November 2011
5 posts
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....
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...
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....
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...
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...