Oven Lovin'

You know, she really does do a really good job, I think to myself as I extend myself as far as I can into the oven, which means several inches below my shoulders, having taken out the middle rack and placed it on the sink. I mean, she is thorough."

I reach out of the oven with my left hand and fumble around for the oven knob. I identify it by the mountain of crusty cheese Tom refuses to remove when he does the dishes and wipes down the stove top.

"Red will get it!" he shouts when I complain.

"She has a name!" I shout from the kitchen, stubbornly poking at the cheese crust with my nail which refuses to move.

"I've never met her and you only told me she has red hair!" he shouts from his chair.

"Fuck you, " I say under my breath as I vigorously scrape.

"What?" he says loudly, flipping through my stack of books.

"I love you," I reply loudly.

"Unnhh...why do you have so many books?" he shouts.

And so it seems to go in some form or another most nights. I think of this as I lean my chin in my hands on the oven rack, waiting for the heat to come. I am scared of dying this way but frankly it just seems easier. The last relationship I left was a fucking ordeal and this just seems much easier. I believe in reincarnation and all that so when I thought of it, I thought, well, I could come back as someone or something that is not Tom's girlfriend. Tom is a shouter, as you can see. He tends to make me shout and I am not a shouter. The strange thing is, we never shout about anything of substance.

I'm not one to just leave in the middle of the night either, though frankly the irony is not lost on me that I am cooking myself while Tom is formulating stupid things at his stupid desk at his stupid job in his Italian Dude shirts he lovingly (read: compulsively) irons every night before bed. He even has one of those electric tie hangers he delights in spinning, as do I, only I do it when he is gone and I clap as the ties fly across the room like kites in a windstorm. (I blame this on Red. Unfortunately, Red gets blamed for a lot of the petty wars I wage on Tom when he is at work. I feel bad about this so I tack an extra two dollars an hour onto her paycheck. It doesn't make it better, but it buys her more groceries. Or pot. I don't know. We don't talk much.)

It is getting a little warmer and I am reminded of being tucked into my grandmother's bed when I was a little girl. Her bed was huge and I loved folding my knees up to my chest and putting my nose against the blankets. They smelled of Chanel No. 5. I would smell like Chanel No. 5 the whole time I visited my grandparents and I felt very ladylike. I wondered if I should feel comforted committing suicide? I am beginning to smell the cheap oven pizzas I frequently make for lunch. I kind of want one right now and I could see the crumbs on the bottom of the stove from the one I ate earlier. It was delicious. I only buy the supreme flavor because if you separate the flavors it tastes like cardboard shit. They are only .99 so you need all of the flavor you can get. Wow. That was my last one of my entire life. There are two more in the freezer. Tom will throw them out. Bastard. What was I doing with him?

The oven rack is warming up more now. This oven took forever to pre-heat. Tom and I, well I was always complaining to the landlord. I forgot about that. This is going to be a long death. I can’t turn back now. No matter how long it takes to melt my face off or take my breath or whatever happens when you cook yourself, it can't be as bad as what will happen if I start the big break up with Tom. He will fucking say the records are his. They clearly are not. I have sat on the grubby floors of hundreds of thrifts stores, rifling through crappy music to get the good ones. He doesn't even like them. He likes the scratchy sound they make but he would never buy one. He would iron the cover to one if he could. Especially if it were made by some Italian Dude.

Oh for Christ's sake. Why didn't I think to have sex with someone else? Because I have fucking morals. Fucking morals! I could have found myself someone more along the lines of me. We could have had an amazing night with wine and frozen pizzas (because someone like me would love that) and we wouldn't be able to keep our hands off each other, even after we parted our bodies and I could still feel like he was inside me. No, Tom would be the last. Tom, with his pushing my head into the pillow so I can't breathe even thought I try to put my head to the side so I can get air. One time he actually crawled up on my chest and tried to cum on my breasts, all the while sputtering, "You said that one time I could and so I'm going to!" I had no time to respond before he just...did it. Not that I mind that sort of thing, but Tom never fucking asks. He shouts at me.

"Get the bagels!"

"Red will do it!"

"I'm going to cum on your breasts!"

I drop my head in my hands and they begin to burn a bit but I don’t care. I just sigh. I like the smell of the pizza I had for lunch and I hope I will be reincarnated into something that can have them. I hope I can be another human. As much as I hated my childhood, maybe I would have a nice one this time around! Yeah. I will save all my cool toys, too, if they make them when I am a kid again. Too bad I couldn't write some notes to keep in my pocket for when I am reborn.

I begin to get sleepy. I think it is mainly because I have been kneeling for so long. There is a noise from the front room. I wonder if I have started to hallucinate. There wasn't much research put into this on my part so maybe that happens. Maybe it will be fun, if it is warm.

Footsteps pound into the kitchen and I hear the refrigerator open. Then shut.

"You know the oven is electric, right?"

I sigh heavily and close my eyes. I realize this will never end. Even the oven knows that.

As I heave myself out of the oven and shut the door, I feelt pizza crumbs fall from my hair. Tom is eating a bagel.

"Look what I found, " he says, muffled through a mouth full of chewy Asiago bagel and veggie cream cheese.

I stare at him.

"It was the last one, so yeah, we're going to need bagels," he garbles as he swallows, leaning against the sink with his hand on the oven rack that rested there. He wipes his hands on his pants and looks at me, my hair wild, my face red and sullen.

"So are we gonna fuck or what?"

I sigh and think about my record collection.

"Yeah, come on."