Hate Her I Do
Let Me Tell You
By Eddie Spaghetti
August 2, 2016
I hate her hair all fresh and clean. Like flowers. I hate her skin so smooth. And her thighs I hate like crazy, so much so that every time I'm sitting beside them all bare, I just have to squeeze them and hold them and rub them and squeeze them once more. I tell myself this time I won't, but I just can't resist.
And her young girl voice only a sweet girl could have, that I hate too, as well as her eyes for being too sparkling. If I stare into them, my heart melts and I just can't say no to her.
Every day I see her, I hate her more, for every time I leave her, I can't get her out of my head. It was easy at our school where we sat across from each other to study our lessons. We would play hangman on the board. Accidentally our bodies would brush up against each other. But we would sit back down, and that would be that.
But then something happened, something terrible, something that changed everything—she broke her leg. And even though I hate her, I felt so sorry for her. But when I saw her in her wheelchair and cast, she just smiled hello, like nothing happened. "Did it hurt?" I asked. "Nah, I felt nothing." "Not even a little bit." "Nah, I would do it again. I'm thinking of breaking my other leg just to even it out. You should break your legs. It's fun."
So this is my summer mainly, visiting her every morning, six days per week. And why? All because she broke her leg on a trampoline. Had she not done that, I wouldn't now have to tutor her in her home, in her comfortable home where I am given beer to make me a little drunk, where outside her window I hear the cicadas.
And she makes me sit beside her when we are all alone and plucks my arm hairs out one by one and then tickles my ear with them and asks me if I feel that. Then I have to tickle her for that as her punishment all over her body to make sure I have found the most ticklish spot.
Then her maid will come by cleaning or her mom pop in unexpectedly. At that, we snap up straight in our chairs from our lying positions and pretend we are reading a book or matching words when really we are just playing around.
True, I let her slack off because I think our playing around is also a way of learning English, which it is. For example, while playing, I once used the phrase, "It's personal." And what did she do within five minutes of my saying that? She said it too, telling me I couldn't touch her notebook—"No, it's personal!" And I couldn't touch this—"It's personal!" and I couldn't touch that—"Personal!"
And then she steals my phone and plays games on it and twists my arm if I try to wrestle it back, or slides it under her chair so that I have to bend down for it while she spanks my butt and laughs, "Got you!" Or she will tickle me (but true I tickled her first, or was it she? I can't remember).
And she doesn't just use sweet words that match her sweet voice. She uses curse words. I don't mean words like "darn it" or "shoot" or "heck." I mean real curse words grown-ups swear when they're mad, like "sh-t" and "dam-" and "f-ck!" I don't even know how she learned these because I know I never taught her them. I never taught her how to express her emotions with a good "Dam- it to hell all you sons of a b-tches! F-ck you!" Yet she can say all that and right after, smile too, which drives me crazy, like everything she does drives me crazy, which is why I hate her so God dam- much.
I don't have much time. Every day I notice her getting older, wiser, curvier, not so much like the little girl I met one year ago. I can picture her one year older—taller, fuller. And that drives me crazy too.
I'm thinking of quitting tutoring her because her leg will be healed soon. Then she'll be able to run circles around me, knock me to the floor, and mount me. She's not weak like other girls. She'll be able to hold my wrists while sitting on my chest and make me promise her something I don't want to promise her. She may tie me to her bed and torture me, might even strip me naked and laugh and have her way with me.
Sometimes I wonder whether my coming from America to China was a good idea because if I had stayed, then I would have never met her and feel like I have known her forever and hate every cell in her body. I would only know Chinese restaurants where I love my beef fried rice. And open my fortune cookie to read my fortune: "We hate the ones we love."