wear looser underwear to promote sperm
motility and I—exploded.
I could hand to Bible or at least Haggadah swear on all of that, but the
truth was—we weren’t having sex anymore. We weren’t trying anymore.
Not even trying to try again. Trying to sneak in a jerkoff sessh on the toilet.
“Don’t mixup the toothbrushes.” But both of them were green, which,
because the brushes sold in twopacks are always different colors, meant Rach had bought
two packs—“I’m not provoking you.”
Cig out the window. No bourbon after toothpaste.
Rach and I had been touch and go, no touch and yes go—since fall?
check the archives—Rosh Hashanah/Yom Kipper 2010? Conjugally making each
other’s lives unlivable but getting off on the correspondence. We’d
flirted briefly, on chat, over email, another Meany suggestion, and so it was innocent,
or it felt that way. Opening different accounts under different names, getting back in
touch with each other and so ourselves by communicating our fantasies, her writing me
something salacious or what for her passed as salacious as sexrach1980 or cuntextual (an
injoke), as rachilingus or bindme69me (a cybernym I picked for her), but then just a
moment later writing something serious again about her thyroid hypochondria or the
decision of which dehumidifier to purchase, from her main account, her work addy
identity.
We’d even taken to posting personal ads on a
personal ads site and then responding to what we guessed were the
other’s—not following through unless—I’m sure she never
followed through.
It was early or still late when the ring woke me up—it was darkness
and the only light was the phone, which displayed either number or time, never both. The
ringing stayed in my head. I’d been drunk, I was still drunk, there was a cig
burn at the cuticle of my middle finger. I never turned my phone off, when we were
together and even apart, because Rach still called with crises and if I didn’t
pick up, there would be wetter blood and trauma. She called between home and office,
between meetings, at lunch’s beginning and end, from the lockers at the gym,
between elliptical slots, before and after freeweights, in the showers at Equinox with
her newer improveder phone wrapped in a showercap and kept on a ledge above the
sprinkler on speaker, from the supplement aisle at Herbalife, while smoothieing in the
kitchen, while abed dreamdialing. This flippity phone Rach purchased and programmed and
forced me to keep charged and carry at all times, vibrating my crotch—for
potency’s sake I wasn’t supposed to carry it in that pocket—or
intoning L’chah Dodi, from the Shabbos eve service, her choice.
Abandonment issues, resolving in engulfment. In stalkiness, if a husband
can be stalked by a wife. Rach’s msgs as shrill as the matingcall of whatever
locustal species mates as foreplay to the woman smiting, devouring, the man. prsnlty
dsrdr is how I’d abbreviate for txt.
This tone, though, wasn’t anything prayerful, just the default, and
though I couldn’t program, I could still recognize the digits.
But Aar didn’t want to talk. He said, “Let’s
meet?” and I said, “Let’s,” and he said, “Just come
across or, better, I’ll come to you,” and I said, because he didn’t
have to have all the grindy geary details of my situation, “Best is for me to do
the traveling—noon?”
He said, “Now.”
(212) faded to clock, 6AM.
Manhattan was accessible by train—I’d have to change only
once—by bus—I’d have to change all of twice—just as I was
about to blow up the bike, the phone resumed its default panic.
“Take a cab,” Aar said, “I’ll pay for
it.”
Cabs in Ridgewood weren’t for the hailing. There was never anythingyellow not lotted. But up the block was a gypsy service and
I’d like to be able to say I’m fictionalizing—they took their time
serving me
motility and I—exploded.
I could hand to Bible or at least Haggadah swear on all of that, but the
truth was—we weren’t having sex anymore. We weren’t trying anymore.
Not even trying to try again. Trying to sneak in a jerkoff sessh on the toilet.
“Don’t mixup the toothbrushes.” But both of them were green, which,
because the brushes sold in twopacks are always different colors, meant Rach had bought
two packs—“I’m not provoking you.”
Cig out the window. No bourbon after toothpaste.
Rach and I had been touch and go, no touch and yes go—since fall?
check the archives—Rosh Hashanah/Yom Kipper 2010? Conjugally making each
other’s lives unlivable but getting off on the correspondence. We’d
flirted briefly, on chat, over email, another Meany suggestion, and so it was innocent,
or it felt that way. Opening different accounts under different names, getting back in
touch with each other and so ourselves by communicating our fantasies, her writing me
something salacious or what for her passed as salacious as sexrach1980 or cuntextual (an
injoke), as rachilingus or bindme69me (a cybernym I picked for her), but then just a
moment later writing something serious again about her thyroid hypochondria or the
decision of which dehumidifier to purchase, from her main account, her work addy
identity.
We’d even taken to posting personal ads on a
personal ads site and then responding to what we guessed were the
other’s—not following through unless—I’m sure she never
followed through.
It was early or still late when the ring woke me up—it was darkness
and the only light was the phone, which displayed either number or time, never both. The
ringing stayed in my head. I’d been drunk, I was still drunk, there was a cig
burn at the cuticle of my middle finger. I never turned my phone off, when we were
together and even apart, because Rach still called with crises and if I didn’t
pick up, there would be wetter blood and trauma. She called between home and office,
between meetings, at lunch’s beginning and end, from the lockers at the gym,
between elliptical slots, before and after freeweights, in the showers at Equinox with
her newer improveder phone wrapped in a showercap and kept on a ledge above the
sprinkler on speaker, from the supplement aisle at Herbalife, while smoothieing in the
kitchen, while abed dreamdialing. This flippity phone Rach purchased and programmed and
forced me to keep charged and carry at all times, vibrating my crotch—for
potency’s sake I wasn’t supposed to carry it in that pocket—or
intoning L’chah Dodi, from the Shabbos eve service, her choice.
Abandonment issues, resolving in engulfment. In stalkiness, if a husband
can be stalked by a wife. Rach’s msgs as shrill as the matingcall of whatever
locustal species mates as foreplay to the woman smiting, devouring, the man. prsnlty
dsrdr is how I’d abbreviate for txt.
This tone, though, wasn’t anything prayerful, just the default, and
though I couldn’t program, I could still recognize the digits.
But Aar didn’t want to talk. He said, “Let’s
meet?” and I said, “Let’s,” and he said, “Just come
across or, better, I’ll come to you,” and I said, because he didn’t
have to have all the grindy geary details of my situation, “Best is for me to do
the traveling—noon?”
He said, “Now.”
(212) faded to clock, 6AM.
Manhattan was accessible by train—I’d have to change only
once—by bus—I’d have to change all of twice—just as I was
about to blow up the bike, the phone resumed its default panic.
“Take a cab,” Aar said, “I’ll pay for
it.”
Cabs in Ridgewood weren’t for the hailing. There was never anythingyellow not lotted. But up the block was a gypsy service and
I’d like to be able to say I’m fictionalizing—they took their time
serving me
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