Natasha
— Steveeeee!
My desperate scream echoes through the bathroom as I try to get up off the slippery floor while pulling the kicking, screaming baby out of the tub.
Obviously I can't even get up, let alone get Penelope out, who is now throwing water on me and laughing at her small victory.
“Steve, come here now! I scream again, holding out my hands in a new attempt to get my daughter out of the tub, but her slippery little body easily deflects my efforts to grab her and now I'm partially blinded when a jet of soapy water hits my eyes. “What the fuck, Steve! I scream and start to get really angry.
That's enough for me.
I open the drain and let all the water out, to see if it touches itself that it can't stay there. But Penelope keeps ignoring me and when I try to take her off she screams like I'm torturing her or something and then continues to play with her ducklings.
Steve is always more successful at that task. It must be something in the CEO gene that makes Penelope obey him more easily than me.
When it's his turn to bathe our daughter, he always ends up flawless, not a strand of his magnificent hair out of place. Unlike me, who now crawls along the floor like a survivor of the sinking of the Titanic, until I reach the bedroom and finally manage to get up.
Where is Steve? Let him get Penelope out of the bathtub, whatever his strategy is.
— Steve? I leave the room and head downstairs, thinking I'll find him still trying to straighten the tree, which I realize now may have been a little unfair to give him that task.
First, that I am infinitely more talented than he is in this regard. Second, that switching from tidying the tree to bathing Penelope was a shot in the foot.
However, when I get to the living room, I find the room empty and the Christmas tree fully assembled.
Hmm, Steve did it, I think with a mixture of satisfaction and irritation. Is there anything Steve doesn't do well? Maybe fulfill the promise to work less? A suspicious little voice whispers inside me.
— Steve? I call again, but only silence echoes through the empty room.
Is it possible that he returned to the basement? Holy shit, if Steve did this, I'm going to be so mad!
I march down to the basement, already thinking I need more stringent sanctions on this matter. Just screaming and complaining is not working. Threatening not to cook apparently didn't work. Right. Perhaps the time has come to play the highest card in my deck: no sex. Okay, I avoid using that sanction because let's face it, leaving Steve sexless would be something that would hit me directly as well. And why do I have to punish myself to punish Steve? Is not fair. However, I need to be strong and take the reins of that situation. Yeah, if Steve is in the basement with that damn laptop again I'll be emphatic: no sex for a week.
Oh my, all this? Wouldn't breaking the notebook with an ax be more effective? No, I will not use violence. Still. I'm going to have to use sex myself, what can I do? But Steve has to learn. It's for the good of our marriage, guys! And to think Steve promised at Christmas last year that he was changing. That he wouldn't be the workaholic he used to be, that from that moment on he would dedicate himself to me and Penelope. He had even passed on the DBS shares he had secretly bought to my name.
Yes, those stocks he bought using the money he got from his grandfather's inheritance by marrying me. I still feel slightly enraged when I remember Steve's cockiness in that episode.
I smile to myself, yes, I really am an amazing wife who thinks of the good of marriage above her selfish desires.
— Steve? — I open the basement door and turn on the light. However, nothing of him there either.
Where is Steve? Then I remember asking him to put the lights on outside. I open the curtain, peeking in, and the blinker is on the floor, partially covered by the falling snow. And Steve is walking towards his car.
— Steve? I call him, confused. But he doesn't hear me and keeps walking until he opens the car door and gets in. What the fuck is he doing?
I run out and open the door, screaming his name, but the car pulls away down the street until it disappears around the next corner.
"Where the hell did he go at this hour?" I ask myself entering the house and then I remember that I left Penelope in the bathtub. - Damn it.
I run upstairs and Penelope continues to play with her rubber duckies very happy to have been left alone. Well, I would have to do that task myself.
“Hey, honey, enough of the bathtub. — I use the sweetest voice I can find.
Steve says my tone of voice makes Penelope scared and aggressive.
Of course it's nonsense.
I'm super calm and my voice is that of a lady! So what if I'm energetic when I need to? Women can and should raise their voices to be heard. And it's not my fault that Penelope sometimes only obeys me when I scream. well qI wanted to be one of those modern mothers who never raise their voice, who solve everything with a soft voice and understanding look, hypnotizing their children or whatever.
I swear I tried. I tried the tactic of being direct, clear and assertive, as I said in the books. So when Penelope was hanging from the TV, I sat her on the couch and explained exactly why she shouldn't ruin the TV: “If you hang from the TV, you'll fall and break your head, you know? And if you have to have stitches, you will be left with horrible scars that will cost the plastic surgeon dearly to repair. That's if you don't break your nose. Honey, do you know how hard it is to make your nose acceptable with just makeup? That's if it's fixed! Sometimes even plastic doesn't work, so it's better that in your generation people don't care about appearance anymore, because otherwise you'll spend a lot of money on therapy to accept yourself. He understood?".
Penelope just stared back at me with her confused little eyes and jumped off the couch, going again to try to hang on to the TV. Then I had to yell “get off that shit, now!”. Then she got scared and fell and I almost had a heart attack. I'm sure I aged about ten years as I picked her up off the ground, examining her to see if she hadn't broken any bones.
Steve came into the room asking what was going on and I just mumbled, “What if she broke her ulna, Steve? Where is that bone? In cinnamon? In hand? This is a punishment!”
Luckily Penelope didn't break any bones, or have stitches, or blow up her nose, but after I explained to Steve what had happened, he came up with the idea that I shouldn't scream anymore. But for him it was easy to say, since it seemed that everyone obeyed him without blinking just a glance.
Now I hope Penelope doesn't freak out about her again when I reach out to lift her out of the tub.
“Damn it, Steve! - She repeats what I said before staring at me smiling with her small teeth showing.
"Penelope, that's an ugly word!" I blush as if someone could hear my daughter repeating what I had said myself. - You can not say that.
But I breathe a sigh of relief that she isn't screaming and kicking when I take her into the bedroom to get her ready for bed. And all the time she repeats “Fuck Steve” like a bloody drunk parrot.
And I'm still wondering where the fuck Steve is when I finally bottle feed Penelope and she falls asleep.
I go down to the living room and grab my cell phone, calling Steve, but his cell rings on the table, where he left it next to his precious laptop. Did he go to DBS? Oh, if he did that...
I call the company number, but the bouncer, Billy, answers in a sleepy voice.
“Hey, Billy this is Natasha.
— Natasha?
I can almost see him shifting in his chair, where he should be trying not to sleep while watching the security cameras.
"Yes, do you happen to know if Steve is there?"
"Yes, I saw him passing the reception half an hour ago...
"Oh what a son of a bitch!"
— Uh, um...
He doesn't seem to know how to react to my insults.
- May I help you?
I want to ask him to grab a baseball bat and go up to Steve's office and break both of his legs. Would Billy do this dirty little job for me? Maybe with the right money... No, never mind. I want to break Steve's legs myself. Or do worse.
- Not alright. Just wanted to confirm. Thank you, Billy.
I hang up, huffing.
So you mean Steve had sneaked off to work? Ah but it won't stay like that. A week without sex would be little. Maybe a month. Maybe let Penelope break a few more of her precious vinyls… No, if I do, I'm sure Steve is capable of filing for divorce and we don't have to go that far. Okay, I need to calm down. No screaming. No violent threats. I am a calm and sensible woman.
I'm not the freak who slashed Steve's car tires anymore, although I'd love to file my nails in his face right now. No, I'll wait for him to come back. I'll surprise him with a cold, calculating attitude, just like he does to me when he's angry. Or at least he tries until he loses his temper. I'll tell you exactly how disappointed I am with his attitude. And don't even try to get close to me with that hand full of fingers, because it won't roll. Yes, a month without sex. I won't change my mind, I decide, lying down.
Ten minutes later
Okay, maybe a month is too harsh.
Two weeks I think will solve the issue.
Fifteen minutes later
I mean, a week I think is enough for him to learn.
Twenty minutes later
Okay, just tonight, I decide.
Twenty-one minutes later
Or maybe I'm using the wrong tactic. Maybe Steve needs more sex. Yeah, that's how we started, isn't it? With a sexual proposal? Maybe I should show you that spending your time having sex with me is more interesting than looking at those damn numbers. yesm, I can do this, I think, smiling and settling on the pillow.
I'm just going to take a nap. As soon as Steve arrives, I'll show him...
But when I wake up the next morning, Steve still hasn't shown up.
Oh my God.
Did he spend the night at DBS? I think that was too much even for Steve!
What if he had some terrible accident? What if now I'm a widow?
Help, I'm too young to be a widow!