Nicole squinted at her thumbnail and dabbed it with the brush. As she applied a second coat of Shanghai Scarlet, a voice from behind made her flinch.

“Um, excuse me. Nikki?”

“Goddamn it, Jimmy, why are you sneaking up like that? Now I gotta do my thumb all over again. What the fuck.”

“S-sorry.”

Nicole frowned. “What do you want?”

Jimmy settled on the couch next to his wife. “Um, I was hoping we could talk for a minute before I go to work.”

“Ugh. What?”

“I don’t know; it just seems like you’re mad at me all the time these days.”

“Well, quit fucking up and I won’t be mad.”

“I know, I know, I’m trying, I’m sorry. It’s just …” He gazed into Nicole’s eyes. “Do you even love me anymore, Nikki?”

Several seconds of silence passed through Jimmy like barbed wire until Nicole finally sighed and said, “I don’t know what to think.”

“W-what does that even mean?”

“It means what it means. I don’t know what to think.”

“It’s a simple question; you either love me or you don’t. Did you ever love me? Your ma said you only married me because I was making good money at Triumph.”

Nicole giggled. “Well, Ma isn’t exactly your biggest fan, now, is she?”

“She hates my guts.”

“She thinks you’re a loser. She thinks you lucked into that manager’s job, and that you’ll never amount to anything ever again.”

“What about you? Do you think I’m a loser?”

“Well, I hate to break it to you, Jimmy, but you are a loser.”

“Come on, honey, what the fuck. That’s not fair. People lose jobs.”

“Yeah, and people also pick themselves up again and don’t act like whiny little bitches. All you did after you got fired was mope around and bellyache about how unfair everything was. You wouldn’t have been fired in the first goddamn place if you knew how to stand up for yourself. But you don’t. You got no balls. You let people walk all over you. How am I supposed to respect that, Jimmy? Huh? Tell me. How?”

“I-I dunno, honey.”

“I can’t respect you when you act like a loser.”

“But, see, that’s the thing — you didn’t respect me even when I was at Triumph managing 35 employees. I was the executive manager and you still told me you didn’t respect me. Remember that? After the New Year’s party? The things you called me?” Jimmy’s bottom lip twitched. “You’re so mean to me sometimes. You always have been.”

“Fuck you, Jimmy, you scrawny little weasel. I got mad after the party because you stood there and did nothing while that drunk asshole pawed at me.”

“Well, you were acting like you enjoyed it.”

“All the more reason for you to stand up and be a man. Instead, you stood there and watched him grab your wife’s ass. With that stupid fucking look on your face. So, yeah, I told you I had no respect for you after that.”

“Honey—”

“Honey, my ass. Listen, if you don’t like how things are, you’ve always known where the door is. You could’ve left a long time ago. Still can. Anytime you want, Jimmy. You think I’m a bitch? Leave, then, motherfucker.”

Jimmy winced. “Please, honey, come on. I’m begging you. That’s not what I’m saying. Okay, there’s problems — but when you promise ‘till death do us part,’ you don’t just quit when your marriage has problems. You work through it. Try to fix it.”

“You want to fix it?” Nicole lit a cigarette. “Stop fucking up so much.”

“Well, how do I do that, Nicole? Please — tell me what I have to do.”

“Don’t lose this job, for starters. Make enough money for us to move out of here and get a decent place. That’s what you can do.”

Jimmy touched his wife’s shoulder. “I will. I promise. I’m sorry I haven’t been able to find work, honey. I know it’s been hard on you. Especially losing the house and having to move back here with your mom.”

“Yeah, no shit, it’s been hard.”

“But I’m working now. I mean, it’s not ideal, and I’m sure I can find something that pays more later on — but for now I promise to bust my ass and I’ll try not to … you know, fuck things up.”

Nicole nudged Jimmy’s hand from her shoulder. “Spectacular. Now, don’t talk about it — do it.”

“I’m gonna. Watch and see.” As Nicole turned her attention back to her fingernail-polishing, Jimmy cleared his throat. “Um, honey?”

“What?”

“Uh, do you think we could maybe, um, you know, spend some time together when I get home from work? In, you know, in bed?

“Why? You know I can’t feel it.”

“N-no, honey, I’m sorry, that’s not what I’m talking about. I was hoping maybe I could, you know, lick you and stuff?”

Nicole smirked. “We’ll see. Right now, you need to get to work. Mike wants you there early, remember? Ask me in the morning — but don’t be bothering me, or rubbing up against me if I’m still asleep. When I get up, we’ll see. Okay?”

“Oh, thank you, honey, thank you so much.” Jimmy leaned toward his wife for a kiss on the lips but she turned her head and he pecked her ear instead. He thanked her again and started getting ready for work.

On the drive to the Sitting Bull, Jimmy blasted the radio, singing along at the top of his lungs to one of his favorite songs, Dawn’s “Knock Three Times.” He felt giddier than he had in ages following his long-overdue talk with Nicole, and he dared to hope that things might finally be looking up for the first time in memory.

Jimmy’s mood deflated a bit when he entered the bar and approached DeeDee, who stood near the register frowning.

“Mike called,” she said, scowling harder. “He says he talked to you about being on probation?”

“Uh, yeah, he told me.”

“Well, I’m supposed to keep an eye on you to make sure you don’t fuck up. I’m not real happy about that, to tell you the truth — I got better shit to do than to babysit your ass. But that’s what the boss wants, so that’s what we’re gonna do. Now, then, what do you have to say for yourself?”

“Um, about what?”

“About how much you fucked up yesterday, and how you’re not gonna do it again.”

“Oh, yeah, Mike already talked to me about Red.”

“And?”

“He says I should do whatever he says and not piss him off.”

“Right. And the same goes for me — do whatever I say and don’t piss me off. Got it?”

“Um, yeah. Got it.”

“In fact, apply that to everyone who comes in here. Customers, the barmaids, everybody. Do what they say and don’t piss them off. Think you can handle that?”

Jimmy nodded.

“Good.” DeeDee pointed to the back. “The beer shipment just came, so you need to haul ass and get all those cases down to the basement. Then get started on those bathrooms; we had a big lunch crowd and they’re both a mess. When you’re done with all that, come see me and I’ll let you know what to do next.”

Jimmy hopped to, and when his shift formally started at six he’d already been humping for an hour, while the full staff had punched in and was awaiting the coming factory rush. In addition to DeeDee and her assistant manager, Lisa, the bar employed five barmaids — Janet, Terri, Gloria, Cindy and Charlotte — along with Marco the cook and Tank the bouncer, who looked like a Hell’s Angel in a bad mood. DeeDee had made it clear to Jimmy that he should consider all of them his bosses.

After the beer shipment was put away and both bathrooms were spotless, Jimmy checked in with DeeDee, who was counting change with Lisa near the register.

DeeDee glared. “Can you tell me why there’s no Miller in these coolers?”

“Um, sorry?”

“The coolers. There's only two bottles of Miller in here.”

“Was I supposed to put more in?”

“Yes, dipshit, part of your job is to keep the coolers stocked. Especially with Miller. Now, we’ve got no cold Miller, and the goddamn factory rush is about to start.”

“I-I’m sorry. No one told me.”

Lisa scoffed. “You’re full of shit, Jimmy, I told you yesterday when you first got here.”

Jimmy knew she was either mistaken or lying because she hadn’t said a damn thing about having to stock the coolers. But he kept his mouth shut.

“Why are you standing around with your thumb up your ass?” DeeDee pointed toward the back of the bar. “Go. Get downstairs and bring up a case of Miller and get ‘em in the damn cooler. Hopefully, they’ll be cold enough by the time the rush starts.”

As Jimmy started to slink away, DeeDee hollered, “GET THE LEAD OUT, GODDAMN IT!”

The browbeaten porter double-timed it, fighting the urge to tell the ball-busting bar manager to go fuck herself. As satisfying as it would have felt to tell DeeDee off, Jimmy knew there’d be hell to pay at home — and since Nicole had agreed to possibly spend “sexy time” with him the next morning, there was no way he was about to make waves. With a fake smile, Jimmy fetched the case of Miller at the quick-step and stocked the cooler, determined to get through the night without incident.

At a quarter after six, employees from the Corrigan Rocking Chair Company started filing into the Sitting Bull, and within a half-hour, the bar was jam-packed with factory workers looking to unwind. Luckily for Jimmy, he’d stocked the coolers in time for the customers to enjoy cold Millers, but that was the only thing that went smoothly. He ran himself ragged busing tables, sprucing up the bathrooms, fetching cases of beer from the basement, filling coolers and doing tons of other odd jobs. It seemed the entire bar staff had been informed that Jimmy was a probationary employee who needed to kiss major ass because they barked orders at him without even trying to be polite.

“Jimmy! Get a case of Blatz — and hurry up.”

“Jimmy! Go to the storeroom and bring two salt-shakers — NOW!”

“Jimmy! Why are there empty glasses on that table? You need to stay on top of that, damn it. Do your job.”

“Jimmy! Someone just puked in the men’s bathroom. Get your ass in there.”

As he bowed, scraped and scrambled for his superiors, the sex-starved simp ogled the bitchy barmaids, bodacious in their matching silky hotpants and tube tops. Jimmy’s lust nearly got him seriously maimed when Tank the bouncer busted him gawking at Gloria’s ass as she strutted past the jukebox.

“Don’t be staring at my lady with your tongue hanging out, you little prick motherfucker,” the behemoth bellowed. “Disrespect her like that again and I’ll snap your punk ass in half. You hear me, bitch?”

“Yeah, s-sorry, I didn’t mean to. I-I was just—”

Tank stormed away, uninterested in Jimmy’s attempt to explain himself. With a sigh, the bony probationer resumed his duties, feeling like he couldn’t do anything right, and that his coworkers all hated him. Perhaps, he thought as he blinked back tears, his wife and mother-in-law were right — maybe he was nothing but a loser.

As he weaved his way through the bar with slumped shoulders, Jimmy tried to buoy his spirits with the hope that he might enjoy some intimate time with his wife the next morning. For Jimmy, “sex” meant licking Nicole’s pussy, usually while under the covers, with no reciprocation — and he rarely got even those paltry crumbs.

Nicole had made it clear early on in their marriage that his attempts at intercourse got on her nerves, since his three-inch cock barely penetrated her. “You end up sweating all over me and I get absolutely nothing out of it,” she told him a few months after their wedding, destroying what smidgen of confidence he had and ensuring he wouldn’t try to hump her again. Since then, their sex life had consisted of Jimmy toiling beneath the covers while Nicole either watched TV or read a magazine.

Something was better than nothing, though, and the prospect of a few minutes of intimacy with his beautiful wife spurred Jimmy on as he worked through his shift. He had almost talked himself out of being miserable when just before eight he glanced toward the front door and the blood drained from his face.

As the bar patrons cheered the arrival of their eccentric-but-generous boss, who was known for buying round after round for the house, the portly Red Corrigan strutted through the entranceway followed by Mike — and Nicole.

With a high-pitched ringing in his ears and a knot in his gut, Jimmy dashed to the men’s room and stumbled toward the closest toilet. He didn’t quite make it and puked all over the floor.