by R.E Hengsterman

I once fucked a woman I met in a nail polish factory as her towheaded toddler ran around the bed yelling, ‘Daddy, Daddy.’

Awkward can’t begin to describe the situation, because the whole event took place with me, on my back, staring at the tips of my white athletic socks, while a woman blessed with pendulous breasts writhed back and forth until a moan escaped her in a climax. All that happened right before I sprinted from the house. At least that’s how my memory recalls the events.

In life, we land awkward at times. And awkward is not an uncommon occurrence for me. In the summer of eighty-six, I landed on the doorstep of an Armenian nail polish factory in the heart of the city. A young teenage boy serving a court-ordered work program for a testosterone-fueled assault charge. To this point, my life existed upon a thin film of social transgressions.

For six months, I worked the seedy underbelly of nail polish. A world peppered with Armenian rants, assembly line malfunctions and a learning curve much steeper than imaginable. Nail polish bottles changed my life. Imagine a warehouse. Squat heavy, and smelling of wet, damp cardboard. Dark even in daylight. In the heart of the dilapidated structure, a long serpentine conveyor belt snaked from one end to other.

Let me explain how the relevance of my employment plays into my near demise. Along the metallic snake, a dozen women and I worked difficult days. Spaced six on either side, about 4-5 feet apart. The day began with a loud horn, and the tiny uncapped bottles flowed like blood from a sliced vein. By hand, and at an incredible speed, each bottle was capped as it moved down the line by fingers flickering in and out like pale fireflies. The metal rollers cried click-click-click-clack until an error occurred and a low-buttoned, bare-chested Armenian tossed a projectile at your head. To summarize the job, we capped nail polish bottles, twelve hours a day, five days a week.

After a week, the line produced blisters on your fingers so swollen and painful the process of unbuttoning your pants became impossible. A thousand-capped nail polish bottles a day will cause this to happen. Unusable fingertips created a unique dilemma for the dozen women and myself who, almost hourly took turns freeing each other for our desperate sprints to the bathroom to find relief. I don’t exaggerate. The not-polite-to-talk about accidents happened, a frequent and uncomfortable occurrence. Enter Mrs. Robinson and I note your smirk, yes, that was her real name.

One day, Mrs. Robinson tucked her fingers a little deeper as she unbuttoned my pants. Her slender, exploratory fingers stirred my teenage imagination, pushed a button to the unstoppable. Only days later, dressed in my best leather and doused in cheap cologne, I found myself perched on her couch. It’s here I met the mobile towheaded toddler prone to running wild through the house regardless of the activities.

My introduction to sex with Mrs. Robinson was in no way open and nurturing. Flawed and improper would be a more accurate description. What Mrs. Robinson added to the equation was her other children, triplets, diapered and confined to their cribs by gravity, squawking in the pitch of unfed birds.

The time I speak of with such fondness is the time she stripped me naked, tossed me on the bed and rode me until she exhausted herself. Sheer bewilderment and terror kept me hard long beyond necessity. The toddler, demanding his presence be acknowledged, unnerved the horniest part of me.

Being ridden by a horny, pent-up housewife under most circumstances would be a teenager’s dream. Until the moment I realized the towheaded toddler was yelling ‘Daddy, Daddy,’ as he circled the bed, and his mother’s breasts slapped against her skin like slabs of steak because Daddy had entered the house.

Evident by the crossbow mounted above the front door and the animal heads pinned to the wall, Mr. Robinson was an avid hunter. But then, let’s say, Mrs. Robinson was equal the hunter. So, with the fleshy sounds of breasts slapping and toddlers toddling, Mr. Robinson enters the bedroom. The troubled man takes one glance at me, another at her, and races towards the door. The possibility of my slight torso frightening him off was minimal. Unsure of my next move, I froze beneath his wife, until the first arrow thwacked the headboard inches from my face. In a volume not matching my panic, Mrs. Robinson snapped her head toward the assault and said, ‘Donny, what are you doing! Are you trying to kill the poor boy?’

Her words defined my cue to leave. Not being prone to flaccid moments under many circumstances at sixteen, I sprinted from the room, still hard. Another two more thwacks from the crossbow struck the door and nearby sheetrock. By now, I picked up that my life was in jeopardy, so palming the forehead of the toddler, I hurdled across with the skill of OJ Simpson. The growing noise in the house − not the Daddy’s-going-to-kill-this-poor-boy noise − but a more general ruckus over the unfolding events, sounded like a wild raccoon running loose. The idea struck me − this occurred with regularity in the Robinson household.

I got to the back door in full scamper with my arms and legs moving at speeds incompatible with my level of co-ordination. By a small miracle, I cleared the door, the porch and the back steps in seconds wearing only my white athletic socks. Another arrow struck the doorframe a half second before I crossed all three. My feet hit the lawn in full stride, my toes grabbing mud in clumps, as I dug into the earth, never looking back.

From an open window, I could hear Daddy, Daddy, Daddy still chirping from the mouth of the towheaded toddler. Fuck my life I thought as I disappeared into the woods, bare ass naked, landing awkward in a place I never imagined. The accumulating mud, grass, and briers clinging to my backside in epic proportion.

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R.E Hengsterman is a writer and film photographer who deconstructs the human experience through photographic images and the written word. He is a 2016 Pushcart Prize nominee and grossly flawed human who writes under the beautiful Carolina sky. You can see more of his work at www.REHengsterman.com and find him on Twitter at @rehengsterman.