Stripped Down by Tristan Taormino

going to be good.
    I topped off the cup with rum, then headed down the hall—my heels falling silently on the carpet all the way to the living room where Tori and her friends were talking.
    â€œThere are different kinds of trust,” Tori said, looking her friend Katie in the eye. And I thought, Fuck, she’s getting deeper with Katie than she ever does with me; maybe she
occasionally says something real when I’m not around. Tori, after all, hadn’t seemed to notice that I’d gotten back from the kitchen.
    â€œIt’s like this,” Tori continued. “You can trust me with your wallet, but not with your girlfriend.”
    Katie visibly bristled and Tori laughed, punching her arm. “Jesus, man, just kidding.” But Katie didn’t look comforted and I definitely wasn’t. The thing is, I know about jokes. I know that what makes them funny is that on some level at least, there’s truth in them.
    Tori’s laughter slowly faded to a giggle—a little butch giggle she probably would’ve called a cackle—and everyone else just sat there, looking at the TV or Tori’s boots or some other random point. But I don’t think any of us really saw anything except a picture of Jacqueline in our minds’ eyes. Jacqueline, Katie’s girlfriend, with her perfect curves and long dark hair. Jacqueline with her easy smile.
    Â 
    Jacqueline wasn’t like the others; Tori didn’t just fuck her behind my back. Instead, two months after the hockey game, she left me for her. I knew things hadn’t been working out, but finding Tori’s note on the coffee table just about killed me. There was my pride thinking, Damn why didn’t I leave her first? There was the eternal pisser that everything always worked out for her, and then there was the fact that made me really raw—that she’d never again bury her fingers in me and then let me suck them off. The force of my reaction, however, went beyond the pain of those three points and crossed into out of control. Sobbing and slamming my fists into the walls, I hurtled back to being four years old—to when my father left. I remembered my mother and me coming home
to find both his note and the plate he’d used for lunch on the kitchen table. And now, twenty-four years later, that plate seemed a terrible kick in the teeth. After years of marriage, my father couldn’t even throw away the crust from his own sandwich.
    In a similar way, Tori (in her PS) left me with shit to clean up, too. “I’ll be by soon to get my stuff,” she wrote. “Maybe you can pack it for me.” And sure enough almost everything Tori owned was still strewn about the apartment. On the closet floor I found one of her T-shirts that still smelled like her—like men’s deodorant and cigarette smoke. I put it on and crawled into bed, looking for comfort in the cotton. But the clock ticked on without comfort or sleep. Forgetting I hated Tori, I’d lodge a pillow next to my belly and remember her sexy crooked smile and the deep indent her calve muscles created in her shins. Then I’d kick off the blankets and plot fantastical schemes for revenge.
    Three days later I called my friend Tracy. “Tori still hasn’t come to get her stuff and I doubt she ever will,” I said, the telephone cord drooping.
    â€œI could see her doing that,” Tracy answered. “She’d think that by not coming, she could avoid conflict.”
    â€œBut I need her to come, Tracy. I need resolution. I keep thinking I see Tori and Jacqueline everywhere—on the bus or at the grocery store. I’ll never be able to go to Sister’s again; that is actually somewhere they might be.”
    â€œYou know what?” Tracy said and it sounded like she was tapping her nails on a table. “We need to go to Sister’s right now because you need to face this. I’ll be by your place in an