Yellow Mama E zine

The Girl I Wouldn’t Marry

​

by Dale Scherfling

 

       We loved each other deeply. Not equally, though—just deeply.

       But I’d never marry her. We’d kill each other. Well, I might kill her. She’d just laugh and do her thing. We hurt each other on a weekly basis—again, from different perspectives.

She was brutally honest for a liar, and I was honest too—for an overly cautious victim.

      “I like men,” Kelly told me from the get-go. “If I like ’em, I’ll sleep with ’em. Period. That’s me, the way I am.

      “Girls too, for that matter.”

       She broke my heart for the sixteenth time that summer, and I did my usual—downed eight beers in a dark, smelly bar and cried in most of them, dropping butts and peanuts beneath my feet.

       Kelly—never beautiful—still stopped hearts cold when she entered a room. Somebody’s wife on the prowl. One look and you knew it, man or woman alike, and you either loved or hated her in that instant. Jeans and a soft leather jacket. Nothing striking, nothing tight—just an open button spelling promise.

       She never wore panties. That’s what she said, casual about it to whoever heard. No big deal. And she lied about that. First time I went with her, I ran my hand up her nyloned leg. Where the tops should end and flesh begin—no goddam flesh. Just hose and hose, never-ending hose. Damn pantyhose.

       She broke my heart again and snapped, “Get over it. Stop your sniveling, find some girl and quit bothering me.”

       I took her advice, cut my beers to three, and found a girl feeding coins in the juke, neon flashing on her face—Sinatra’s “If You Go Away.” We both cried. In each other’s arms.

       Kelly heard about it and busted in, throwing tears, bottles, and punches everywhere.

       “You no-good cheating son of a bitch,” she screamed. “Damn you all to hell.”

       “Whoa,” I cried, bobbing, weaving, dodging glassware. “You do it all the time.”

        “Yeah,” she said. “That’s just me—and you know it. So that’s not cheating. You’re not like that, so you’re the cheat.

       “Besides,” she said, “I wanted her.”

       I solved that easy enough—I moved to California. Stayed there thirteen years. She’d call sometimes with a “Hey, asshole—how’s your hammer hanging?”

       “Loose and limber,” I’d say. “Loose and limber.” Didn’t ask about her love life.

       I came back for an uncle’s funeral and saw her after, sitting in that same smelly bar. She saw me sitting there and ran to me, scattering butts and peanut shells. Locked her arms around me tight and choked me with her red-hot tongue. I fell in love all over again—then opened my eyes and caught her eyeing another woman across the room. Even as we kissed. A woman who eyed her back.

       I smiled and eased away, draining half my glass.

       “Same old Kelly,” I said. “Still no panties?”

       “Yep. Still no panties.” Not sure I believed her, even after all these years.

       “Suppose I check.”

       “Knock yourself out,” she said, loosening a button and turning toward the other woman.

I grinned, drained the rest of my drink and thanked the heavens I’d booked a round-trip flight.

 

       Dale Scherfling is newspaper veteran of 30 years, serving as a sportswriter, columnist, editor and photographer and a retired Navy journalist and photographer. His work has appeared in Third Act Magazine. Does it Have Pockets Magazine, Lost Blonde Literary, All Hands Magazine, Pacific Crossroads, Daily Californian, Naval Aviation Magazine, Propeller Magazine, and Buckeye Guard Magazine. He is the recipient of three U.S. Army Front Page Journalism Awards. He is also a college lecturer and photography and music instructor.

​

Zachary Wilhide is a writer and artist who lives in Virginia Beach, VA with his wife and cats.  He has previously had stories published in Spelk Fiction, Close To The Bone, Yellow Mama Magazine, and Shotgun Honey, among others.  His art currently resides at https://www.deviantart.com/whytedevil