“He's like a total gentleman.” Erica blushed slightly as she gushed about her new husband. “He takes out the trash, I never have to fill the dishwasher, he takes real time with the kids.” Julia, Erica's sister, looked sceptical.
“It doesn't exactly fit with what I've read about Sam Redwood.” What happened to all the girls?”
“Oh, he's left all that behind him. He's really just into work now.”
“Well I guess the great thing about misogynists is that they don't really understand equality, so you can easily just role play your way through almost any situation.” Julia, the feminist in the family, smirked slightly as she adjusted her turtle-neck sweater in the mirror.
“Oh no, Sam loves women.”
“Yeah, I heard on his last podcast.” Julia had suffered listening to Sam giving his delta-male opinions on fascinating subjects such as the quality of breasts on starlets way out of his reach in an effort to please the interviewer, who had sounded unphased by his efforts. Julia was of the opinion that Erica was being had, but she stuck to dropping heavy hints rather than upset her more feminine sister.
Erica stared at her sister, unblinking. “I only know what he's like with me.” She was aware that she was wailing slightly. “He even slowed down for me this morning, on our run.”
“Yeah? That was big of him.” Julia, who actually got on slightly better with Sam than Erica, gave her sister a withering look. “Just make sure that pre-nup is breakable.”
“Oh no, we are so happy, we will be married forever.” Erica twiddled the beads dangling from her throat. “He is like so cool. I got a big parcel of stuff to make more macrame with this week. He really cares about my problems, ya know? He even switches his smartphone off sometimes.”
“Yeah great.” Julia was now very bored with this conversation. “Let's go, we are going to be late for yoga.”
Sam, meanwhile, was attending to his business marketing his forthcoming event in Canada on the computer. He had so far latched onto a performance artist from Toronto. He had become mesmerised by her thumbnail photograph on Facebook, which showed her in a rather tight PVC corset.
“Goofy, you seem a little goofy.” he tried “Can you answer your direct messages?” The girl had failed to realise she was talking to Sam, as she was only eighteen. “Wanna chat?” She continued to ignore him, rather frustratingly. Sam was keen to present his accessibility in this particular case.
Irritated, he turned to an older woman, who seemed a little more savvy. Although she knew it was him, she wanted to talk about herbs, which seemed rather tiresome. Sam sighed and looked at the rest of the fans commenting on his page. None of them seemed relevant to this particular campaign. Tired of this game, he turned to the bug on his window sill. He suppressed the urge to crush it, instead waving it out of the window. Nobody was watching, but he was not sufficiently irritated to express his American masculinity in traditionally violent fashion. He decided to fill the dishwasher. Maybe Erica might want to make some babies later if she didn't have too much to do. He might even ask her what she wanted to make for dinner later, if he remembered!
Sam dimly remembered doing all this for himself, but it wasn't his job now, he reasoned. Getting married was the most sensible decision he had made. It freed up so much time for more hook-ups, and more kids were always welcome. Now that he had reversed his vasectomy, he was the proud father of 27. He guessed he needed a bigger house. He settled down to some online porn, and worked on his lymphatic drainage.
Erica, pleasantly stretched from the yoga, was looking forward to trying some macrame. She could make a plant pot holder, maybe a chair eventually. She noted the neatly trimmed lawn as she walked up the path, and entered the house, feeling pleased as she looked at the cleared kitchen. Sam was so considerate!
“What do you think we should have for dinner, darling?” Sam cocked his head to one side, smiling fondly at his lovely wife.
“I was thinking of some quinoa?” Erica moved towards the fridge.
“That would be lovely, darling.” Sam breathed a sigh of contentment as the little woman prepared his dinner. He went back to the computer to see if he could find any more Canadians to attend his event. He was in luck, a hot little girl from Montreal was on his page. He quickly chose an account to give her some encouragement. “I'm heading out after dinner, honey.”
“OK.” Erica couldn't really say no, he had been working so hard all day. He really was the best husband ever.
They ate together, gazing across the table. Sam was aware of being bored out of his mind, but it was tolerable for the sake of domestic bliss. He would be seeing his business manager, a lady of only 40, that he had known for twenty years after dinner. Erica could only think of what a perfect life they had.
“Is that a new sweater?” Sam smiled. “It's really lovely. You know you look great in green. I love you.”
“Ooooh I love you too. Yes, I got it at the market. I'm going to do some macrame tonight.”
“That's marvellous, darling. I gotta go. I shouldn't be too late.” Sam got up from the table with some relief at the thought of getting out. He bent down to kiss Erica and headed for the door.
Erica cleared the table, washed the floor, cleaned down the fridge and the surfaces, saw to their daughter and settled down to learn some macrame, blissfully unaware of Sam's appointment.
Some hours later, Sam pulled his trousers back on and thanked Kiki for her time. “Do you think it would be OK if we tried something a little different next week? A little, ya know, darker?”
Kiki nodded silently. She had known for years that conversation with Sam was somewhat limited, and therefore pointless. She was unsure how his marriage was working, but she was relieved that he had found someone that hadn't become bored with him. That had always been a worry, since Sam only seemed to have one distant, superficial speed. That wasn't to say it was a bad thing. Kiki had had a taste for promiscuous men for years, and was aware that platitudes were a good weapon if you didn't really want to engage beyond the physical. It had not worked well for Sam's relationships however, so Kiki and the rest of the stable had breathed a sigh of relief that Erica seemed to be just as skilled at empty conversation as he was. She watched as Sam crushed a beetle on her floor and clenched his fist. Something different at last. Sam often seemed like a coiled spring, perhaps something a little darker indicated some actual passion.
As Sam left the apartment building to return home, a small child tried to ask him for the time.
“No.” Sam swept past the child and moved away. He checked his smartphone. The pesky Dr Cedar was trying to message him again. Some time-wasting bullshit, nothing to do with money. What a waste of time! She seemed to be saying she had several years of work she wanted to discuss. What use was that to him? It wouldn't sell any health food. He sneered as he blocked her. Probably just wanted to talk shit, like the rest of them.
He checked his fan page for any potential Canadian hotties, and decided it was time to go home.
“How has your day been, darling?” Sam had allocated fifteen minutes to listen to his wife, as he had read somewhere that this was a big part of the male-female divide and an important part of being the best husband ever.
“You're such a good listener, Sam.” Erica blinked.
“Wanna go to bed, baby?”
Dr Kira Cedar had been trying to talk to Sam for weeks. She had been working on a slightly whacky piece of ecological economics, tracing the history of marketing and food politics in the course of explaining how the general public's lives had been misled to the point of mainstream consumption, mainstream illness, and mainstream chemical cures. She could not understand why he only wanted to talk bullshit. She had tried to cultivate Sam, since she and Sam had seemed to get on rather well since their fortieth. Sam, however, only seemed to want to pretend to be a variety of different people and talk nonsense, so it was taking rather a long time.
Finding herself blocked, she realised that she would never be able to cope with interacting with anyone, never mind the public. If people liked reading rubbish, how would she ever persuade them to read her book? She had wanted Sam to use the information, since it was an upgrade of what he was doing and would probably ensure global fame. What had she done? Did Sam only like stupid people?
As Kira had taken up this project because she was effectively trapped at home taking care of her mother, she was not in a position to be presenting anything, nor did she want to. What use was the book, if nobody would read or talk about it? She had nobody else to discuss it with?
Falling into a deep depression, Kira abandoned her work and took up sewing. She became quite famous for it. The research festered in a drawer. Kira became lonely. Her friends fell away as they were aware that this melancholy had begun with the Sam incident. Her confidence waned. She stopped leaving the house.
Sam had seen her videos, he didn't understand any of it. She had seemed interesting, to the point of becoming a slight manic obsession for a few weeks, but why was she so upset? She must be insane.
Thank God he was married. At least he knew those rules.
