Friday, November 22, 2002

HE FEELS LIKE SNOW against my bare skin. I'm flat-out naked on a moonlit night and the flakes settle, one at a time, each a silent kiss. But I'm not cold. The warmth inside is spreading outside. Fingers on my tummy and when I open my eyes to watch them dance, I see long yellow nails veined with black, the talons of a hawk. Then I murmur and rewind a bit, see hands again, the gentle caress of a lover wandering north. His palm cups my breast and lifts it, forcing out a quick sigh that suddenly sounds like a snore. Stop. Rewind. It's heaven again, something pervasive, something I expect to never understand until I open my eyes and see his face, weathered, calm, with eyes that stare like they don't know how to blink. I lean in to kiss his mouth and he becomes someone else. Willard Scott, the television meteorologist. I see hairs on his earlobes that shy at my awareness of them. They curl back into their follicles, disappearing as the smooth-skinned lover returns. Everything tightens. Suddenly, I am mounted by a large possum and there are other possums, smaller ones with pink eyes and little fleshy snouts burrowing into the corners of the comforter which, at first, is covered in floppy palm fronds and then, just a moment later, one giant red polka dot. I twitch to get away, make a sharp barking sound. The soft man comes back, behind me now, almost inside me. The stubble on his chin is fine and barely scrapes against my neck. I whisper—please—but there's no volume in it. A baby possum scurries across the floor, under the bed. Guttural moan, the friction of twisting sheets. There's hot breath at my ear and it smells old and fetid, like the river in summer. Thrashing, more twitching. When he enters me, I snap my head around and go rigid. That's when I wake up. I want to see his face, but I'm breathing so hard and my armpits are damp and the room feels entirely too empty.

Sunday, December 1, 2002

IF I SAID YES, and he took me out, offering me fine port wines and light puff pastries, would I mind if his face oozed motor oil? If it dripped from his eyes and ears onto the restaurant china? Because I think it did. Would I scream if he took me home and bedded me, just lay there like my best friend, close beside me in the dark of a strange new room, and I felt the trickle down my neck? Because I didn't. I reached across and made my advance. I filed my fingers through his chest hair and kissed his slick body until my lips went numb. And in the morning, yes, he was gone, and the sheets were too white, and I was mostly asleep, but the scent of bacon grease from the kitchen was real, so real and frustrating that there was no choice but to masturbate.


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