My man was safely locked up where no one could steal him. “Do you think they’ll keep him there?”

“He’ll have his trial down there. And you’ll have yours up here.”

The girl narrowed her eyes at me. Wives everywhere could rest easy if that slitty-eyed scowl was how she normally conducted her face. Shrew! “Grape!” I popped my lips until she fed me one.

She continued her sly inquiry while brushing red polish on my fingernails. “Are the two of you legally married?”

“Of course.” I doubted it made any difference to her.

“You and your man share a home?”

“Yes.” She was probably too stupid to let complications stop her.

“You file a joint tax return?”

“Yes. Grape!” She was forgetting who was boss. I refused to go on until I received a succulent grape.

“And you share a checking account, savings account, Mastercard?”

“Ja, oui, si. Give me a grape, you evil cuntress. What’s all that beeping, anyway?”

The girl put on some black-framed glasses. Trying to make herself look smart, no doubt. “It’s the lie detector,” she said. “Your so-called man says he left you three years ago and that he shot you in self-defense. Now I believe him. You broke into his home and attacked his new wife.”

“Grape!”

No grape arrived. The serving girl backed way up, stomped her foot against the ground a few times as if gaining traction, and charged at me. She knocked me straight off the cloud, chaise lounge tumbling after. The angel broke into a rocking rendition of the Rolling Stones’ “Get Off My Cloud,” which sounded really weird on a harp.

Down, down, down, I fell, screaming. But mostly, praying to land in a good location for ensuring that no one could steal my man. The serving girl’s voice filtered down through the clouds. I think she said, “She was an excellent whooper.”