expected and to sit down. We sit on an old vinyl couch and she leaves the room. It is a terrible room, with magazines piled everywhere and furniture that could have come from a motel. We don’t look at each other or anything that is reflective. I stare at my own knees.
For a long time we don’t know where she is, and then, slowly, I can feel that she is standing right behind us. I realize this just before she pulls her fingernails through my hair. I didn’t think she was the sexual type, but now I see that I don’t know anything. It has begun, and every second we are closer to the end. I say to myself that long nails equal wealth; the idea of wealth always calms me down. I pretend I smell perfume. What if we all used expensive shampoo. What if we were kidding all the time and cared about nothing. My head relaxes, and I do the exercise where you imagine you are turning into honey. My mind slows down to a rate that would not be considered functional for any other job. I am alive only one out of every four seconds, I register only fifteen minutes out of the hour. I see she is standing before us in a slip and it is not really clean and I die. I see that Pip is taking off her shoes and I die. I see that I am squeezing a nipple and I die.
On the long ride home, neither of us said anything. We were kites flying in opposite directions attached to strings held by one hand. The money we had just made was also in that hand. Pip stopped to get a bag of chips on the way home, and now we had $1.99 less than our rent. It seemed obvious now that we should have charged more. Pip put the money in an envelope and wrote Mr. Hilderbrand on it. Then we stood there, apart, bruised and smelling like Leanne. We turned away from each other and set about tightening all the tiny ropes of our misery. I ran a bath. Just before I stepped in the tub, I heard the front door close and froze midstep; she was gone. Sometimes she did this. In the moments when other couples would fight or come together, she left me. With one foot in the bath, I stood waiting for her to return. I waited an unreasonably long time, long enough to realize that she wouldn’t be back tonight. But what if I waited it out, what if I stood here naked until she returned? And then, just as she walked in the front door, I could finish the gesture, squatting in the then-cold water. I had done strange things like this before. I had hidden under cars for hours, waiting to be found; I had written the same word seven thousand times attempting to alchemize time. I studied my position in the bathtub. The foot in the water was already wrinkly. How would I feel when night fell? And when she came home, how long would it take her to look in the bathroom? Would she understand that time had stopped while she was gone? And even if she did realize that I had done this impossible feat for her, what then? She was never thankful or sympathetic. I washed quickly, with exaggerated motions that warded off paralysis.
I paced around our tiny room. It didn’t even occur to me to go outside; I had no idea how to navigate the city without her. There was only one thing I couldn’t do when she was with me, so after a while, I lay down on the couch and did this. I closed my eyes. In all the well-worn memories, we were between the ages of six and eight. We were under the covers on her mom’s foldout sofa, or on the top bunk of my bunk bed, or in a tent in her backyard. Every location was potent in its own way. No matter where we were, it began when Pip whispered, Let’s mate. She scooted on top of me; we clamped our arms around each other’s backs. We rubbed ourselves against each other’s small hip bones, trying to achieve friction. When we did it right, the feeling came on like a head rush of the whole body.
But just before I got there, I noticed a clicking noise in the air. It was distractingly present, quietly insistent. I looked up. Above my head, our five Chinese paper lanterns were slightly rocking
For a long time we don’t know where she is, and then, slowly, I can feel that she is standing right behind us. I realize this just before she pulls her fingernails through my hair. I didn’t think she was the sexual type, but now I see that I don’t know anything. It has begun, and every second we are closer to the end. I say to myself that long nails equal wealth; the idea of wealth always calms me down. I pretend I smell perfume. What if we all used expensive shampoo. What if we were kidding all the time and cared about nothing. My head relaxes, and I do the exercise where you imagine you are turning into honey. My mind slows down to a rate that would not be considered functional for any other job. I am alive only one out of every four seconds, I register only fifteen minutes out of the hour. I see she is standing before us in a slip and it is not really clean and I die. I see that Pip is taking off her shoes and I die. I see that I am squeezing a nipple and I die.
On the long ride home, neither of us said anything. We were kites flying in opposite directions attached to strings held by one hand. The money we had just made was also in that hand. Pip stopped to get a bag of chips on the way home, and now we had $1.99 less than our rent. It seemed obvious now that we should have charged more. Pip put the money in an envelope and wrote Mr. Hilderbrand on it. Then we stood there, apart, bruised and smelling like Leanne. We turned away from each other and set about tightening all the tiny ropes of our misery. I ran a bath. Just before I stepped in the tub, I heard the front door close and froze midstep; she was gone. Sometimes she did this. In the moments when other couples would fight or come together, she left me. With one foot in the bath, I stood waiting for her to return. I waited an unreasonably long time, long enough to realize that she wouldn’t be back tonight. But what if I waited it out, what if I stood here naked until she returned? And then, just as she walked in the front door, I could finish the gesture, squatting in the then-cold water. I had done strange things like this before. I had hidden under cars for hours, waiting to be found; I had written the same word seven thousand times attempting to alchemize time. I studied my position in the bathtub. The foot in the water was already wrinkly. How would I feel when night fell? And when she came home, how long would it take her to look in the bathroom? Would she understand that time had stopped while she was gone? And even if she did realize that I had done this impossible feat for her, what then? She was never thankful or sympathetic. I washed quickly, with exaggerated motions that warded off paralysis.
I paced around our tiny room. It didn’t even occur to me to go outside; I had no idea how to navigate the city without her. There was only one thing I couldn’t do when she was with me, so after a while, I lay down on the couch and did this. I closed my eyes. In all the well-worn memories, we were between the ages of six and eight. We were under the covers on her mom’s foldout sofa, or on the top bunk of my bunk bed, or in a tent in her backyard. Every location was potent in its own way. No matter where we were, it began when Pip whispered, Let’s mate. She scooted on top of me; we clamped our arms around each other’s backs. We rubbed ourselves against each other’s small hip bones, trying to achieve friction. When we did it right, the feeling came on like a head rush of the whole body.
But just before I got there, I noticed a clicking noise in the air. It was distractingly present, quietly insistent. I looked up. Above my head, our five Chinese paper lanterns were slightly rocking
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