Chapter Four: The Hamwakening
After pleasure, there is always pain...
Last Time in Lake Nipples…
Their breathing soon slowed and quieted, leaving them lying there in near silence, save for the tranquilizing hum of refrigerator motors. Esmerelda closed her eyes and let out a contented sigh, pressing her face into Randall’s lacrosse tattoo as he wrapped his arms around her. He tenderly kissed the top of her head, held her tightly, and whispered a single word into her ear.
“Murder.”
And now… back to our story!
Esmerelda’s heart began pounding so hard, it jiggled her pleasure hams.
“What did you just say?”
“Mrs. Berger, our elementary school principal,” whispered Randall, his breath rich with the scent of bacon. “It happened so long ago, but I can still feel her fingers digging into my arm, yanking me out of the lunch room, dragging me up to her office.”
“Oh!” said Esmerelda with a sigh of relief.
“Did you think I said ‘murder’? Because I definitely didn’t say murder.”
“No, of course, Mrs. Berger! I remember her.”
“She wouldn’t even look at me. Didn’t say a word the whole time I was in her office. I sat there for nearly an hour before father sent one of the maids to grab me, and after that…
Randall’s voice trailed off — a curtain of confusion drawing over his stubbled face, the light behind blue-green eyes dimming into darkness.
… after that, I can’t remember anything. Everything goes black.”
This motherfucker.
Esmerelda jumped off the counter and began wiping German potato salad off her naked flesh, shaking flakes of ham from her unspooled, dirty blonde bun. She climbed into the three-compartment sink and began hosing herself down, degreasing her curves with fingers dipped in electric pink soap.
She didn’t turn around when he called her name once, twice, twenty times. She didn’t turn around when he said he was sorry — sorry for all of it, not just the ham. She didn’t turn around when he begged her to look at him. His voice faded into static.
Esmerelda kept her eyes locked on the floor while she picked her things from the rubble of their sexual hamstravaganza, quickly throwing her mustard-splotched poncho over her squeaky clean knockers before slipping back into her shapeless dress and orthopedic loafers. The support hose had not survived the carnage; their shredded nylon threads no match for Esmerelda’s sexuality fully unbound. She’d leave the tatters for him as a souvenir.
Randall couldn’t bear the thought of watching her leave, but couldn’t stop himself from running his eyes across every inch of her soft, pasty skin that glowed like a ghost. Esmerelda walked out the door without a sound. Randall sat in silence, picking bits of muenster cheese out of his hair. Jamie Boyle turned off his phone, slipped it back into his pocket, and disappeared into the shadows of the frozen food aisle.
Esmerelda regretted cleaning the potato salad off her phone almost immediately. She had no desire to read the 87 hysterical texts Lily’s mother had sent her, nor would she be listening to a single one of her shrieking voicemails. She didn’t want to think about what she was going to say when she got back. All she wanted to do was drive.
She couldn’t remember what roads she took back to the Taschman house; she didn’t think to pick up food or come up with excuses for where she’d been. Esmerelda Poppingcorn was still on that butcher block counter, frozen in their sexual ham paste, staring at a man who’d scrubbed her from his memory less than an hour after destroying everything good about her. She had fucked her lifetime of pain straight through his peepee, and with a whisper, he had thrust it all back into her hollowed-out heart.
And yet, for the very first time, Esmerelda couldn’t get enough of the pain. Her rage was electric — her body sparking and glowing and ready to combust. Whatever had been left of the little ham-wrapped girl inside of her died that night, and something new was growing in her place. Something hungry. Something alive.
The flashing red lights of the police cars in the Taschman’s driveway were not enough to shock Esmerelda back into the present. She floated into the house as if her knockers were full of helium; all the hurt she kept clenched in her body at long last released by Randall’s meaty handle. She might have floated forever had it not been for Lily’s bitch mother and her big fat fucking mouth.
“ESMERELDA POPPINGCORN WHERE THE FUCK WERE YOU!” shrieked Ruby Taschman like a castrated hyena. “YOU’VE BEEN MISSING FOR THREE HOURS!”
She snapped out of her trance, and straight into chaos.
“Why are the cops here?”
“WE ARE STARVING.”
“And we were terrified!” boomed a voice from the kitchen. Esmerelda turned to see Lily’s father Dick running towards her with his arms outstretched, and was unable to speak before he gripped her in a bear hug.
“When you wouldn’t answer us we called Burningham’s, and the woman who picked up the phone said she was locked in the office with the rest of the staff because they heard people screaming and we thought you were being murdered to death.”
“We just heard from the SWAT team at Burningham’s,” said one of the police officers. “They found nothing unusual. We’re all clear.”
Esmerelda had to think of some excuses, and fast.
“There was… an accident.”
“An accident?” said Richard.
“Yes, an accident. I drove into the lake. All the food drowned.”
“OH NO!” Ruby screamed. “Is the car okay?!”
“Yes.”
“OH THANK GOD!” heaved Dick with a sigh of relief, while Ruby and Sylvia began squawking like famished cockatoos. Esmerelda plunged her hands to the bottom of her purse, fished out some mints and a packet of soy sauce, and scattered them across the floor in one fell swoop. It was enough to distract those dirty, filthy, starving bitches so that Esmerelda could escape with no further explanations given.
She ran upstairs to Lily’s empty bedroom, then to the linen closet where she’d been hiding before Esmerelda was unexpectedly thrust into a ham-fueled sexcapade. She found her best friend hiding beneath a laundry basket, curled up like a pussycat, watching what sounded like MILF porn on her phone.
“Oh hey,” said Lily as if half asleep. “Did you get my sandwich?”
“What are you still doing in here?” said Esmerelda. “I’ve been gone for three hours.”
“What?”
“Yeah, something happened. Something… I don’t know. I don’t even know how to say it. I…”
While she grasped for words, she noticed Lily’s eyes were puffy, and that she was lying in a nest of crumpled up tissues.
“Lil… are you okay?”
“I can’t do it,” Lily painfully whispered, straining to keep the words to herself, but unable to stop the torrent of doubt that was bursting forth. Tears streamed from her eyes as she gulped for air. Lily’s body began to vibrate hard and fast like a beeper, and its message was 1-4-3, 9-1-1.
“I can’t do it. I can’t marry Tom. I don’t love him.”
“Of course you love him,” said Esmerelda as she laid on the floor next to her and held her close.
“No, I don’t” said Lily, her breath slowing down as she snuggled her face between her best friend’s dynamite cans.
“I don’t love Tom. I’m in love with someone else.”
also the tableau of throwing mints and shit on the ground for the bitches to scavenge is perfect
another great segment! and were you squealing with delight when you wrote "hamstravaganza?" cuz i squealed upon reading it. and agree about the famished cockatoos - you have a talent for imagery and hilarity!