Chapter 2 Chapter Two How Do I Hate You?let me count them one by one
Husbands all over the world think they are gods, but wives are all atheists.
In my twenties, I thought I had tinnitus, but it was just my friends getting married and the ringing of wedding bells was deafening.
Finally, I got married too, my husband Lowe is a veterinarian and I'm not really that into animals - probably because I'm an elementary school teacher and I already have a classroom of animals...sorry it's a sad little place in the teachers' office humor!
In my opinion, animals are at their happiest when they are lying on the grill net.
I especially don't like dogs. Everyone says that dogs are kind by nature. If that's true, why does it have so many sharp teeth?So, if I had to keep a pet, I would choose a crocodile so that I could eat all the other animals!
In fact, I am quite paranoid. Except for dogs, I don't like anyone with one leg, two legs, or even eight legs.I check my sheets for scorpions every day before I go to bed - in the UK?Look, I'm paranoid enough!
You may pat your breasts to promise that you like animals, but if you marry a veterinarian, I will pat your breasts to guarantee that you will not like animals again immediately.
Do you believe it?There will come a time when we have seven or eight dogs, eight or nine cats, and a whole bunch of rats that aren't pets at all.
When I was pregnant, Roy said I was about to "puppy," which means soon to have puppies.More than once he absently scratched the back of my ear and said, "Girl!" I figured it wouldn't be long before he threw a tennis ball at me to grind my teeth.
If I had imagined Roy as an animal, he would be a loyal and funny Labrador.When I met him, he was narcissistically hanging on the minute hand of the big school clock because he wanted to literally paraphrase the phrase used to pick up girls-do you have time?
Roy loved the outdoors. He had legs the size of two seven-year-old boys combined, biceps the size of a guest toilet, and the kind of guy who couldn't die from any catastrophe.
He is a born pioneer hero, he can wade a big river, climb a snow mountain, cut down a redwood forest, he can build a ranch house on the ground, and cook all the "pig food" without me yelling: "Who wants to eat it?" McDonald's?"
According to my definition, the so-called "outdoor" is the short distance from the Bond Street exit of the subway to the Savory department store.I grew up in Sydney, and my parents moved to England when I was sixteen. My knowledge of London's geography is limited to how to get to Harrods and get home from the department store.
If my classmates want to invite me to play at their family’s cottage in the country, which is located in Scotland in the north of England, when they want to give directions, they have to say: "You first go to Harvey Nicole department store, then turn right..." That's how I understand.
I married Lowe because he made me laugh out loud.His blue eyes and golden curly hair radiating in all directions make him look like a cute puppy, and his always smiling face makes people like him at first sight.I also love how relaxed he is with his elbows on the car window, whistling and driving.
oh!By the way, and his love!
By then he was half-time helping out at a stray animal shelter.His veterinary hospital is now next to our house, but he still does a lot of volunteer work on the side.
Even so, we're best allies... at least in the past.
Like two silkworm babies entangled together, my love covers him like honey.And when he looked at me, the feeling of love would emerge from his eyes and spread like ripples to his entire face, causing my nipples to be on fire often!
Now, after fifteen years of marriage, I know all about his flaws, such as the fact that he never wears more than that scuffed leather jacket, but owns the largest collection of T-shirts in the Western Hemisphere—in Lowe's mind. , the so-called formal clothing is "ironed T-shirts".
And his biggest shortcoming is that he doesn't like my friends. He said that those banquets in London are simply the culmination of world snobbery, insisting that the guests think that inviting you is giving you a lot of face.
When he was forced to accompany me to dinners hosted by Jess or Hannah, he had to exert a lot of patience and always slumped in the corner without saying a word.
"Ah! That's your husband? We thought it was a bookstore."
That's why he didn't want to attend Jess and Stuart's 20th wedding anniversary dinner last January, and I wish I had listened to him...
It was originally a party where only old college friends were invited, but Stuart has always been a person who combines work with entertainment, so the scene became bigger and bigger, and finally it was as big as singer Dolly, Barton's chicken coop!
When Jess fell in love with Stuart, he was just a surgical intern at a teaching hospital in Cambridge, and Jess fell in love with him at first sight.
"Kathy, he's so beautiful!" Jess said to me at the time, "I just want to spread him on a bun and swallow it in one gulp."
Jess, who was going to be a home economics teacher, gave up her teaching job and became a chef in a restaurant to make money to support Stuart from the bottom of the hospital all the way up.
Today, Stooge is rich, his wallet is as big as a wardrobe that people can walk into, and he drives a Jaguar that rhymes with Banker (Banker), parked in the On a dedicated parking space outside the private practice on Harley Street.Moreover, the Dao man is not only handsome and good-looking, he is also tall enough to communicate with us mortals by radio to know whether the weather on the ground is cloudy or sunny.
Even in his fifties, Stretcher's figure is still slender and fit.His profile is so sharp you could even use it to shave your legs.His tongue is equally sharp, but it's usually used to make jokes about himself, making his charm all the more invincible.He is a top surgeon in plastic surgery and reconstruction of burns and scalds in the medical field, and serves as a consultant in a national teaching hospital, and also has a high status in the academic field.
As for Stretcher's luxurious lifestyle, it comes from plastic surgery in a private clinic.
He operated on people who did not need surgery, and the charges were expensive. In order to appease his conscience, he set aside a fixed time every year to perform free medical treatment and surgery for war victims on a hospital ship sailing around the African continent.
He has strong organizational skills and high reputation, and he can always find the most powerful doctors for various rescue organizations.Everyone knows that he encouraged young people in the clinic to volunteer for half a year in Doctors Without Borders in order to save their souls.He also dedicates his time to the War Victims Medical Assistance Foundation and is a full-time advisor to the World Health Organization.That's right, Buckingham Palace has summoned him, and he has gained a lot of aura.
It's because of this part of his selfless nature that our school belle Jesmy Jatin has his name etched on the headboard of his bed.
Jess had wanted to cancel the anniversary reception because her mother had just passed away just before Christmas after a long battle with breast cancer.However, Stretcher wanted the party to go ahead, and Hannah and I hoped that the excitement would make Jess less depressed.So our task is to never let anyone mention the word starting with C (Cancer, cancer).
I made an appointment at eight o'clock in the evening, and I was almost late.
Hannah ordered me to dress smarter, which meant I had to enlist the help of a film special effects crew to make it possible, because no one seemed to notice that flat shoes and exaggerated earrings were the standard dress for a female teacher.
The clothes I usually wear are missing buttons or missing seams, and most of them turned out to be Lowe's, which I chose because I didn't have to iron them.
When people see Jie Si, they turn their heads and look again, but when they see me, they feel nauseated again and again.You think I'm exaggerating?Lately I've been really wearing baggy workout clothes all day long.
When we first met, Jess always said I was like the typical girl next door, meaning "attractive enough to stand out, but not enough to make other girls hate me".
I don't care if I'm beautiful or not. After meeting Roy, as long as he thinks I'm beautiful, that's enough.Now, nearly twenty years later, I look pretty pretty from a distance, but it's about three hundred kilometers away.How could this be?
It's all our fault for being mothers!Before marriage, I hated exposing my skinny limbs the most. On the wedding day, I weighed 45 kilograms. After a few years of marriage, in order to wear size 10 (38 waist) jeans, I held my breath until I almost suffocated. When I fell into the full-length mirror, I seemed to see my mother—small breasts and big buttocks.
When did my weight break the sixty-five mark?After giving birth, I was planning to go to the gym, but who has time?However, living around the house in pajamas all day made me pregnant with my second child very quickly.
all right!Now that my son Jamie is thirteen and my daughter Jenny is eleven, can I finally go to the gym?However, as a working woman, it would be nice if I still had the energy to press the microwave to defrost a quick meal after get off work.
However, the food eaten by children is super high in calories. When you drink tea after a meal, hot dogs with ketchup, mashed potatoes with cream, and ice cream left in the bowl all go into your stomach.One can't waste, right?So, it's all hoarded around your waistline.
Fortunately, I like my mother, otherwise I would be even angrier seeing myself more and more like her!
When I finally put on a maternity pant suit and pinned the bottom of the trousers under the long coat with safety pins, I suddenly noticed that my hair was moving, and it seemed to be waving at me in the mirror.
My goodness!Head Lice - Here Are the Occupational Risks of Teaching in Elementary Schools!I can run across the street ringing the bell and shouting, "It's contagious! Stay away!" But the first thing I need to do is get some potion on my scalp so that all the head lice don't get caught unless you're wearing a gas mask and a wetsuit. Otherwise, there is no doubt that he will die.
I'm no longer contagious, but I'm a world away from being "fashionable"!
Jess and David's home is an eighteenth century mansion in the historic and exclusive Hampshire district of London.When Lowe parked illegally on the sidewalk in his rotten Jeep that smelled of dog piss and mini pig poop, I watched from the big window of the house a crowd of lice-free hipsters in the living room, drinking glasses Interspersed with the laughter of the men, my husband immediately showed a painful expression that the lamb was about to go to the slaughterhouse.
"Jess and Stretch are already as tall as Everest in socioeconomic status, but, Kathy, you know I'm afraid of heights, and we better be tied together with climbing ropes, in case anyone falls!"
Jess and Stuart have indeed become the so-called "powerful people" in the newspapers, and the people who come and go are either rich or expensive.It is now mid-January, and the Christmas card written by the Prime Minister is still on the mantelpiece, and there are also cards sent to them by former UN Secretary-General Annan and South Africa's first black president Nelson Mandela...
My fanciest Christmas card is just the laundromat down the alley thanking me for taking care of me!
Hannah, Wolf came to the door with champagne in hand.
Hannah is a quick, but quick-witted woman with glassy black eyes like a doll, a delicate nose, red hair, eyebrows that are often raised because of too much suspicion, and a hoarse voice like Say something as strong as her signature espresso.
She is fluent in three languages, albeit with an Afro-Jewish accent.She laughed like a gunshot, but I liked it.She is almost forty years old, but the more she lives, the younger she is. She said that she takes collagen injections twice a week, and puts placenta in the morning and evening.With her swanlike demeanor, her high back and flat chest, I thought she must have been forced to learn ballet by her mother for a long time from a very young age.
After graduating from the Faculty of Education, she first taught art courses in a comprehensive high school, and then entered the interior design industry after leaving teaching.At that time, the concept of "Feng Shui" had not yet entered the Western world, let alone become the latest fashion. Hannah had already incorporated Eastern Feng Shui elements into her designs with foresight, and she spoke clearly and logically.
I adore Hannah, and while she's always urging me to stop procrastinating and hurry up, she always knows which scarf or faux fur stole will be the must-have accessory of the year.The queen of pop wore a tarp cleverly wrapped around it that doubled as an evening gown.Every time she sees my baggy or ink-stained jeans, that face crumpled.
After her first fortune came from suggesting that heiresses should paint the ancestral home they inherited in peach or light grass green to make it more prosperous, Hannah decided that she would never do anything that might damage her family. She works on Beauty Index.Not long after, she opened an art gallery on Old Bond Street, earning her second fortune.
In this world of rumours, and the weirder things, the more people believe them, she owned a big house in Regent's Park with a private toilet in every room, and won Pascal's marriage proposal.
When Hannah and I met in the College of Education, she was proud that her boyfriend’s careers all started with P. These people include: Arctic explorer (Polar explorer), poet (Poet), pornographer (Pornographer), pianist (Pianist), public welfare (Philanthropist), political dissident (Politicaldissident), and finally a painter (Painter).
Ugh... Pascal "proclaims" a painter, but Jess and I think he's a devil worshiper!He was a dark, good-looking fellow with a pouting mouth like a young boy, eyes hanging down lazily, and a halo of thin Medusa-like braids around his head.
He's the most popular and drool-worthy Eros in art school.Let's spread out and say, "I'm Pascal Swann, yes, I'm like a swan, I have only one mate in my life." This line of seducing girls is very convincing!However, this statement seems to be true, even though he has lost a lot of hair, the marriage is still there.
Hannah is perpetually optimistic, but Pascal sees only the dark side of everything.If he had his way, he would go to Disneyland in Europe and write in the air "there is no Santa Claus in this world".
We hated him for draining Hannah's purse, though ("I think it would have been more natural for him to stick his hand straight into Hannah's purse," Jess whispered to me as he wrapped his arms around the bride's waist during the wedding ceremony. Also, we want Roy and David to imply that men have to "do some work" for a happy marriage to happen on a men-only bachelor night), but that's one thing we hate about him the most! !He asked Hannah to promise not to have children before marrying her.
Every time Jess and I complained about how troublesome children are, Hannah would sarcasticly say, "Honey, I'm celebrating 'National No Kids Day' and I'm so glad I didn't have a baby!"
In other words, she earns money to support her family, but she has no real family.
Standing on the threshold of Jess's house, Hannah shook her head and looked at me in disbelief. There were countless beautiful silver earrings dangling in the four ear holes on her earlobes.
"Sorry! Our family doesn't buy used cars," she said, pointing to my greasy, combed-back hair.
Hannah is the most vicious woman I've ever met!That's why it's so interesting.
"It's petrol gel for head lice, and it has to be left on for twelve to sixteen hours. Who's here?" I just took off my coat when I found Roy fleeing to the kitchen, muttering that he was going to take care of Shi Dodger's pet, although Jess only allows her son to collect rocks as pets.
"Ah! Good people and great people are here! Some prime ministers of the third world government in exile..." Hannah sighed, "Several Nobel Prize winners, the greatest playwrights in the world today..."
"Smell... At least Jiesi is happy, right?"
"It's okay! No one mentioned the word starting with C, and everyone revolved around the new goodwill ambassador of the United Nations—the singer named Jin Qi. Does this name sound like a singer? It's more like a prostitute! She is a blonde American, the breast augmentation price tag still seems to be on her body. She said she was going to start acting—another disgusting version of Paris Hilton!"
I laughed, and suddenly saw my hairstyle in the mirror in the hallway, which resembled that of an American mafia brother, except that I was not holding a submachine gun in my hand.
"How do I get in like this?"
But Hannah has already pushed me into the living room like a skydiving instructor pushing a timid cadet out of the belly of the plane.Jessie, with beautiful eyes, sweet smile, plump chest and honey-like hair, put on a questioning smile when I appeared holding the parachute.
I kiss her to say hello. "You're as beautiful as a vacation week, making me want to climb up."
She straightened her arms, grabbed me and looked at me fiercely. "Head lice again? Alright! Let's hope this is the latest fad for lesbian beauties."
In fact, no one paid attention to me at all. Everyone's eyes were fixed on Jin Qi, the little princess of the singing world.
She was about twenty-four or five years old, her lips were like shiny lacquer, her breasts were three-dimensionally conical, her teeth must have been whitened and reshaped, her complexion was as pale as a corpse, and like every jockey, she weighed a lot below the norm—riding It must be very convenient!I think.
This girl was born to sit in an elongated limousine, she is so deliberately trying to show the results of her workouts in the "abdominal fitness center", the chest is only covered with a circle of cloth, and the lower body is cut from a homogeneous mesh fabric Super hot pants.Such a narcissistic person must have set up spotlights in the bedroom at home to illuminate her every move.
It was a waste of all the time all the ladies spent trying to beautify themselves, and all the men present had no idea that there were other women within a fifteen-kilometer radius.Just because of the presence of this little pop princess, we are all reduced to being lower than invertebrates. The so-called hardcore intellectuals in London seem to focus on her meaningless ramblings about Judaism and cupping as if they were the Bible. listen.
To my surprise, the little princess stopped talking and walked towards me, swinging the scarf that looked like a tropical boa constrictor around her snow-white neck.
"Wow! Lesbian babe, I love it!" The scarf writhed like a real snake. "I'm thinking about a lesbian crossover approach, and that should increase my chances of picking roles a lot, right?"
All those respectable old men who may appear on postage stamps in the near future, who are widely praised and commemorated, turned their eyes temporarily in my direction.
During the five seconds that came into focus, I suppressed the urge to giggle and shook my head vigorously.The only problem is, I forgot that I was a source of infection, so I accidentally threw countless dying head lice into the air, and I hope I don't start a plague!
I don't know if the little princess is interested in seeing the full head that was bitten out of my head?However, this joke should be reserved for those who know how to appreciate it, such as Jiesi.
"Uh... that's actually a potion for killing head lice!" I admitted with guilt.
The spokeswoman, who was supposed to be embracing poor and sick children of the Third World, was suddenly speechless, screamed, and fled to the farthest corner of the room at the speed of light.
The reason why the United Nations chose her as a goodwill ambassador should be because of her escape skills. I really want to see how she endures traveling to those countries in Congo.
Jess saved my social faux pas by announcing the start of dinner.Although Stuart hadn't arrived home yet, we still walked into the beautifully decorated restaurant and watched the elite men in the intellectual world scrambling for a seat next to the little princess.
By the time we drank purple eggplant and red pepper soup, the human rights lawyer imprisoned by the Burmese government, the Chilean journalist who documented his suffering, and the poet who was still hunted down by the holy guru for his heroic deeds had begun to compete. Self-sacrifice is greater, and whoever is threatened with death is more deadly.
“This is what we are rewarded for sticking our heads out of the walls of politics,” the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist sighs.
This is the way intellectuals use to contest masculinity, basically, if killing each other will get you a Nobel Peace Prize, these pacifists will do it immediately.
Except for being the first to check out at a big box store, I've never had a fight with anyone.It seems that we are really behind the times, and we are not included in the sniper list of the terrorists, and the phone at home has not been tapped.Seriously, though, if I'm after horror experiences, I can get a lot out of my son's parent-teacher sessions.
Unaware of the men's pretentious behavior, the little princess is still muttering about her tofu mask, making us ladies roll our eyes, exchange silent smiles, and shake our heads at her emptiness and man's vanity.
As Jess, the conscientious hostess, began to serve the vegetables, a musty political movement leader was talking about being jailed in South Africa during the Revolution as she walked up to my seat.
"Actually," Jess said in my ear, "the only torture he ever suffered was when a reporter from the BBC asked him: Will he feel guilty about inheriting so much money?"
I glanced in his direction.The Oxford-born official wasn't just old-fashioned, his face was so ugly it would scare even a monster. "Don't make fun of him, his looks will be a thing of the past, too," I whispered to Jess, and we giggled like champagne bubbling.
Guys are so self-centered that even if they lose their dentures during withholding, they'll never admit that they're too old to set their minds on young girls.
Those lawyers with their chins tucked into another chin began to compete who provided free professional services to charities and the poor. In this situation, it was like watching a room full of flat-chested women for a three-piece Sixteen C's bra hits the jackpot.
Jess, Hannah and I crossed our legs, pursed our lips and tried our best to hold back the contempt in our hearts.
Close female friends will have the same emotional platform, we can communicate with each other fluently without opening our mouths, and understand each other completely.I wonder how much easier it would be for men to communicate if they had a receiving network as developed as a deer's antlers (but that might just keep them from driving those ridiculously low sports cars).
At this moment, Dr. David Storland entered the dining room like a whirlwind, and every gentleman present was immediately overshadowed.
With such well-tanned wheat-colored skin, tailor-made white teeth, and thick silver hair—the hair volume is so thick and the hairstyle is so unique, it is said that someone has already planned to ask the queen to be knighted for this purpose.Silk shirts that still smell like laundry, and designer cufflinks, all of which demanded that the audience wow him, and the air around her shone with love as Jess stood up to greet her husband.
"Sorry I'm late!" he said briskly. "Urgent meeting with Prime Minister for Uganda's AIDS Fund."
Stooge is so in short supply, so overloaded with schedules, so self-sacrificing, almost anytime, anywhere it seems like he has just climbed the cliff of persuading people to donate, or has just done an equally important event of saving the world and helping the people, so everyone will forgive him , around him, pet him, love him.
Stuart flashed an awesome smile.I've always thought of him as a gambler, and every time he bets his entire fortune, he always has a "win or die" attitude.When he opened his mouth, wow!The whole room lit up with his eloquent eloquence.
He began to describe Sudan's latest aid plan in detail, not forgetting to flatter the little princess of the singing world for her dedication to poor children, and to express some witty, intimate and humorous special compliments to everyone present for their selfless contributions.Jess looked on with a smile on the side, and then went into the kitchen to bring out the main course.
It was the famous lamb stew, with green leeks and red beets adorning the plate beautifully.Listening to the compliments from the guests, Jess gradually relaxed and joked happily with everyone for the first time since her mother's death.
Fortunately, no one mentioned the word starting with C!I was about to secretly breathe a sigh of relief when the little princess of the singing world picked up a piece of mutton with a fork, as if it had been polluted by an experiment, and put it far away.
"I don't eat meat. If you eat meat, you will get colon cancer!" She dragged her voice.
Jess was shocked as if she had been bitten by something.Hannah and I exchanged disapproving glances, and I secretly wished Roy would jump in and make some giant octopus mating jokes, but sign language couldn't convey such a complex concept.
"Drink some wine." Hannah wanted to change the topic of the singing princess.The guests who knew that Jess's mother had passed away from cancer showed encouraging smiles, as if we were all begging her to shut up.
"Pesticides on grapes can cause cancer!" Jin Qi began to reprimand Hannah.Perhaps this is a good opportunity to tell the little pop princess that her breast augmentation price tag still hangs on her nipples.
Jess's creamy cheeks began to twitch.The conversation that had been tumultuous and circling the dinner table all evening suddenly fell silent.The dinner was gradually becoming longer than the Iraq war, and we had just eaten the main course.
"I'm worried that some of these will add a lot of wrinkles!" I tried to coax her to say something else, but she just gave me a critical look.
"I think you need to be very, very worried. What did you put on your hair? Is that a chemical?"
"Of course, if you use it to spray the Al Qaeda terrorist organization's lair, those terrorists will definitely be smoked out."
"My God! Then you must have cancer!"
Jess' eyebrows were raised, as if she was about to cry.
At this time, Roy's mobile phone rang sharply, breaking the almost suffocating silence.Definitely those cat and dog emergencies!
"Whoa! You still have a cell phone? I don't even have one," Jinky says when my husband rushes off to assist some lemming suicide or something equally urgent. "because……"
"I know, I know, it causes cancer!" Hannah said fiercely.
"I think too much, don't I? That's my problem." Jin Qi giggled.
The men nodded hurriedly in agreement, like it was real.I guess the ambition of this little singing princess is to squeeze into the championship game of the TV show "Who is stupid?" Unfortunately, IQ is not enough.
Jess kept looking at her leg as she continued to babble about the cancer caused by the cell tower antenna.Hannah gestured desperately at me helplessly, and all I could do was respond with my social distress signals.There are too many signals coming and going like this, and the planes in the sky may have been guided down by us.
I racked my brains for topics that would distract her.
What do people usually talk about at dinner parties in London?Ball games, foreign policy, second-child mortgages, when I really want to hear how much people paid for their houses and how much they are worth now, I just don't talk about anyone.What topic would attract a pop star from California to England...
Have!I suddenly thought of a foolproof topic.
"May I ask what your constellation is?" I pretended to be very interested.
The whole table of guests looked at the little princess in the singing world with great anticipation.
"Cancer," she said.
As soon as the words were finished, Hannah, Jess and I immediately rushed to the kitchen with the excuse of serving food.As soon as we got there, we shook with laughter while holding on to the counter, and almost fell to the ground and rolled.
I laughed so hard that I had to pull up my long shirt and let go of the waistbands of my trousers, held together barely together with silver safety pins, which made the three of us laugh out loud again.
The crazy scene was finally tempered a little because Hannah said that she had a headache from laughing.
Jess hopped briskly up the stairs to get the painkillers. "I'll look in the medicine cabinet in David's bathroom," she said with a laugh. "It's impossible for a doctor to not have headache medicine!"
While Jess went to search her husband's medicine cabinet, I looked around her kitchen.A full set of French top-notch LeCreuset pots and utensils complement each other with the eggplant red splash-proof tiles on the countertop. The Danish Bang&Olufsen plasma TV is hung on the wall, surrounded by tasteful hangings. They went to Namibia and Sri Lanka to do part-time jobs Black and white photos from vacation.In addition to the Nef brand stainless steel double-layer oven, the refrigerator of Miele, a century-old German store, and the Italian coffee machine and bread machine, there are several bouquets of flowers from customers on the countertop, wrapped in beautiful wrapping paper, waiting The hostess bottled them up at her leisure - Jess's kitchen is perfect for a Vogue magazine!
I think of my own kitchen, the moldy leftovers in the fridge, the unwashed dishes piled as high as the Himalayas in the sink, and the hot dog I forgot to find in the microwave for three weeks—I envy my friend for having one. Perfect husband, perfect son and perfect life.If I could have a life like this, I'd be willing to gargle with satan's semen.
"Well, there are Baifuning and aspirin here..." Jess came downstairs with a bunch of medicine bottles, handed them to Hannah, and read out the names of the medicines aloud. "Ibuprofen, Prolactin, Viagra..." She said it before she could stop.
"Viagra!?" We all gathered around and yelled at the hurtful thing.
"How long has Stretcher been on Viagra?" Hannah asked.
A dark cloud covered Jess's face. "I didn't know he was taking Viagra."
"Sniff!" Hannah exclaimed in surprise, and quickly regained her composure. "It's okay if you don't know, it's kind of him not to let you know. Neither of us will tell, right? Casey."
"No problem." I said. "I believe Pascal also takes Viagra, and Hannah doesn't know it. But he's so powerful, he should only need a quarter of the dose." I joked.
Making fun of that phony artist usually made Jess happy, but now her face was still frosted.
"Roy is so tall, he must also eat Viagra," Hannah also tried to stir up, but Jess's expression was still like a stone statue of Easter Island.She coaxed: "Oh...Jess, don't do this! It's nothing! My dear. A man of David's age takes almost any medicine to keep himself standing."
"I don't know that," Jess said grimly. "Because we don't have sex. We've been a month, two weeks, five days a year and uh..." She looked at her watch. "Seven hours without any sex."
"Oh..." Hearing this blow, Hannah and I could only say this word, and the air in the scene suddenly became heavy.
"My husband always says he has a headache." Jess continued with a dull expression, "I thought it was probably a problem with his stage of life, such as a midlife crisis or something. Uh... it seems that he really has a problem. I I was so desperate for sex that I almost had an orgasm when a male doctor took a Pap smear for me last week!"
If Jess was trying to be humorous, alas...it just backfired!Hannah and I murmured words of reassurance, but Jess waved impatiently, as if to fend off wasps.
"Even my sexual fantasies are so boring! For example, I ordered pizza delivery, and the fat boy who delivered the pizza had a face full of pimples, and he left immediately after I paid for it."
Jess tried to play it down, but to no avail, she still clearly cared, and she was tossing mangoes like frisbees into the twenty dessert plates set out.
"I didn't know he was looking for satisfaction outside. I must be stupid to not notice it." She lifted a lock of blond hair and explained self-deprecatingly: "If I had brown hair, I would have guessed it! I stay here because I know how to cook, maybe in Dr. David Storland's dictionary, oral orgasm is a gourmet meal. To be honest, if I put celery salad on my ass for him naked, he would probably just eat it. Will ask: 'Hey, what's for dessert today?' Tonight it just happens to be papaya, mango, kiwi platter with chipotle salsa, and coconut brownies." She scooped up a big dollop of whipped cream and threw it on each plate superior.
"Hey, Jess," Hannah took Jess' arm. "David obviously has erection problems, but he's already figuring out what to do. Viagra is for you."
Jess's face was cloudy and uncertain. She stuffed the medicine bottle into our hands. We had already taken half of the medicine, and it was a continuous prescription.
Sorrow seemed to swallow her, and she slammed the bowl of whipped cream against the wall, and it exploded. (In retrospect, her mood probably shifted from anxiety to something more ferocious at this moment.)
She turned sharply, her blond hair flying. "Tell you, the most closely-spoken secret in the world is how the sex life between husband and wife is."
"That's just your family, honey," said Hannah angrily.
"Stop lying to me about your sex life being great, Hannah. Anyone who is obsessively redecorating their house all the time like you is not going to have a good sex life. Basically, the floors are taken care of, You get ignored."
Hannah raised her eyebrows. "There's both at the same time, Jess. Some couples develop small, tasty instant, erm...sexual three-line haiku poems that suit their appetites."
"Ha! It's like that joke—why don't women blink during foreplay? The answer: it's over when it's too late to blink." Jie Si said nonchalantly.
"Wow! I feel sorry for you, Jess, but Pascal makes me happy in bed."
"Yes? Then Dr. Xu Man can also be called a killer who does good for the heavens!"
"Pasquil will definitely make you happy in bed, Hannah." I tried to defuse the rising tension. "He was in bed all the time. I remember when he was in college, the only time he got out of bed before noon was because the mattress caught fire, remember?"
Hannah gave me a slashing look. “只因为你们的性生活很烂，就假设……”
“嘿！我没有说我和洛伊……”
我还来不及反驳汉娜的评语，洁思已经叛逆地昂起头来。“汉娜，你是那种家丑绝不外扬的人，至少凯西和我愿意承认我们的房事多么烂。”
“我的厨事没有很烂！”我抗议。
我想起依偎在洛伊身边的愉悦与火热的激情，我的睡衣褪到腰上，第二天艰苦地迈着O型腿搭地铁去工作……
etc!我像牛仔巨星约翰·韦恩那样走路，是多久之前的事了？
“我不要讨论这些！我头痛！”汉娜不高兴地说。
“而我也快要头痛了！”我郁闷地说。
“噢，上床时间到了。”洁思冷嘲热讽地说出结论。
灰暗的情绪笼罩着我们，直到洁思十七岁的儿子乔许下楼来找食物。他的牛仔裤口袋一边插着一本企鹅出版社的经典系列，另一边的口袋是写到一半的诗。
洁思举手在鼻子前面挥一挥，想要像雨刷那样扫除眼前的情绪。她在儿子搜刮冰箱里的食物时，揉一揉他的头发。
“留点面包层给我，”她疼爱地对儿子说。“即使是你老爸那样厉害的医生，也无法治疗青少年的爱吃症，是吧？”
洁思老说，因为将来要靠儿子替她选养老院，所以她溺爱乔许。真相其实是她必须母兼父职，大卫对孩子从来没有兴趣。
自从乔许出生，洁思带孩子事必躬亲，把他照顾得无微不至。如今想来，她所采购的婴儿药品、学步车、玩具、无糖的金桔和芭乐汁，大概够开一家幼儿园了！大卫则从未尽到父亲的责任，整天忙着到被战争摧毁的地方。
“嫁给一个行动主义者的坏处，就是他一天到晚都在行动！”洁思活泼地对大家说。
在她心中，她儿子是天下最聪明的人（既然爱因斯坦已经过世），而乔许也的确很聪明，如果他小时候自己换尿布，我也不会惊讶。但是，大卫好像都视而未见，乔许是独生子，但他依然不是父亲的最爱。
为了儿子，洁思重新擦上唇膏，挂上最像女主人的笑容，重回她的结婚周年晚宴。
只有我跟汉娜注意到，她的唇膏沾在犬齿上（这是从来不会发生过的事），还有，她那双有点大的新鞋在她走路时发出叹息的声音，好像很同情她真正的感觉。
捧着装甜点的托盘，洁思进入餐厅，竟然发现歌坛小公主坐在她丈夫的大腿上。她注意到大卫好色的眼光沿着金琪的乳沟往下看，她的笑容摇摇欲坠，牙齿好像快要掉出来了。
“你没生气吧？”金琪猫呜似地解释，丰满的胸部波涛汹涌。她握住史督兰医生的手，说道：“我只是想要握一握这只伟大的手，他拯救了非洲无数生命。”
“噢，我相信那只伟大的手也握过其他许多东西。”洁思装出友善的表情，散播人工合成的愉悦。
“只不过，亲爱的，你不觉得她太小了吗？”她对她的丈夫说。“我很清楚在这个时候指出你即将有的地中海秃头实在很没品，但那也正是我要提醒你的原闶。”
我看向史督仔的时候，简直不敢呼吸，但他脸上的表情，只是有趣。
“我可爱但长久受苦的妻子正在抱怨，我都中年了还爱骑摩托车，我也知道我拿中年危机当借口，实在很差劲。”
“噢，不会啊！亲爱的，我对摩托车毫无意见。双腿之间终于能有个硬东西，想必可以给你很大的信心！”
我猛然转头仔细看着我的好朋友，她的嘴角上扬，僵硬地笑着，好像正为某个隐形的摄影师摆姿势。
客人开始交头接耳，但史督仔只笑了几声，举杯对他的妻子说：“敬快乐的二十年，以及唯一能把我绑在地上的女人。”
回到女主人座位的洁思也举杯回敬。
“亲爱的。”她热情地说，即使是我也看不出她的愉快究竟是真是假，她的笑容是如此明显，紧张了五分钟的客人总算松了口气。
“嗯，我的爱？”史督仔挂上似乎已有点倦怠的微笑。
“你有没有发现……”她甜美地说，我们开始期待她说出温馨感人的贺词。“……如果在第一次惯重考虑拿枪杀掉你的时候，我就立刻动手，现在已经假释出狱了！好了，现在，想参加换妻活动的，请把车钥匙放到餐桌中央来！”
再也没有比这更有效、更迅速结束一场晚宴的方法了，在这种情况下，我只能说这是一次“社交早泄”。
我在门口等洛伊处理完他的紧急电话诊疗，再开车过来接我时，洁思握住我的手臂。
“今晚你如果真有性生活，我敢打赌一定是让洛伊从背后进去，这样你才不用接吻，或面对你们夫妻之间真实的情况。我相信你逃避真相已经很久了！”
“我们的性生活很好！”我刻意强调，因为一月的寒风而开始发抖。“真的非常好！”
我替她难过，她的失望与羞辱我可以理解，但我不要她的愤怒影响到我。洛伊是个善良、好心又宽厚的人！
“性自由？”我步下阶梯，逃进洛伊的车里时，听见她醉醺醺地啐道：“哈！对已婚女性来说，性自由就是不必跟那个杂种上床的自由！”
她的声音在整个乔治广场回荡。杂种……杂种……杂种……
“我就跟你说我们需要用绳子绑在一起，以策安全。”洛伊在我扣安全带时，笑着跟我说。
我在车子往我们的家奔驰而去时捏捏他的手。
洁思没有说对，我们的性生活亲密、温柔、充满爱心与生机。real……
really?
Notes:
Notes: