Would-Be Wife Found Wanting

    Sometimes, it’s best to start at the beginning. That’s what I decided while trying to figure out which of my prospective wife candidates I should meet first.  So, when the first submission I received was from a woman named Pattie, who described herself as forty-two, blonde, 5’8”, and 121 lbs, I agreed to meet her at a local watering hole of her choice, called “Betcho‘s”. 

    Although I wasn‘t even a moment late, I could see no one that I could suspect of being Pattie. I killed some time examining what must have been hundreds of collectible dinner plates affixed to the walls. I wondered at the wisdom of displaying these delicate possessions in such a rowdy place, but all seemed to be clean and intact. Someone was clearly invested in their upkeep. This was in stark contrast to the stripper stage in the corner, where a lonely girl danced unnoticed under dim and burned out lights. When I ran out of plates to look at, I just sat and waited.

    Half way into my third beer later, a woman, who not at all matched the description I’d been given, threw open the door and made her way to my table. This one was more like 5’4”, 140 lbs, and closer to fifty-five than forty-two. I hoped that this would somehow not turn out to be Pattie.

    “Hi, I’m Pattie.” she said, setting her giant purse on the table.

    I then proceeded learn all about Pattie for the next hour and a half. How she loved to talk about herself. Which was fine, because the more I learned, the less I was interested  in sharing anything about myself. I mean, I did try, but whenever I told a joke, she seemed confused. Other times, when I tried to share mundane thoughts or genuine interests, that’s when she would laugh. She didn’t even seem interested in talking about going to Mars. That’s pretty much where I gave up, and just bided my time until I could inoffensively suggest it might be time to pack it in.

    Just as I was working up the nerve, Pattie goes and spoils it by slamming down her empty glass and saying “Let’s go back to my place.”

    Those are kind of the magic words for me. I was ready to call it quits, and I certainly had no intentions of inviting Pattie over to my place. I don’t actually like to have any women over to my place. Maybe it's just me, but I see it like this.

    Once you get used to being alone, being alone isn’t so bad. That is, it doesn’t seem so bad, as long as you can’t remember what it’s like to not be alone. Once I have a girl over, she’s not coming back. I’m not going to ask her to come back because I know she’s probably hoping I don’t. Figuring out whether or not this is some form of unconscious self sabotage is best left to the scientists.

    So if I have a lady come to my place one night, the next night I’ll still be able to see her, exactly as she was, exactly where she was, and remember every touch and taste and smell. Everything in the room will be exactly as it was, only now there’s no one there. It’s like having a ghost in your bed. It goes away, in time, but for awhile, it’s rather distressing.

    That’s why it’s better to go to the girl’s place. Every part of it exists only as a memory. All the ghosts are far away. It’s almost like it never happened, which it probably shouldn’t have.

    So we get back to Pattie’s small apartment. There’s not much there besides a weirdly high and sloped couch, an entertainment center, and a massive stereo system. A small stand of glass and steel, containing wine bottles and glasses, rested against the wall separating kitchen from dining room. The bedroom was filled to the brim with boxes of who knows what.

    Pattie set her enormous purse on the ground and opened it, allowing a live cat to leap out. Then she tells me to get undressed and lay on the couch, and not to argue, because she is in charge. These instructions were pretty much in synch with the amount of effort I wanted to put into this encounter. So I did what I was told.

    While I'm laying there with my head on a pillow, she dances to old songs, which mainly consists of her swinging her hips around like she was inside an imaginary hula hoop. In between dances, she regales me with poetry she claimed to have written. I didn’t have any reason to disbelieve her, other than the fact it was really quite good. I’m not entirely sure, but I think I may have been moved to tears at one point. In any case, it was far superior to the chocolate wine she served. Wretched stuff. Avoid at all costs.

    Eventually, she finally gets out of her clothes, and I wondered, not for the first or last time, if I’d made a huge mistake. Beneath that loose fitting sweater was a whole lot of loose fitting flesh. She had a body like a half empty potato sack.

    So, she gets on top of me and almost immediately goes into some kind of trance. She starts muttering something that sounded like the black language of Mordor. Her arm snaps out, almost convulsively, and snatches a painting off the wall. I watch as she flings it across the room. All the while, she’s just chanting with her eyes closed. I guess I thought it was nice that she seemed to be enjoying herself. At least I didn't actually have to do anything.

    Seconds later, she has a heavy looking vase in her hand, raised high over head. She’s still muttering in tongues, only now she’s staring right at me with a glazed look in her eyes. I panicked. I thought she was going to smash me in the face with it.

    I bolted upright with enough speed and force to knock her aside against the back of the couch. Momentum had me in it’s clutches, however, and kept carrying me forward, right off the couch and face first into the wine stand. I wasn’t cut at all, but even now, a dark pink line across my forehead still shows where I connected with the glass shelf.

    Bottles were scattered across the floor. Luckily, nothing was broken, and I started gathering them up. Pattie told me to leave them, and get back on the couch. I had some reservations about that idea now, but I did it anyway.

    Things resumed much as before. Even the vase returned to it’s place in her hand, menacingly raised high in the air.
   
    “Hey, Pattie.” I said.

    The glazed look in her eyes cleared away.

    “Are you… Is everything all right up there?” I asked.

    “Everything’s great. Why wouldn’t be?” she said.

    I pointed out the vase in her hand. She looked at it like she was seeing it for the first time, and looked embarrassed. After a moment, she explained.

    “Sometimes I go to the place where the shadow people take control.”

    “The..? The 'shadow people'?”

    “They stand behind you so you can’t ever see them. They have mouths on their fingers and, when you let your guard down, they stick them in your ears and tell you what to do. If you’re not careful, you can’t tell when it’s happening. Even when I know, and I try to fight them, it’s still kind of a crapshoot who will win.”

    I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what to do. The only thing that seemed certain was that this was not a good time to do or say the wrong thing.

    “Well, how about we try this, instead?” I said, taking the vase from her hand and replacing it with my pillow.

    Things went fine after that. I wasn’t even terrified or anything.

    Later, as I was thinking up an explanation as to why I should leave immediately, Pattie saved me the effort by indicating she had to get an early start that morning. She gave me her phone number, though, and said she hoped we would get together again soon. I said we would and left.

    As soon as her apartment building was out of sight, I crumpled up the paper with her number on it, and tossed it under a parked car. As you know, with only one exception that I had to pay for, I have never slept with any woman more than once. If I am ever going to break that streak, it is not going to begin like this.

    Sorry, Pattie. My quest must go on.