Gareth pictured himself dragging her out of the bed by her hair.
She called herself Angel, but Gareth knew that was her working name. She was more likely to be a Betsy, or a Ruth Ann—something painfully ordinary. He watched in the mirror as she squeezed at one of the pillows, sinking her bleached-blond head into the starched cotton. Gareth sneered and curled his lip in disgust. He wanted her gone. He was done with her. But there she was, frolicking in the sheets like it was Sunday morning and he was going to cook her up some pancakes and bacon. Gareth picked up his smokes from the vanity and lit up. Angel came up behind him and took over rubbing his neck. Her skin was like milk—pale, scarless, and perfect. Nothing stretched out or ruined by childbirth, like Annette’s. Her mouth was small and round, and Gareth thought about kissing it just a few minutes earlier. She tasted like hard candy. The kind his grandma kept in little dishes around her house, all sticky and tart. Nothing like Annette, she tasted clean—like rain.
“Hey, baby, you in there?” Angel said, and waved a hand in front of Gareth’s blank expression. He looked at her pressed up behind him in the mirror and she smiled crookedly, her lips curling up on the left side. She started to rub the muscles in his shoulders. It was like trying to soften granite. She rubbed her hard raspberry nipples across his back, but he was over her and it did nothing but irritate him further.
“You’re bound up tight, sugar. I could have sworn you just had wild sex with a pretty girl. I got you off. I know I did. I normally don’t let a man come inside me, but you were so into it. I know I was. That must make you special. Not like all these boys around here.”
“Stop talking,” Gareth said, and took a swig from the bottle.
“You’re starting to hurt my feelings,” she said.
“You’re starting to irritate me with all the mouth.”
Angel moved her hands down his back and scratched her way up, using pink lacquered fingernails to follow the curves of his back. “I know it’s none of my business and all,” she said, “but you can talk to me, too, you know. That’s part of the package.”
Gareth took another hard gulp from the bottle, finishing it off, and set it down on the vanity. Angel took notice of the tattoo on Gareth’s chest and leaned in over his shoulder to get a better look. “Who’s Annette? Your girl back home?”
Gareth shook her hands off him hard enough for her to back off toward the bed. “None of your business,” he said. He picked up the bottle, forgetting it was empty, and slammed it back down on the vanity with enough force to break it. The glass cut his hand. He put the bleeding edge of his palm in his mouth and Angel backed away. She quickly wrapped herself with a sheet from the bed.
“I’m sorry, Papa. I didn’t mean nothing by it.”
Gareth glared at himself in the mirror. Seeing his father. Hearing his wife. Tasting his own blood. The sudden eruption of tears down his flushed cheeks surprised him as much as it did her.
“Oh, Papa. Don’t cry. Let me make it better.” She came back up behind him. “I can be Annette if you want me to.”
Gareth stiffened and went cold. The tears disappeared as quickly as they’d come. He rubbed his thumb over the tattoo again. “You want to be Annette?” he said, and raised the broken bottleneck to his chest. Using the sharpened edge, he sliced into the skin above his nipple and carved through the letters inked into his skin. Blood poured down his chest and Angel jumped back.
“Jesus Christ. You’re crazy,” she said, and scanned the room for her clothes.
“You want to be Annette?” he said again, turning to face her.
Angel grabbed her dress, panties, and shoes from the floor and held them out in front of her.
“Hold on, mister, I didn’t mean nothing by it. I’m just here for a good time. I can go now, okay? I can walk right out.”
“Annette’s a no-good bitch that thinks she can do better than me. She thinks she can say and do whatever she pleases and up and leave whenever she wants.”
“I’m real sorry about that, mister. That sounds really awful, but . . . but I ain’t Annette.”
Gareth pulled down a hand towel from a silver ring on the wall and wiped the blood from the fresh gash on his chest. “Yeah, but you want to be.”
Angel grabbed her purse from the side table and made a dash for the door, but, despite being blind drunk, Gareth was much faster. He reached out and grabbed a handful of white-blond hair. She dropped the purse, and makeup, cigarettes, and several unused condoms spilled out on the carpet.
“Ow. Please, Papa, I didn’t—”