Lord Vishnu's Love Handles (eBook)

Chapter One: Dreams More Bitter Than Sweet Shelby is a slut. She is also my wife. And that presents certain problems. Actually it presents major problems, I just don't like to think about them. Mainly because I have no real way of knowing that Shelby is a slut. I just have these dreams. And I can't exactly say to her over breakfast, 'Honey, I had this dream last night that Reed Bindler was knocking your bottom out. And I think this needs to stop.' That would be crazy talk. And I've spent my life pushing crazy talk like that to the back of my mind so that I could lead a normal existence. So that I could have a happy life here in Dallas. With Shelby and our two-year-old son, Noah. We live in a big Mission-style house on Lakewood Boulevard. I've got a green Range Rover and a hyper Border Collie named Max. It's a good life. And I don't think I should mess it up just because I have bad dreams about Shelby. That would be stupid. However, to be perfectly honest, I do have this habit of just knowing things. And that scares me. What's wild is my knowledge has no logical basis. I didn't read it in a book or pick it up in conversation. Sometimes I just know. And I'm not talking about getting a weird feeling about lottery numbers or shit like that. I'm talking about full blown, I-know-this-for-a-fact, Jack. Like right now, I know that the phone is about to ring and it's going to be Shelby's mom. And I know that Noah is about to get a sore throat. I can taste it coming on. And sure enough, he gets one. And sure enough, the phone rings and it's my mother-in-law. This knowing things was what got me into the Internet back before anyone knew it would go colossal. This knowing things has put a very nice roof over our heads. But it is also part of my problem. A therapist once told me I might be crazy. Well, he didn't say that exactly, but I knew what he meant. That's when I stopped talking about what I 'know.' And I stopped seeing that asshole. Now, I keep what goes on inside my head in my head. I just go to work building Web sites and I play golf at the club. I keep my mouth shut. I make money, which makes Shelby happy. And this, in turn, makes me happy. Or at least, close to happy. Okay, truth be told, I'm not all that happy. It's the dreams and all this knowing-things-that-I-shouldn't. It stalks me and beats me in the head. Like every time I think Shelby cheats on me. And I think she does this quite often. She fucks the pool guy. She screws her tennis pro. And she nails my best friend and business partner, Reed Bindler, every Wednesday night when she says she's at Bunco. I dream about all of this, and I am afraid that this is true. I know that Shelby loves me. But I keep having these dreams and they are burning me alive. Now, hold on to your seat because this is where things get really wacko. I think I know why Shelby cheats. I saw it one night after I rolled off her sweaty body and into a dream where her genes, her actual DNA, spoke to me. I know this sounds absolutely crazy, but they told me of their plan. They told me that they were promiscuous genes, programmed by nature to fuck around. Nothing against me, they said. Shelby just has slutty DNA. And from a survival-of-the-fittest perspective, this is a very good thing. Something about a wide range of spawnings adding variety to her own genes and thus ensuring their replication. This is how her genes told me it works: Shelby marries me, a cerebral provider. They actually called me that. A 'cerebral provider'? I mean, is that a compliment or is that a put-down? Anyhow, Shelby gets all her food and shelter needs met by me in spades. And our coupling will produce children who share my...