My Memoir Outline:7-8

7

I work at Pizza Hut as assistant manager. It's 3:45 pm. I opened the store today and get off at 4. We need batteries for our scales. 

I walk around the corner and buy batteries at Radioshack. 

What are you doing later? the guy at Radioshack asks me. There’s a $300 karaoke contest at Acapulco restaurant in San Marcos and I’m thinking about going, I say. I’ll go with you, he says. He gives me his number. Okay, I’ll text you later, I say.

I get off work and get home and I change out of my work uniform. I put on the Batman tank top that I’ve had for years, and some jeans Ronnie got me at an online store in New York, years ago. I do my hair and make-up. I take off in my car for Acapulco.

I'm too early. The contest hasn’t started yet. I leave and go to the San Marcos Brewery across the parking lot for one of their Honey Ales.

I go back to Acapulco. The DJ is setting up. I sit at the bar and order a Margarita, double Patron Añejo. There’s a table of four Mexican guys behind me. One of them comes and sits next to me. He buys me another Margarita double. His name is Angel. I tell him about Ronnie and Lyle. He tells me about his ex and his kid. We show each other pictures of our kids on our phones. 

I sing Adele’s “Someone Like You”. My phone is dying. I tell Angel I gotta go out to my car to charge my phone. My plan is to leave. He follows me.

I plug my phone into the car charger and we go back into the restaurant. Angel buys me another drink. I drink it and say I have to go to the bathroom. I go to the bathroom and stay in there for a long time. I mess with my hair. I do more make-up. I go out and Angel’s still standing there waiting for me. 

Karaoke is over. The DJ is playing salsa music. Angel buys me another drink. I drink it. Let’s dance, he says. Okay, I say. We salsa for an hour until I can no longer stand.

I need to go charge my phone in my car now, he says. Come with me, he says. He pulls me by the hand and I go with him. 

We get in his car. He starts kissing me. I want to make love to you, he says.

We have sex. 

I tell him I have a boyfriend. He frowns and looks down. How can you have a boyfriend? he asks. Why didn’t you tell me that before? he asks. I don’t know, I say. It's not serious, I say. I told him I loved him and he didn't want me to use those words, I say. It really hurt, I say. You're gonna break up with him then right? Angel asks. Yeah, I say. Can I call you tomorrow? he asks. Sure, I say. I give him my number.

I’m drunk. I drive through In-n-Out Burger and get a #2 and eat it in the parking lot before the long drive on two freeways back home. I scream and cry and look at pictures of Lyle on my phone while I eat.

8

The next day, Angel calls and I don't answer. I text the saxophone player from SDSU who was in the jazz band with me three years ago in 2008. His name is Rico. He wanted me back then, but I was with Ronnie, and had been for seven years. Back then he kissed me after a jazz concert but I stopped him.

Hey, let's meet up tonight, he says. I can't wait, I say.

I don't work today. I go out and buy a little black dress and heels and new lingerie. I get home, shower, blow-dry my hair, and put make-up on. I put on the lingerie, the black dress and the heels, and I grab some jeans, Converse, and a button-up plaid shirt to change into for my ten-year high school reunion afterwards in Bonsall. It's tonight.

I get to Rico's parents' winery in Rancho Bernardo. I text him from the parking lot. He pulls up in his white BMW and rolls the window down and tells me to get in. I get in. He starts driving. 

I try to unbutton his pants. What the fuck are you doing? he asks. Did I say you could fucking touch me? he asks. I laugh and I stop.

He pulls over on a dimly-lit neighborhood street and pulls his pants down around his ankles. He shoves my head down onto him violently. Put your fist up my ass, he says, as he's pulling my head up and down by my hair. I can't breathe. I put my fingertips in first and he tells me to push them in harder. I throw up on him. Eat your vomit and keep eating my cock til I cum, bitch, he says. Put your fucking fist in my asshole, all the way, you cunt, he says. Oooh, yeah, fucking harder, he says. Now put your fucking fist up your ass, he says. I start with a couple fingers and he takes my hand and pushes it all the way in. He ejaculates into my throat and gag and I throw up again. He says, swallow all my fucking cum, bitch. Fucking swallow it, he says. Mmmm, you like that, huh, you like that you fucking cunt, he says. I gag a few times, then I throw up some more, then I swallow what's left.

He drives me back to my car. I get out. He drives away. I get into my car.

I clean myself up and I scream and cry. I take off my black dress and heels on the freeway as I drive and cry. I get into my plaid shirt and jeans and Converse shoes.

I park my car at the country club. Evan is calling. He doesn't know about Angel or Rico. I don't answer. I don't want to be with you any more, I text. Come on baby, don't end it so fast, he texts. Where are you? he texts. My ten-year high school reunion, I text. Let me come meet you, he texts. No, I text. I turn my phone off. I fix my make-up and hair. 

I go into the country club and sit down at the bar. I order a Jack Daniels Single Barrel and Coke, double.

I mingle with people I recognize. Jorge Montoya is talking to me, along with his friend Sakito Uchiyama. 

I drink two more Jack and Coke doubles while mingling. We all take some group photos.

Everybody is leaving the country club and going to a bar called Ringers a couple miles away. I go too. I'm drunk.

I sit at a raised, small table with Jorge and Sakito. They buy me a blue-ish green drink. I don't know what it is. I drink it.

There’s a band. Me and Lisa Lopez start dancing together up front.

I sit down at the table with Jorge and Sakito. They buy me another drink. Then I start dancing with Lisa again. The guitarist motions for me to get up on the stage. I get up on stage and the guitarist gives me his pick. I strum his guitar while he holds his guitar.

Jorge and Sakito buy me another drink. Sakito and I go outside to talk. It's cold. We put our arms around each other and we talk about our college majors, him math, me music. I hate how there's so little funding for music, I say. Music is math, I say. You could use music to teach math, I say. I work for the government, he says. I'll pay you $1500 to come up with a way to use music to teach math, he says. I have a software guy, he says. Cool, I say. We can have all kinds of exercises on it that use math and music together, I say. We’re going to Cambodia to an orphanage in a month, he says. We can implement the program and teach the kids how to build musical instruments using math, I say. Sakito says great, let's do it. Okay, use the $1500 to buy my ticket, I say. Sounds good, he says.

We go back inside. The band is done. They’re starting to leave. The guitarist puts his arms around me and walks me to their van with them and helps me inside. 

We smoke weed. 

The drummer in the front seat unzips his pants and the two guys in the back seat take my pants off. I go down on the drummer in the driver’s seat while the guitarist and someone I don’t recognize fingers me from the back seat. I make out with the singer in the passenger seat and then go down on the drummer some more. She gives really good head, you guys, he says. 

They let me out of the van and Jorge is waiting for me back at the entrance to the bar. He asks if he can follow me home. I say yes. 

Jorge follows me home and comes inside. We have sex in my bedroom in what used to be my grandma’s bed. Can I do you in the ass, he says. Sure, I say. He does. He goes home. I pass out.

How This Whole Thing Started: The Husband, the Pizza Delivery Boyfriend, the Acapulco Parking Lot (recap), and The Sexophone Player

Three weeks prior to the night before my ten-year high school reunion when I went to an Acapulco for a 300-dollar karaoke contest and cheated on my boyfriend (for whom I'd left my husband) by having sex in the parking lot with a guy I didn't even know, I had punched my husband square in the jaw during a melee struggle over a box of bills that I was trying to get from the apartment to file for divorce.

The only explanation I can give for a five-foot, hundred-and-ten-pound woman giving a six-foot, two-hundred-and-ninety-five-pound man a concussion is that he's a Muay Thai/Boxing/MMA aficionado...and a very good teacher. Of course, I didn't know that I had given him a concussion, because I left in a flash of victory, box in hand.

The next day, when I went over to pick up our son to spend time with him, before I could unbuckle my seatbelt, my dear mother-in-law flew towards me down the steps with papers in hand, outstretched towards my now-cracked window. She dropped them inside and flew away again, without a word. I read them, and I wept. And I wept, and I wept, and I screamed at the top of my lungs until I was completely spent, and I sped to the courthouse to see if there was any way I could get that restraining order lifted, but no - there was not. I would have to wait until after Christmas for the court date. And the only way I knew to medicate that indescribable, excruciating pain of having a mother's not-even-weaned child taken away from her was with: karaoke.

I started off with a beer at the brewery across the parking lot, and I was tipsy. I had also tipped and tumbled over that cliff of insanity upon which I had been teetering. I didn't invite my new boyfriend to go with me and because I went to the bar alone, of course, a man came up to me, sat down, offered to buy me a drink, I accepted, he bought me more, and more, I tore up that Adele in not a good way - I was completely drunk - and I realized...I don't even like this guy. What the hell am I even doing here?

I tried to get rid of him: I hid in the bathroom, but he waited. I went to my car to "charge my phone," but he followed me. I told him about my husband and my son, and he told me about his wife and his son. We exchanged pictures and stories of pain. He invited me to Salsa and I tried to wear him out...but he wore me out. I wasn't accustomed to heels.

Finally...he asked if we could go to his car to charge his phone. We started kissing, he wanted to go further, and I conceded, because, well, nothing else had worked to get rid of him and I figured this must be the only way. I acted like it was good, like any not-self-respecting bar slut would.

Aww, but he was sad when I told him afterward that - oops, actually - I had a boyfriend, and, I really didn't like the fact that I'd just cheated on him, so, "Sorry, Angel...I can't see you again. Take care. Bye."


Rewind:

My husband was drowning in alcoholism, verbally, emotionally, physically terrifying. He punched holes in walls, kicked doors down while our son and I hid, took my phone so I couldn't dial 9-1-1, blocked the front door. There was no escape, nowhere to go, except to work, where I went, leaving our son with his award-winning father.

There was a new delivery driver at Pizza Hut where I was assistant manager. He was kind, funny, had beautiful eyes, tall, was single, my age, an artist, had been to three universities, like me. He had been living with a Chinese lady while going to school #3, but when her house was foreclosed, he dropped out, moved home, and was living with his mom in his stepdad's mansion. They had just moved into our little town from the OC.

We sometimes worked alone together, and on those days, Evan and I shared the most intimate colloquy. I cried about my marriage, and he said, "You should leave your husband"...and in my head, I inserted the words..."for me."

I finally did leave him, five months after I met Evan, after Ronnie had made out with some women at a bar and threatened me with divorce for the sixth time. It was a violent fight. I tried to get a hold of our son to protect him and take him with me, but Ronnie grabbed him and wouldn't let him go. I hit Ronnie and tried to get our son away from him, but he was too strong. And then I realized that I'd become my mother...and I left, crying.

I texted Evan while driving, nervously, beside myself: "I did it. I left. I don't know what to do now...".

He responded, after a moment, "Come over." It's exactly what I hoped he would say.

I said, "I can't...I'm scared." It was the truth. Could I? Should I?

And he texted me, "Then let's get to the scary part."

He sent his address, I drove over, we did get to "the scary part," over, and over, and over, starting in his driveway before making our way inside, for three hours - then, we took a break to eat the exquisite salmon dinner he prepared, with buttered collard greens and paprika mashed potatoes, over wine - and then we did four more hours of the "scary part" all over his parents' house.

So this is what sex is supposed to feel like, I thought. This is what love is supposed to feel like.

I told him I loved him after only two weeks. I really felt it. But Evan didn't react he way I'd hoped, this time.

"Oh no...don't use those words," he said.

I couldn't believe it. I was shocked as he was. "Oh...I'm sorry," I said, sheepishly.

I was heartbroken. How did this happen? This is who I left my husband to be with? I tried breaking up with him, but he didn't want that, either, of course. But I couldn't be with him any more. It hurt too much. Pain on top of pain.

So, since I'd had sex with Evan for four hours a day for over a month, I'd had sex with someone totally random in the parking lot at Acapulco, I decided I'd go have sex with someone I really wanted to have sex with. I had just wanted this hot saxophone player I'd had a huge crush on in college, for years. And I thought, ah! This will certainly assist with the getting-rid-of-the-guy-who-helped-break-apart-my-marriage-but-who-doesn't-actually-love-me dealio, and, since I was having so much sex anyway...hey...what's one more?

I specifically did not invite Evan to my ten-year high school reunion the next day so that, before the event, I could stop off over at Rico's Vineyard. The way I saw it, we had some unfinished business.

Rico and I were in jazz together at SDSU in 2008. I sang Corcovado, and he got the sax solo. He was the sexiest man I'd ever seen. Italian, tall, dark, handsome, eyes that watched me intently from the moment we first saw each other. He'd look at me while playing his sax with his sensuous lips and hands, as if to say, I want you, I want you to know that I want you, and one of these days, I'm gonna take you, woman. I was tantalized. Powerless.

He invited me over to his house to practice before our performance at his parents' winery in Rancho Cucamonga. We didn't actually practice, although I actually thought we would. He made me a margarita and we went to his room, where he started changing into his performance attire, right in front of me. He asked me if I had a boyfriend while he was unbuttoning his shirt, slowly. I said, "Oh...well...yes". He was bummed. So was I.

But there was still an air between us, as if at any moment one of us might just grab the other in a sudden act of passion. I downed my margarita hoping it'd be sooner than later. No such luck. When he was done getting his clothes on, he offered to give me a ride over to the country club up the road where the performance was to be, having me leave my car at his house. Not too implicit.

Later, after the gig, he took a detour on the way back to my car. He wanted to take me on a golf cart around the winery. So off we went, at dusk. It was beautiful, like him. Between the vines, he stopped the cart, leaned over, and kissed me on the neck. I let his lips linger - they were warm, soft, and wet. My breath became heavy. My body was thrilled.

But I stopped him. I managed to utter, barely above a whisper, "I'm sorry...I can't." I had wanted to...so badly. But I still had a somewhat-functioning moral compass, at this time, and I didn't want to cheat on my boyfriend of six years with whom I lived (even though I hated him with an equal passion). So Rico dropped me back off at my car, and I drove home.

When I got home, Ronnie was drunk with his uncle on the couch, as usual. I was disgusted with both of them, as usual. Ronnie and I got into a huge fight and I ended up spending the night in my car in the driveway. I texted and tried to call Rico for hours, but, no response. I was pissed at myself for losing my chance. I cried myself to sleep, and I dreamt of Rico.

After that, Rico and I started sexting each other and chatting online. He told me one day in a chat that he wanted to - get this - fuck me in the ass. I wouldn't even let my boyfriend do that. And I still didn't want to cheat on Ronnie. And didn't know if I wanted to leave him, either, just so I could go indulge in some risqué activity? Would I leave Ronnie, give up my place to live, to fulfill a sexual fantasy? I emailed my best friend to ask her what she thought.

"Oh my God, don't do it! Don't let him fuck you in the ass! Ewwwwww! Gross!" she emailed me back her shocked response.

The next morning, Ronnie asked to use my laptop while I was in the shower since his had a virus, and I said, "Sure, honey!" I'd completely forgotten that the last thing I'd done was read my email. Eva's response was still open on the screen.

I was still showering when Ronnie burst in and demanded to know what it was all about and who the guy was and what I was doing and what I was planning on doing - and really, what the fuck? - and it caused the fight to end all fights (for now), culminating in Ronnie throwing some of my clothes into a suitcase and me finishing the job and storming out and taking the bus and train to Eva's house to live.

Ronnie got a hold of Rico's phone number. In my distress, I had left my phone behind. Before that, after Ronnie badgering me for hours, I had told him who the other guy was. So Ronnie called Rico and warned him to stay away from me (and Ronnie told me later that Rico cried like a little girl and blamed me for everything). I didn't hear from Rico again, and a couple of months later, I went back to Ronnie after we talked things out. He asked me to marry him. We would stop drinking, get married, and have a baby - that would fix everything.

In November 2011, three years later, I left Ronnie for good, for the pizza delivery boy. Now, I needed to leave Evan, too. As aforementioned I had already demoralized myself with someone totally random, so, I figured I might as well go ahead and do some of those nasty little things with Rico. He was the hottest guy on the planet, after all, to me - even though he was an asshole.

I got his number again from facebook and I texted him. I couldn't wait. We "sexted" about all the things we were gonna do to each other. He was okay with it now that Ronnie was out of the picture. He even agreed to meet with me that very night, before my high school reunion. So I went out and bought a slutty black dress and some slutty black heels and some slutty black thigh-high panty hose, a new bra, a new G-string - I felt completely ridiculous. I could hardly walk; the heels were so high, my feet kept tipping over. The dress was so short I had to keep pulling it down to cover the tops of the thigh-highs, and when I did, it would reveal my bra so I had to re-adjust the dress  some more, because come on, I didn't know who I was gonna see out there. I'm a T-shirt and jeans kinda girl - shy, book-nerd, tomboy-ish, don't even wear dresses - and if any one I knew had seen me, they really would have thought, WTF?

But once I practiced walking like a model in my room for awhile, I was good to go. I totally "tee-hee"d as I tiptoed out to my car after making sure that my aunt and uncle weren't around to catch me.

Tee hee...

I pulled up to the winery and waited for Rico to come pick me up at my car as planned, leaning against the bumper, half-sitting, half-standing, shifting around, trying to look calm, cool, sexy. Finally, he screeched up alongside me in his white BMW. It reminded me of the time I was his passenger the night of that gig, when we screeched past a homeless guy and he spit out the window, saying, " 'Get the fuck outta here, homeless trash!' Fuckin' bum."

Rico shouted at me to "Get in!" I did, walking carefully. He sped off for a short distance before pulling over on the side of the road in the darkness. I thought we'd be going to his house, but apparently not. I wasn't really sure what to make of all this. But I wanted to be sexy, so, I started to try and unbutton his pants from where I was sitting. But he snapped at me: "Did I fucking tell you to fucking touch me? Don't you fucking touch me until I tell you to touch me, bitch." I laughed and said, "Okay," like it was no big deal. I didn't let him know how fucking scared I was.

I wrestle with how much detail to go into here, so I'll just share the facts:

Rico made me shove my fist up his ass while he made me shove my fist up mine while he shoved his fingers inside of me and shoved my head so far down on his cock for so long that it hurt like fucking hell, and I threw up, and he made me swallow my own fucking vomit before he let loose his fucking load into my throat and made me swallow that, fucking, too.

When it was over he all but shoved me out of his car back at my car before pealing away. He might as well have spit on me, too. Hell, he might have; I don't remember. I was in a bit of shock.

I got into my car and I just sat there for a moment. My throat and my heart hurt. Before I knew it, I found myself holding my throbbing throat as I sobbed, hard. I screamed and I cried and I drove on the freeway towards the racetrack country club where the reunion was, but I pulled myself together so that I could change, while driving, into my jeans and into my plaid button-up shirt and into my converse shoes (and into me again). I re-did my smudged make-up and brushed my wet, tangled hair. I sprayed myself with perfume, because I stank like cum.

When I got to the reunion, I answered a call from Evan, and told him no, he couldn't come. I went in, said hi to a few people I hardly knew (Eva was my only real friend in high school, and she wasn't there), made my way to the bar, sat down, ordered a single-barrel jack-and-coke double, and downed it. Then I ordered another. And then another. And then...I was...sort of...okay.

If you thought it was bad with my husband, and you thought it was bad with #1: The Pizza Delivery Boyfriend, and you thought it was bad with #2: The Acapulco Parking Lot, and you thought it was bad with #3: The Sexophone Player...*laugh*. That was just the beginning. I still had numbers 4 through 8 to go...

...that very night.