Poshlost

lap dance

It was my third night working and you came into the club just when I started to feel tipsy. I was scrambling off the stage, stuffing singles in my purse by the fist-full, and I you swaggered through the door. You wore crisp office clothes and a half-smirk, I wore a sequined bikini and six-inch heels. We walked to the black-curtained booths and your palm slipped around the small of my back. I’d known you just two weeks but somehow we pretended this was normal, you paying me to gyrate on your lap in the dark of a ritzy strip club for six minutes.

I kissed your neck as I danced, brushed your mouth, bit your lip. I said I wasn’t supposed to do that on the clock and you kissed me back frantically, as if it was your last chance. I laughed, twisting my hips into yours, but my palms were getting sweaty and I gripped the booth’s slick vinyl siding. My stomach sunk when the second song ended, knowing I’d be trapped there for the next hour while you went home to your girlfriend. You told me later she noticed a trace of glitter that had rubbed off onto your skin. She grinned, said you smelled like stripper, and thought nothing more of it.

This was only the beginning. But you never came back.

body shots

We were baking brownies in your kitchen, waiting for your girlfriend to get off work, and the evening was easing into that hour when alcoholics tell themselves it’s time to start drinking. I folded chocolate chips into the batter and licked a little off the stirring spoon. I watched you eyeing me like expensive steak, and the June air between us became suffocating, heavy with sex. One of us said something suggestive and suddenly we were in your bed. You pulled my shirt over my shoulders urgently and poured chilled liquor down my torso, catching it in your mouth down by my hipbones. It was thrilling and ridiculous. But then your cell phone rang and we jumped up awkwardly, adjusting our clothes. I remember a trickle of cold vodka seeping into the waistband of my shorts as we slunk back into the kitchen.

the worst

I thought the worst would be the speechlessness, the sick sadness that doubled me over like a punch in the stomach during that long-distance phone call. I thought the worst would be coming home, uneaten meals alone, picking up my things from your apartment, carrying boxes to my car with shaky hands. This would be easy if I wanted to ruin you, rip your heart apart like a bad movie, screw you over. This would be easy if I wanted to smash your band equipment and slash your tires.

But this is much worse because we’re supposed to be grown-ups. It’s worse because you’re the one who fucked it, up and I’m still aching like a lame teenager. It’s not film-noir sexy and desperate when I’m unshowered, acting helpless to a soundtrack of sad songs, and haven’t left bed since Wednesday. 

Beach Series: Maui

Maybe it was the first and worst time, when I kissed your sunburnt neck on the beach, in the tropic Spring heat, and you said I want this forever. And I suddenly felt terrible, like drowning, like a premonition of death, because in that split second you meant it. That was where we began, but maybe that was where we were thrown overboard. Maybe you swam to shore alone.

Maybe we were sweeter when you believed you could keep feeding me easy secrets. Maybe that was true when we played our game that numb Summer, before the shocking heartlessness of cold weather. Maybe you overwhelmed me with elegance and pear brandy and sexy irreverence. Maybe I was a mirage, sizzling into nonexistence when you tried to make me real. 

Beach Series: Hug Point

When we drove to the beach, I packed a bottle of Riesling and hard-boiled eggs and you drove. We left the city in late morning and the road simmered with heat, weaving through steep hills and evergreens. We passed the Elderberry Diner with its stuffed bear and rough truckers, and I told you that my family used to stop there every summer, like a ritual, like a religion, but we did not stop.

We drove until we smelled the ocean and we were drunk on sea breeze, we were drunk on discovery and loving each other, and we drove south to Hug Point. My swimsuit itched against my hipbone skin, I traced my fingers down the sweat on your neck, and in that moment I was recklessly yours, desperate for your affection.