Titan and Faith are my favourites. An abusive ex, a Vegas marriage, morning after regrets. Hunting down your new wife to serve annulment papers to marry someone else, ludicrous objectification from lecherous old men fighting over Faith in a bikini.
Titan had his work cut out for him as she leads him on a merry chase.
Brad was her boyfriend, whom she’d left months before she met Titan in Vegas. Brad’s the reason she knew relationships and marriage weren’t going to be part of her happily ever after.
What sane woman leaves an abusive relationship—to end up married by Elvis in an all-night wedding chapel in Vegas from a drunken encounter? Titan, then chases his runaway bride across state lines in an effort to acquire her signature on annulment papers for him to marry someone else.
“You’re not sleeping on the couch”.
“You’re giving up the bed? That’s so sweet. I may have misjudged you, Titan. We should begin again. We can be friends this time”.
I roll my eyes, not bothering to reply. I don’t understand women, never really pretended to, but this one’s in her own brand of crazy. Placing her on the left side of the bed he then walks around to the other one and slides under the covers.
“Titan!” she shrieks as I pull the covers up over us.
Finally, she signs the papers and leaves him sleeping.
Ida Sue then urges her to inform Titan that she’s pregnant and she arrives on his wedding day. Inevitably, her news is met with resounding silence. Granted she had a little more time to absorb the life-altering news. He needed a few days to assimilate everything.
Fatherhood was never part of his future, especially with a woman he’s not in a relationship with. She’s not a girlfriend, she’s not even a friend, just really good in bed. But none of that screams relationship. None of that screams mother of his children. So he took a few days to clear his head. He should have known she wouldn’t wait around—she never does!
(Maybe his cold reality would be becoming a father with his lesbian future wife, Jacey and her lover. Yes that makes perfect sense).
Still in shock, he arrives at the airport as Faith and her cousin, Black are about to depart and is surprised when she rejects his offer to remain, and leaves.
When the time had arrived to marry Jacey, instead of listening to his conscience, he’d planned to proceed with their arrangement. He didn’t want Faith to see him being a chump—a play for a job—even with Jacey knowing his motives and her having some of her own. He’d felt lost and the promise of the general manager position might have helped fill that void.
Then came Faith’s news.
He hasn’t even begun to process that she’s pregnant.
When he moved to Texas, he wanted to be a part of their child’s life. What he didn’t expect was to be drawn even deeper to Faith. He wants to make certain she is taken care of—preferably by him. Since she left him in Buck-Stop, Colorado, he’s realised that if he wants to win her affection, he must make amends, and starts by buying her a house and following her to Texas.
Coaching a D-league team, he gets to still take part in the sport he loves and be close to Faith and their unborn baby. Initially he doesn’t admit that he owns the house Faith is living in, temporarily accepting Ida Sue’s offer to move in with her, her ongoing reference of C.T. (Chocolate Thunder).
There are far too many entertaining moments, the buck-stop incident with lecherous Leroy, the Sheriff, Faith and Titan and her absurd claim that Titan’s actually a woman.
“He’s a chick?” Leroy says and actually puts his hand on my chest. I push him away, deciding that I have indeed had enough of this bullsh*t.
“Back off, man,” I growl.
“Touchy thing, aren’t you?” Leroy laughs.
“Maybe he’s PMSing,” the sheriff jokes.
That’s it.
“Maybe I need to remind you just how much of a man I am,” I tell her, going for the belt to my slacks. I see her swallow and her eyes dilate. She takes another step back from me, and that’s probably the wisest thing she’s done in her life.
“I actually want to see his… her… d*ck,” Leroy says and the sheriff nods in agreement.
This makes me stop unzipping my pants. The last thing I want is Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum staring and trying to touch the damn thing. Just the thought of it makes him want to crawl up into my balls and hide.
“They made it out of his boobs,” Faith says serenely, her face looking like she’s discussing the Pope.
OR… Black and Titan in a penis-size contest as Faith goads on Titan that she’s seen Black’s penis (as a child).
After their first doctor’s appointment, he makes a note that the first thing he’s going to insist on, is finding a new doctor. An older one who has more experience…and a female one. Definitely a female.
Then her abusive ex Brad, rears his ugly head, the creep that attempted to rape her, assaulting her and knocking her onto the ground. Things hadn’t been good, they’d been in a steady decline long before the violence. Any feelings she had for him diminished long before he assaulted her. Before his attempted rape, before he raised his hand and hit her, before the cheating. The violence finally gave her the courage to leave.
Brad was the first man who’d ever acted like he cared about her, except for her father, sisters, and her dad’s family, leaving her vulnerable. She was with him for two years. She should have left him long before she did. It hadn’t been good. Initially she imagined it would get better, but then the arguments escalated, louder, darker, and each time she made an effort to leave he would retreat with new declarations of love and wanting to start over. It was a vicious cycle. They’d fight, he’d break stuff and scare her, apologising and promising to do better.
Gaslighting her.
Getting remarried, Brad makes an appearance amidst racial slurs and tries to manhandle Faith, until the cavalry cow, comes to the rescue. Ida Sue lets out an eardrum-splitting whistle.
“Hamburger!” she yells. “Time to take out the trash.” Then she mutters a little quieter—but not that quiet, “Ruining my Chocolate Thunder’s beautiful day. Not to mention Blossom’s. I ought to do worse.”
And then, no joke, a cow comes lumbering toward them, stopping in front of Ida Sue as she pets him and then points at Brad. “Get rid of him,” she orders.
Questioning her sanity, Titan then believes he’s seeing things. The cow bites Brad on the ar*e. Screaming like a little girl, holding his ar*e., the cow does it again and this time he comes away with a piece of corduroy on his mouth.
“I demand you—” Brad starts, to which the cow bites him again. I blink, but the image doesn’t go away. Brad’s walking away, and even starting to move fast because every minute or so the cow is biting him. Pretty soon old Brad takes off running with Ida Sue’s pet cow on his heels. It’s the strangest thing he’s ever seen. Everyone is laughing, but my eyes are still glued to the disappearing cow when I feel Faith tug on my arm.
“Let’s get married, Big Daddy,” she laughs. I jump, then look behind me because Ida Sue just pinched him on the bum. Looking upwards at the sky and wondering what exactly he’s getting himself into.
Titan will never get the hilarious vision of Hamburger biting into Brad’s ar*e, out of his head.
“I doubt old Brad will forget it either, since he probably has cow teeth scars on his a*s.”
After the ceremony, Faith suggests the playhouse.
“It’s a family tradition.”
“Say what?”
“Playing house in the playhouse is a family tradition,” I explain patiently.
“You’re sh*tting me,” he says, clearly not convinced.
“Nope, and every married couple here has had a taste of their honeymoon in that old playhouse”.
Epilogue One
Eris Sue Marsh was born seven months later at 2:00 a.m., in the middle of a torrential downpour that sparked tornados and flooding. Inside the hospital all was quiet, and her parents had to admit they had a piece of perfection amidst in the chaos.
Epilogue Two
Two years later
“I know we talked about having a house full of kids, but we may have to talk about wrapping it up after this one, sweetheart.”
“We’ll talk about it. I’m praying this one is a boy. Some more testosterone in a house overfilled with pink and polka dots would be nice,” he laughs.
“Don’t look at me. I think your swimmers are supposed to be the deciding factor. They seem intent on making sure you’re surrounded by women.”
“It’s a hard job but somebody’s got to do it,” he jokes, bending down to kiss me.
As they seem to go at each other like the energiser bunnies in heat, caged and fed Ecstasy every hour, this is their third pregnancy.