help me with the dialogue...

Christian Fazio
Advanced Fiction Writing
Tony Barnstone
2/20/2007


Help with dialogue...i want the guy to seem bewildered to emphasize his feeling of uselessness while her to be needy. the story is about expectations and dissapointment

Hercules

Hercules was the name she gave. It rested on her lips when she slept at night and was there when she woke up–and woke me up. Hercules you saved me, she’d whisper, sliding her hand under my undershirt, kissing me with her morning breath. “Hercules, I need you.
Hercules lets have breakfast. Hercules you need to protect me from the Harpies and the wraiths. Flex those muscles one more time like I know you can.” I’d laugh at this and she would laugh too, and we would whisper about nothing until we fell asleep at night. These were the moments I loved, the ones I held and the ones I tried to remember. I would always ask her why she called me this and she would laugh, “you’re my Greek god, didn’t you know?” and I would laugh too, wondering what she meant.

On nights when she would come home shaking, pale and skinny she would sulk on the couch while I watched television. Her words were soft and delicate like her fingers or her eyes.
“Hercules my boss is an asshole, make him go away.”
“I cant.”
“Was that not you that vanquished monsters in ancient lands?”
“I guess.”
“Well vanquish this one, ok?.” I would smile and so would she and we would have dinner, and talk. Listening to the walls of the tiny apartment and the dripping of the sink, we would sit and eat, while I secretly admired her.

On nights we would lay in bed, she would weave for me her childhood. Her pain her loss and how she wanted it to fade away. Though she never said it explicitly
“Hercules, do you remember when you saved me from the dragon?”
“No.”
“It happened around the time of my parents divorce, remember?”
“Refresh my memory.”
“My parents were in the kitchen screaming or whatever and a dragon came and swooped me away.
“Oooh...maybe...its coming back now.”
“ You broke its neck! Remember...right before the cops came.”
“Why did the cops come?”
“They took my dad Away...But that’s not the important part...you broke the dragons neck!”
“I don’t think that really happened.”
“I know, but I wanted it to.” She would get angry after that. Punch me in the shoulder and ask me why I didn’t play along. I would like to tell her I was afraid to, but I didn’t. I shrugged. Told her I didn’t no how–as she sighed and rolled towards the wall. On nights like these I dreamed about how I could make myself better, like she wanted. Be the boyfriend she always claimed I was.

At nights she’d spend at her house in New Jersey she would call me crying. “I hate it here Hercules, take me away to Las Vegas with my father, to Arabia, to ancient Greece where we could be Gods. I would sigh into the receiver and whisper, “I cant, or I never could...I can only be here and listen to you.” Sometimes this was enough...sometimes it wasn’t. The night she showed her mother the new tattoo she called me and explained in choked whispers.
“She hit me...she hit me hard...I fucking thought she’d like it and she hit me and told me to get out...
“Why?”
“She hates me!”

“I doubt it...she was probably just surprised or something, you know.”
I don’t know what to do, I don’t know where to go...I feel like you’re a million miles away.”
“I am...right now...I’m in Brooklyn, you’re in Philli.”
“Do something.”
“I’m sure Amanda or some other friend will take you in.”
“No.”
“I don’t know what else to say.” she sighed.
“Maybe...”
“Maybe?”
“Maybe, Hercules your not as strong as I thought.”