Butterfly

By S. W. Stribling

'Would I love you if I knew you? Would I have left you sticky notes of love on the fridge before you left for work?'
 

Butterfly is a raw and powerful short story about a provocative young woman who contemplates her life and her place in the universe.

• Language: English
• Publisher: S. W. Stribling
• Release date: May 25, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393294696

S. W. Stribling

USAF Iraq Veteran, French Foreign Legion parachutist, and rolling stone English teacher, Stribling has lived more stories than he has written.  Despite trying everything else in life before accepting his role as a novelist, Stribling has always kept words in his life as a form of therapy and creative outlet. Though he may be a broken soldier and no longer chasing trouble, Stribling is still traveling the world,  experiencing life, and writing the good stuff to share with his readers.

Book preview

He doesn’t want to marry you. He wants you to marry him. But he doesn’t want that ring wrapped around his finger. No. That would be the cuff. The cuff to the chain. The chain to the ball. That would mean his freedom. No man would give up his freedom willingly.

A man doesn’t want a woman. He wants all of them and none of them.

We give up everything for one. We could have every man, but they expect us to be a whore for one. He catches us, conquers us, marries us, and then puts us nicely away in his home. Mission accomplished.

Sure. You can make yourself beautiful. You can play the role. You can be his bitch.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a silver screen star or the girl next door. He will have his image of you. Better strap on your high heels and pull that skirt up so your ass hangs out just a little.

That’s not you, but you play the role.

You play the role so you can belong to him. But he won’t love you once you are his.

Everything will be fine. You just have to keep your thoughts to yourself. Speak a little, but never speak too much as to question his intelligence. No, speak just enough so he feels you’re having a conversation. A conversation he won’t even hear, much less remember.

The best place for you is with pruned hands from dirty dishwater and folded away nicely like his laundry. Then you know you’ve made it. You’re his wife. He does not want you, but you are his. His hindrance to life as a boy. You are his burden. A responsibility he doesn’t remember asking for.

You’re the old sandwich in his junk drawer at the office. Something he once desired but has since forgotten about. Something he used to want to devour with insatiable hunger, but is now rotting away to the disgust of everyone.

Whatever excitement that was once there, whatever arousal that brought you together, is gone.

One day, he will come home and feel the house is empty. You will stand there, but you will just look like any other woman he passes on the street.

I SHOULD BE CLEAR; I don’t hate men. I really don’t have any problems with them, just like they don’t have any problems with me.

I didn’t have a disgusting childhood or a diagnosed complex or some horrific past. I’m not this way because of my father or my mother. There isn’t any one thing to blame because there is no actual issue here.

It is just the way things are.

I have sucked cocks. If I remember correctly, I started big. It was a moral life lesson to learn at an early age. It seems to dislocate your jaw. More pain than pleasure for me, but it definitely made him happy.

He had to be happy. I learned to be happy.

After that, I saw them in all shapes and sizes: twisted thin ones that I didn’t like, straight, hard, soft, boring, and even some so tiny you couldn’t stop laughing.

It was all pathetic, the more I learned about men. A man without his sacred ego was just pathetic;