Anne agreed to go on a date with her nephew's math tutor. A turtleish and pink man, the math tutor had been surprisingly into choking. He wanted to pass out, he wanted her to pass out, it could have been erotic under completely different circumstances. All Anne could focus on was the dust accumulated on a ceiling fan above his bed. After they decided they were done trying to get off, the math tutor turned to her in bed and said, “Say, I’m so proud of your nephew! We got him to graduate.” Anne didn’t reply. No words came to her mouth. For the first time in her life, laying naked in the math tutor’s bed, she felt overcome with the urge to have a gun to reach for. She felt odd and empty, horny in a new way, desiring a gun in the math tutor’s bed.
Anne left the math tutor’s home, and the desire for a gun left with her, in her back pocket. The math tutor lived in an apartment complex full of identical duplexes that she concluded had been built in the 80’s. The complex had a woodsy theme to it and was called Garden of Eden, even though it was simply an apartment complex in the middle of Arvada, Colorado. The Garden of Eden had dry patchy grass and decaying oak trees. Wind chimes of various sizes and materials scattered the balconies. As she left the math tutor’s Garden of Eden, the wind encouraged the chimes to play a motley symphony. On her way home, Anne promised herself that she would buy a gun. It was the most excited she had been in years.
The following morning, after a breakfast of granola, yogurt, and a variety of seeds, Anne drove to the only gun showroom that she knew of. Everyday on her commute to and from work, she passed by a gun showroom with electric green and yellow banners flapping in the wind, like a finger beckoning her. AMMO! GUNS GUNS GUNS! Lots of American flags. She was giddy.
Anne worked as a receptionist to an alternative dentist. His name was Dr.Winterbaum and outside of work, he practiced as a clown. Dr.Winterbaum was short and peculiar, but he paid on time and never flirted with Anne, so she stayed. She often watched him shovel a banana into his mouth in between clients. She had never seen anyone eat a banana the way Dr. Winterbaum did. She once tried to eat a banana the way he did, by shoving it in and using her back teeth to bite, but she promptly gagged and choked. She felt fused to Dr. Winterbaum through witnessing such consistently intimate and humiliating moments. It was as if she inherited a duty to protect him. At the gun showroom, Anne walked in and an employee looked at her as if she was lost.
“I’m here to buy a gun,” she said. She put on a soft southern accent and it helped boost her confidence.
She left the showroom with a new small handgun and ammo as advertised and felt high with an erotic power. She sat in her car and held the gun, stroking it as if it were a cat or a penis. This is the beginning of a new chapter, Anne thought to herself.
She began to take the gun everywhere, she wore it like a strap on.
In small ways each day, Anne made new decisions about her life. It happened effortlessly. Anne decided she needed a new wardrobe, in order to match the gun. She played dress up with herself in her bedroom and decided to give away any article of clothing that didn’t make sense with the gun. All underwear could be kept, all khaki had to be donated. She began to frequent the army-navy surplus store and gradually updated her entire look. She bought a thick turquoise cowgirl belt and an oversized jean jacket. She felt she looked like a woman who could shoot a gun but the summer passed and she had not once used her gun.
Anne brought the gun to her nephew's high school graduation and felt high with naughty terror. She wondered how many concealed weapons were at the graduation, en masse. Lots of Coloradan parents were packing, she felt sure of it.
At the graduation, Anne snuck off to pee, only to hear a woman crying in the stall next door. It was the cries of her sister, Pam. Pam was cozy and chatty and pear-shaped. She believed deeply in the nuclear family.
“Pam?”
“Anne?” Anne stayed on the toilet. She hadn’t been in the same bathroom as her sister since they were young. She didn’t know what to say besides, “Want to see something?” Anne took the gun out from her purse and put it on the floor between their two stalls. Pam let out a guttural gasp and then quickly got up and left the bathroom without flushing, washing her hands, or saying a word. First, Anne thought to herself, gross, and then she softly put the gun back into her purse and smiled.
On a particularly hot and boring August evening, Anne decided to text the math tutor a nude. I want to choke you the right way this time, she texted. She took her gun from her purse and placed it in her bedside table drawer. She tossed a scarf over a lamp. She sprayed rose water between her breasts. On top of the bedside table there was a glass of water and a candle. The math tutor responded almost too quickly and soon enough he was naked and in her bed. Straddling him, Anne took the gun from her bedside drawer and pointed it at him. He began to yell and she began to say calm down, while waving the gun in the air, and sort of giggling because she had never felt so powerful as in this moment. Trapped between her legs was her nephew’s math tutor, naked in her bedroom, pale and in fact afraid for his life. And here was Anne: naked, wielding a handgun! She began to laugh out loud and the laughter soon dissolved into tears and she crumpled onto the floor, cradling the gun as if it were a stillborn baby. The math tutor crawled over to her and she saw his asscrack and testicles in her bedroom mirror. She pointed the gun at him and screamed, “Leave me alone, get dressed, and go, or else I will kill you.” The math tutor wasted no time and fled her apartment.
Anne felt savage and raw and totally alive.
The next morning, she woke with the sunrise. She kissed her gun as if it was her lover and made a cup of coffee.