Too Soon Marr'd are Those So Early Made

“Do you feel anything? Like any emotion? Any warmth to the guy your with?” I ask.

'Nah, usually not. I'm just concentrating on being a good lay.” she responds.

“Is this all your worried about?” I ask.

“Well, I don't want people talking about me.”

I think, “You don't want people talking about you..."

I swear, PTSD comes in many forms. PTSD is about this basically, you continually repeat whatever trauma you had in the past, always reliving it, always trying to find a way to manage it better. In the process, you just relive it and reinfect yourself over and over again. You go nowhere with this tactic.

“Doesn't it bore you? It must. I mean, after so many guys, it tends to become repetitive, doesn't it?”

“Yeah...the difference is that some might do something different. Breath differently, or have a different smell to them. Most times it's pretty much the same. I fake the orgasm most times” she says.

“So what do you get out of it?” I have to ask. “I don't know...I guess because someone wants me, someone pays attention to me...” She drifted off on that comment, staring a thousand yards from the porch we sat on.

You can see it in her face. “Please say “Yes” to me. Please don't abandon me. God forbid you reject me.” The other look in her face, for one who hasn't hit 23, is of a care worn life. “Too soon marred are those so early made,” the old saying goes. It's true too.

The price for getting attention, is giving up your body. I guess to her it's a fair price to pay. To me, it's expensive.

OK, I can see her past right back to when she was high school. Legs open quick for any guy that might show an interest. And to keep that interest, you better offer up some bait to keep him interested. Till one day they get bored and leave, or until you drive them away, or he drives you away.

The back of shampoo bottles have these instructions: “Lather, rinse, repeat.” Now tell me how many people engage in this, no matter what it is. Tonight, I hear the the story of this girl who can't help but to constantly repeat. I swear she thinks, perhaps one day, a situation will arise where it'll stick. Trial and Error? Jesus...that's a hell of a price to pay along the way. If your idea of logic is 2 + 2 = 5, you're way the hell off.

Ya know, as I listened to this, I didn't feel condemnation for her, just pity. There wasn't any way I was going to try to advise her, save her, redeem her; it's too late for that. She's been programmed and that's how she runs.

My brother, who once wrote for the ProJo and other media, sketched a piece for them that dealt with Halloween but he put a very different angle on it. He claimed that he couldn't drive past a graveyard without looking at it. He said that it wasn't out of any morbid curiosity about death, but more about just who was buried there. There were life stories there, that everyone's forgotten about, he told me.

“Think about it” he tells me as he typed away. “How many murderers, alcoholics, sluts, losers, workaholics, depressives, fighters, Mothers, hardworking Dads, sick kids and Saints are buried there? How many of them could live no other way till the minute they died.”

“I guess people are people. They do what they only know how to do, huh?” I say.

My brother goes on, “Ain't that the trick though? To transcend your own demons? I think that's the key to life, to overcome yourself...and if you end up in the graveyard, winning against the worst in yourself...you've won...and the day after Halloween...is All Saints Day...don't forget that! There is redemption, you can go down into the ugliest depths of yourself, but still manage to pull out of a dive like that, if you're aware.”

I'm not sure this Garden Variety Slut I met will ever be aware. Perhaps she will.

OK, that's enough reality I'm dumping on you for now. Perhaps the next story will be about fluffy kittens, or pepperoni pizza. Now there's a subject that nothing could go wrong with..Pizza!