God Hates Us All

The seat flopped backward with a bang, its momentum combining with the physics generated by our energetic coupling to start the car rolling backward down a gentle slope. I hadn’t thought to secure the emergency brake.

Daphne’s eyes widened with emotion. Fear?

Arousal? Both? I was experiencing mostly panic as my body slid backward with the car, making it impossible to reach the brake pedal with my foot.

Grabbing the passenger seat, I pulled myself through an incline situp toward the hand brake, wrapped my fingers around the handle, and jerked hard. We slid another few anxious feet down the icy grass before crashing into a metal post, one of the drive-in’s speakers.

Daphne bowed her head and laughed and quickly rediscovered her earlier rhythm. We finished quickly and exited the car to inspect the damage to the bumper, which proved minor. She popped another pill and we were back on the road.

Two hours later, we checked into the Royal Camelot Inn, sold by the availability of the honeymoon suite and the “I came-a-lot at the Camelot” T-shirts on sale in the lobby. We cracked open the complimentary bottle of pink champagne, broke in the Jacuzzi tub, and managed one more ferocious screw in the heart-shaped bed before I collapsed into a dreamless sleep. I awoke eight hours later to find Daphne cleaning the tub, having commandeered a spray disinfectant during her sleepless exploration of the hotel and its surrounding area. She’d already planned our day: a visit to a winery just across the Canadian border.

The region was too cold for traditional winemaking, our tour guide explained — the grapes froze on the vine before they were ready to be harvested. Driven by ingenuity and the desire for drink, the locals had developed a timeand laborintensive process that squeezed just a few drops out of each icy fruit, the result a thick and sweet concoction called “Ice-wine.”

Which we never got to try. While we’d taken the tour as a way to exploit Canada’s more kid-friendly drinking age — Daphne was a wise old twenty-two, but I still had a year and a half to go before my twenty-first birthday — Daphne pulled me into a restroom as our group moved into the tasting room.

Our sexual odyssey, however, was taking its toll, specifically on my manhood: the chafing made Daphne’s soft and wet feel like an electric power sander. I told her so when, on our return to the parking lot, she unzipped my pants, seemingly intent on giving me head.

“Whatever,” she said, jerking the zipper closed.

She began to walk toward the area’s main eventthe roaring Falls — then picked up her speed to a light jog. Soon it was a full-on sprint.

Maybe she wasn’t going to hurl herself over the side, I thought as I sprinted after her, ignoring all kinds of pain as my jeans gave my sore groin a good working over. But she sure looked hellbent on trying. As she neared the edge, I literally leapt for her ankles and pulled her to the ground.

“What the fuck, Daphne?”

My chivalry was rewarded with a flurry of punches to the face and chest. I shielded my face and bucked her off me. I waved at a few gawkers who were pointing in our direction. “We’re all right,” I yelled. “She’s got a medical condition.”

We didn’t speak the entire drive back to the hotel. As I climbed out of the car, she grabbed the keys and sped away. I returned to the room, where I lay in the bed watching the same highlights on ESPN for almost four hours before she returned.

“I wasn’t sure you were coming back,” I said.

“Neither was I,” she replied. “But I was afraid you’d keep the pills.” She retrieved the bottle from the bathroom and helped herself to another.

“You want to fuck yourself go right ahead,” I said.

“You already told me that when you rejected me in the parking lot.”

I don’t remember what else was said that night.

The pattern, by now, was familiar: accusations and tears, harsh words, and, eventually, reconciliation.

An attempt at makeup sex, cut short by the sorry state of my inflamed penis. We fell into a wordless cease-fire and, finally, a restless sleep.

Or at least I did. When I jerked awake, she was staring at me, bouncing slightly, seemingly full of life. Only her zombie eyes betrayed the fact that she was on her second straight day without sleep.

“Number Three,” she stated.

Our “Worst Fight Ever” took place just two weeks into our relationship, on our way back from a Meat Loaf concert. Then, a week later at an around-theworld party in my dorm, we fought a sangria-fueled reenactment of the Spanish Civil War. During a recent makeup session we’d listed our Top 5 Fights on the chalkboard in her kitchen, hoping the sight of so much water under the bridge would inspire future harmony. So far, the list had only succeeded in presenting more opportunities for argument, as new battles jockeyed for position with the old.

“Seriously?” I asked, pointing to the bruises on my arm. “Number Two, missie. Might give Number One a run for its money, if there’s any scarring.”

“Pussy,” she said, punching me in the arm.