Forty-Eight Hours in Heaven & Hell

Sherrie sleeps against me. I pull in my driveway and park, not knowing what to do. I can’t carry her—my right hand and arm are swollen and tender. I rouse her enough to lead her through the front door and into the back bedroom, where she collapses on the bed. I undress her and cover her with a sheet.

I go to the kitchen and fill a basin with warm water. I return to the bedroom, grab a washcloth, and bathe her. She is dirty from her own tears and from Travis. She moans, I think in pleasure and comfort. She wakes momentarily and seems completely confused until she sees me.

“Where am I, Michael? Your house? Your bed?”

I nod yes.

“Was Travis here?” she asks. I tell her what happened and though she seems to understand, I believe she is too groggy to fully get it. I help her into some pajamas. As I cover her, she reaches up to me and pulls me down to her.

“I still have your ring, don’t I, Michael? Tell me I do!”

“Forever, Sherrie,” I tell her. “Sleep.”

I go to my dining room, pour myself half a glass of whiskey, and sit at the table. Bills, flyers, newspapers, and pictures of my grandchild litter it. Grandchild! What the fuck is a grandfather doing punching out some 28-year-old bastard-prick in a nightclub? What the fuck would I tell my daughter how I spent my Friday night—getting fucked by a bitch with a strap-on dildo and sucking jizz out of a guy’s cock! “Oh, Daddy! Sounds hot!” Shit!

I look at my daughter’s 3-month old daughter. What will she be doing 42 years and 5 days from her birth? Sleeping in the house of a man she doesn’t know but had great sex with then cumming while she danced with him? Why not? It fucking happens. Sure as shit happened to Sherrie!

[are you on the pity-pot again, Michael? you know I hate when a character of mine starts weeping in his whiskey. waste of good bourbon! i’ve put a wonderful person in your life. take advantage. drink up and go to sleep, for christ’s sake!
you’re right, author, just help me get some ice for my hand and get me to the sofa!]

The sun also rises. I’m not usually there to greet it, but I sleep fitfully with my throbbing hand and am awake at dawn. It’s a chilly, crispy Midwestern fall Sunday morning. I pray it is a day of rest.

I check on Sherrie and she is curled under the covers. The fetal position looks good. I’d like to join her. I’d suck my thumb till it got all wrinkly and white!

I make breakfast. Sherrie does not know, of course, but I am an excellent cook. I warm the oven and make crepes, fry bacon, squeeze oranges, brew coffee. As the last drops drip into the pot, Sherrie appears in the doorway. I am not surprised she looks like shit. I bet I lost my Brad Pitt good-looks overnight too!

“Good morning, Sherrie!” I try to say as cheerfully as possible. “Like some coffee?”

Well into her second cup, she begins to awaken. She looks at my hand. It’s a mess. At first, she has to think about why it looks that way, and then she remembers. She says I need a doctor but I remind her it’s Sunday. We eat mostly in silence but everything tastes good and we clean our plates.

“You didn’t sleep with me, did you?” she asks. “Where’d you sleep?”

“Sofa,” I say. “I needed to be alone for a bit,” I add. She nods.

“Come back to bed with me, Michael. I need to hold you.”

We lie together for a while, in silence.

“I love you,” she says. “There is no shred of doubt in my mind that I love you.”

If I were writing this story, I would already have been asleep. I am so goddam tired and in pain. I don’t want sex; I want sleep! But I’m not the fucking author. Sherrie reaches her hand between my legs and cups my cock and balls. I feel my cock stir. Though I’ve never known a man who gave his penis a name, the rumor—spread mostly by women, I think—persists. But if true, this is why: It often has a mind of its own!

“Fuck me, Michael!” Sherrie begs. “Fuck me all over. Make me your slut-bitch!”

Well, maybe that’s what she is after all, I think. Stop trying to treat her like a woman, like a human, Michael. She asked for it. Go fuckin’ ahead!

I grope her like a sophomore in high school. I bite her neck and move to her breasts. I bite and suck her nipples. She squeezes my cock over and over. I throw the covers off and rip off whatever clothing we have on. I push her back and spread her legs up and out. I look at her cunt and suck on it. I lick it and bite it. You wanna be a cunt, Sherrie?

I place my shoulders to her legs and push forward. I’m hard as a fucking baseball bat and when she places it against her, I shove in. “Oh, God, yes,” she says. “Fuck me, Michael! Fuck me till I pass out.” And fuck her I do!

I’ve got her knees next to her ears and if I went any deeper, my cock would poke out her belly button. I twist and grind it into her and she begs for more.

“That’s it, Michael! Fuck my cunt! Fuck me like a slut!”

I turn her over on her hands and knees. I place my cock against her pussy and shove it in hard, my balls slapping up against her lips. A few more thrusts to get really lubed and I pull out, this time placing my cock against her asshole. I pop the head in and she yells. I shove it halfway in and she reaches back to feel my balls hanging while I start to fuck her ass.

“Sooooo good!” she pants. “God, your cock feels so hot and hard in my ass. Bang me, baby. Bang that ass!”

I am almost standing, trying to get deeper and deeper into her. She raises her ass as high as she can. She crawls to the edge so her legs and ass are on the bed while she props herself on the floor. I get off the bed, spread my legs really wide to straddle her, shove my cock in, and raise her by her thighs. It’s fucking like I’ve never fucked before—a pure ass fuck.

Sherrie’s moaning and whining and panting so hard I think she may hyperventilate. She moves back on the bed so her mouth is directly in front of my cock.

“Fuck my mouth, Michael. Just grab my head and shove your cock into my mouth. Then fuck it and cum down my throat!”

I place my fingers at the back of her head and hold it as she sucks me in.

“Don’t suck it!” I order her. “Just let me fuck your mouth! Just be a warm, wet hole to fuck!” I pump in and out of her. She groans each time it hits the back of her throat. She reaches with one hand and grabs my balls, pulling them, rubbing them, then letting them go so they slap against her chin. I look down and watch my cock fucking her face. I am so fucking hot, sweat streams from me. Her cheeks are sunken in from sucking me, her lips red from friction.

I spread my legs wide and pump her a few more times. Then I shoot my load into her. I think 10, 11 spurts of my jizz splash her throat, inside her cheeks. Some spills onto her chin and I wipe it up with my fingers.

“Eat it all, baby! It’s the fucking breakfast of fucking champions!” She licks my fingers, gives my cock one last suck, and falls back on the bed.

“I needed that, Michael! You’ve been too tender and sweet to me. I needed a dose of reality!”

I am ashamed. I have never treated a woman like a piece of meat to fuck, as I just did.

“You want a fucking dose of reality, Sherrie? Is that what you fucking want? Get in the fucking car and I’ll drive you back to Travis in a fucking second! There’s your fucking reality! He can treat you like fucking meat all you want! Isn’t that what’s he’s been doing?

“I wanted to be a little different—you know, a man who cares about you! Ever give a fuckin’ thought that might be good in your life? A man who can make love to you! A man who can make you cum while dancing! A man who can bathe you and make you breakfast! I let you make me ashamed of myself! You want reality or punishment? I’m not that common to give you either or both. Plenty of those fucks out there. Put on your skirt and heels, strut about, and go get yourself one! Three for a fucking dollar, if you want!”

Sherrie looks shit-scared. Her lips are quivering, her eyes are tearing. She has covered up her nakedness. I loom over her. I put my hand out.

“The ring, Sherrie.”

She really starts to quake. “No,” she says, “you can’t want it back!”

“I can get a cunt and fuck it when I want, if that’s what you want to be to me. I can fuck a cunt and not bother with making her a fucking breakfast and cleaning dishes! What did I tell you about the ring, Sherrie? Do you fucking remember?”

“No, Michael, please don’t ask me to do this!”

“I said I would take it off when somebody really wows me. Not when someone asks me to fuck her cunt and make me ashamed to do it! The ring, Sherrie.”

She sits up and moves to take off the chain, and then stops. She looks up me.

“Sometimes,” she stammers through her sobs, “when you tend your garden, Michael, don’t you come across a buried rock or stone. You hit it with your shovel and it comes back, jarring into your bones? What do you do then?”

I think, impatiently, what the fuck is she saying!

“I get on my hands and knees. I move the dirt one way or another until I can pry it out. Then I toss it aside.”

“And then?”

“I go on tending the garden,” I say, defeated.

[ouch! she got me, author! real good! re-living history. don’t we ever learn, ever get it?]

I sit on the bed and lay my head on her chest. “I’m so sorry, Sherrie! Please, keep the ring! If you still want to. I’m a tired old fuck!”

“Oh, baby!” she laughs, holding me. “I’m a tired old fuck too. Let’s be tired old fucks together!”

“How about a drive!” I say. “It’s a glorious October day! And we need to get away from…”

“Reality?” Sherrie completes my sentence.

I smile, yes.

I manage to find a few things Sherrie can wear and we take off north to Wisconsin. I avoid I-94 and take the blue-line highways on the map, the ones that weave and curve through the Dairyland’s moraines. We get stuck behind tractors and wait at cow crossings, but we also get to see rolling pastures, corn cribs, white church steeples and the farmers and their families leaving them, heading home for pot roast and mashed potatoes. They’ll watch the Packers play the Vikings and sip cold beer. They’ll talk about winter wheat and birthing calves.

We have burgers at one of the thousand Dew Drop Inns in the state. Best meal I ever ate. And Sherrie and I are laughing again.

Back in the car, Sherrie looks through my CDs.

“You like Aerosmith? I love Aerosmith!” and she pops the CD in and cranks it up.

We’re driving, windows open, Sherrie’s dancing, we’re rockin’ at the top of our lungs.

“Steer!” I tell Sherrie.

“What?”

“Take the wheel! I gotta jam!” I shout, as I break into my patented air guitar!

Love in an elevator
Livin' it up when I'm goin' down
Love in an elevator
Lovin' it up 'till I hit the ground

Air, in the air, honey one more one more one more one more
Love in an elevator
Livin' it up when I'm goin' down

I take the wheel the back. We harmonize.

“Love in an e-le-va-toooooooor!

Livin’ it up when I’m goin’ doow-wow-wow-woooown!” Rock ‘n’ roll forever!!

We stop for ice cream and buy honey and cheese and sausage to take back. Sherrie picks out a stuffed brown bear.

“Is this the Cinnamon Bear?” she teases me. I buy it as a gift and give it to her. “CB II,” I kiss her as I once did. Before this morning.

It’s dark when we return. I get out my keys to unlock the door and notice it is ajar.

“Wait out here, Hon,” I say as I hand her the bags we’re carrying. I enter and flip on a light. In the corner’s shadow, arising out of a chair, stands Travis in a black leather jacket.

I slam the door behind me, hoping that Sherrie understands something’s wrong. Hope she’s got a working cell phone too.

“I seen a lot more of you, cocksucker, than I ever thought I would!” He smiles and looks like one of the shitheads in ‘Deliverance.’

“How’d you know where I live, Travis?” I ask. “Sherrie doesn’t even know.”

“You work for a place with a lousy HR department,” he says. “I’d bitch to them tomorrow about givin’ out personal information to any schmuck that calls!”

Fuckin’ assholes!

“What the fuck you want, Travis,” I ask in a tired voice, trying to stall him.

“Sherrie, Grandaddy!” he says. “I seen them pictures of your grandkid. This your daughter?” he asks, reaching for the photo of Kelly.

“I got a baseball bat right here by the door, Travis. Touch that picture and your head’s a Sammy Sosa home run.”

He laughs. “Touch that bat and you’re fuckin’ JFK’s head in Dallas.” He quickly reaches into his jacket and pulls out that .38 I always figured he had. He cocks it.

“Look, what do you fucking want? Sherrie ain’t here. You want her back? You think she wants to go back to you? All this was your fucking idea, wasn’t it? Send Sherrie out to find a guy you can blow? Find out if you like guys? You’re gonna shoot me over this horseshit?”

“You steal my girl. You fuck like bunnies all day in my house. You hit me last night, remember? Made me look like a fool in front of my friends!”

“Travis, you don’t need my fuckin’ help!” I hit the light and reach for the bat, swinging where I think he is. Aluminum against bone is an ugly sound.

“Fucker!” he yells in pain and begins firing wildly. I hear the shots and see the flashes from the muzzle, and then I only see the bursts from the muzzle. My body slams back to the wall and fire bursts somewhere in my gut.

The door crashes open and two cops with flashlights light up the room. Travis fires a shot at them and tries to get to the back door. They bring him down. I sense one checking me and hear the other call for an ambulance. Somewhere in the dark I hear Sherrie, screaming in the blackness.

[stomach? I ask.
no, pancreas. it’s much faster. it will stop hurting soon, Michael. and then...
but why, author, can’t you write a fucking happy ending?
you lived happily ever after in ‘three moons over pincarus.’ remember?
sci-fi shit! who cares about living happily ever after in science-fiction? will I be in another story?
yes, I think so, Michael. I like the way you’re developing.
thanks for finally letting me be stevie tyler for a few seconds. I was rockin’! and what happens to Sherrie? will she be okay?
who knows? I certainly don’t! maybe she’ll be in another story.
but I won’t be able to see her then. can I see her now? help me say what I feel about her?
why not?]

Sherrie kneels next to me, beside herself. I cannot bear to leave her, but that is out of my control. I reach up with my good hand and touch her face. She grabs it and holds it to her.

“We didn’t get the time other people get, but we didn’t waste any either, did we, Baby?”

She laughs and sobs.

“Sweet Jesus, Michael. You can’t die! You just fucking can’t die! I won’t let it! I won’t fucking let it. Take me, God, instead! Don’t take Michael!”

“Smile for me, Sher.” And I see that she tries.

time to go, Michael. time to go.

Command + s