Misogyny’s Sister by Chaz Siu

My girlfriend howls at me.

I flinch, just a little.

I don’t want to hear your bullshit, she continues. Had enough of it from my biological sperm donor.

She never calls him Dad, I guess because he was such a goddawful mess.

I shrug, say nothing. I do not apologize for pointing out that, where men are concerned, she is a perverse, rootless, fucked up little girl, the genuine product of her daddy’s particular brand of love.

She sinks into her chair and plays with the luckless strands of wren-brown hair that hide her skinny face, loops them around her ears that at that moment remind me of little pink clams.

Jan is full of scatterbrain theories about the mercury in all the shellfish we eat. Crazy shit like seafood makes us more pissed off than we normally would be. Eager to test this theory, the two of us have gone on a binge, tossing oysters and wine down our throats in hopes that aphrodisiac and anger make a potent pairing.

It’s as good a justification as any for how we are together.

I put my head down, drunkenly scribble something on a neon yellow Post-It, the little square kind that won’t hold much in the way of words.

Read this, I say. For emphasis, I repeat: Read this, girlfriend.

I hold it just out of reach.

I hate it when you call me that, she says.

It’s what you are, I say. Live with it.

She springs from the chair and snatches the Post-It out of my hand.

It’s a picture of a puffer fish, a label on its side that says “Jan”, a cartoon balloon poking from its crude mouth that says “Fuck You, Papa.”

She absorbs this as I wait in anticipation.

The back of her hand comes at my cheek, too fast for me to react. I feel the sting as I grab her wrists and try to bite her fat lips. She struggles, but it’s a feign on her part, and we both know it.

Later on, I’m running my fingers along the bruised curve of her hip, tracing the five fingered marks that make wine-red silhouettes on her white skin.

She winces.

That’s what you get, I say. Girlfriend.

It’s what I deserve, she replies, a weird half-smile on her face.

Hard to tell if she’s serious or not. I think she might be. She barely makes a peep when I hit her, but lately when we do this, each time I finally stop, her eyes are wet and silent and looking at me like I’m someone else.

 

Chaz Siu: Chaz Siu has published short stories in Literary Potpourri, the-phone-book.com, flashquake, and other online and print publications. He is currently moving from Chicago to San Diego, where he intends to take a life sabbatical and focus on writing and other midlife creative pursuits.