Clark

You are a twenty-four year old man standing over the toilet, listening in on the conversation directly above you, forehead pressed against the wall behind this toilet, above the open seat and it’s carpeted cover. You repeatedly flush, pulling the lever in spasms, watching the water vortex downward from the second floor bathroom of the house that you share with six other people, all of whom you regard largely as reprobates and pathetic hanger-ons, but they are people none-the-less that you accept as your house mates. This is not because you can’t afford a place on your own. Don’t be fooled. As an employed and middle-class gentleman who exited higher education during a relative up-swing in the nation’s economy, sporting an impressive Grade Point Average and glowing recommendations from professors and previous employers, all of which led to your starting salary being, well let’s call it generous, such that you have an impeccable jet black Isuzu Viacross, with fresh leather seats, the only vehicle in the driveway, and you are able to take frequent and splendid vacations to various popular retreats for/and with other young professionals, like Tahoe, Reykjavik, London, St. Martin etc. You could afford a residence without silverfish or a throbbing, antiquated, Dickensian heating system. No, it is not your financial situation that has stranded you here in the bathroom, flushing the toilet in frustration, trying to find solace in the simple reliability of a running water waste disposal system, but mostly your living here is just because of a deep, un-addressed (even to yourself until quite recently) fear of being alone with Her.

You walk stiffly down the front stairwell and into the dining room where She is draped across a hazel velvet love seat, thumbing through last month’s issue of Harper’s Bazaar. You sit yourself on the first half, in the open space left by the V of Her legs, with your hands on your own knees. You look forward and stare into the wall-drawing your house mate Bruce made, a repetitive face of an old girlfriend he says was named Victoria, changing only slightly in it’s five rows and seven columns, so that the colored pencil slowly depicts her evolution from utter anhedonia to a rational unhappiness.

“Mmmm. Come down here,” She says to you, muttering “here” like an urban townie, dropping the magazine and reaching up to pull you down to her from your shoulders so that the two of you form a double integral. She is spooning you.
Whenever you are prompted into the spooning it is assumed of you the position of spoon and She of the spooned. She always backs up against you, pulling and messing up your bed’s sheets when she does so. And you never know what to do with your arms and hands, feeling like a dead fish if you place them parallel to you and thusly between you and Her. And it hurts your shoulder if you lie on one arm, reaching above your head and drop the other onto your side.
You can feel the hot, damp flesh inside Her elbow on your t-shirt. She has rashes of red pinpricks on the backs of Her arms. You try to adjust your body a good inch away from Hers, to retain comfort but not represent distance to Her. Your back is prodded against Her continental shelf of a chest. You worry that She is looking at the back of your head. At your hair. You worry that it is near Her mouth. She sniffles. Her other hand is tucked under the weight of your torso into the seam of your trousers. You know that the webs of Her fingers sometimes sweat worse than Her palms. She intoxicates Herself with your body.

She tries to tickle the plantar surface of your feet with Her great toe. The first time She attempts this She does a little giggle, a literal “hee hee.” The phalange of Her toes align with yours and then She puts them between yours, but not quite, because your foot is larger and there are larger gaps between your toes than between Hers, enough so that Her little toe sort of stabs into your index toe.
“Hee hee.”

Indeed. And Her great toe is jaundice colored and crooked, almost looking broken and then improperly reset at the joint. On the medial side of Her little toe and on the top knuckles of Her index and middle toes is a psoriatic patch of white scaling flesh, some of it torn off by Her scratching through Her damp socks, revealing so pale and transparent a fresh skin that you can see the small branched blue lines of veins through it.

“... stop ...” you whisper.

“Hee hee.”

Desperate to distract yourself you say, “This couch isn’t mine.”

She sniffles. There is a pregnant pause between you. You think She is going to respond. And then She sniffles again.

“I always live with people who have their own furniture,” you say. “They inherit couches or entertainment centers or coffee tables. And then there’s no reason for me to buy any. Because the living room or dining room is furnished. They’re full.”

She still doesn’t say anything. You can feel Her hot, murky breath on your head. She sniffles again.

“I’m really at the point in my life where I should be buying some furniture. Like even a futon or something.”

She pulls Her hand up from your trousers and starts tracing it along your hip, where your shirt is sliding up. Her other hand drops the magazine on the hardwood floor. She traces with Her ring finger and then repeats over the same spot with Her index finger. Then She scissors them out and makes them do a little walk, back to the starting point.

She asks, “Did you know that Gruyere was Swiss?”

You do not say anything. She is now doing that spider thread trick where Her fingers were before. She rubs the curve of skin slowly and then pinches it and lifts, as if a thin web were stringing out of you.

“Because I didn’t. I always thought it was French (She pronounces it ‘Fraunche’), because it’s sort of a wet cheese. Like Brie. That’s why they use it to make fondue. That, and it has that nutty, spicy flavor. Because its made from whole milk. It retains it through the heating process. Oh! And you know what it goes really well with?”

You raise your eyebrows, even though She can’t see them from behind your head.

“I don’t know,” you say, “Maybe the whole furniture thing is just a way for me to feel better about living here. I feel like Charlie in Willie Wonka's Chocolate Factory. Everyone here is selfish and immature.”

“Caramelized shallots,” She informs you, “Well... shallots and like a Chardonnay. Or maybe a Sauvignon Blanc?”

This is a question. As if you would challenge Her, maybe adding a wine off of your own database. There is a sound like a rat springing against its cage that issues forth from the kitchen refrigerator.

You say, “This town is like that factory. It’s hostile. Almost like it hates us. I mean look: The weather is just brutal. People glare at each other cruelly on the street and in restaurants. Even the buildings: jagged roofs, dead colors, triple deckers everywhere. There are no parallel or perpendicular street arrangements. Just one-ways and traffic circles. Even the roads hate us.”

“If you are going to buy some new furniture you should get a chaise lounge. Maybe rattan? Or wicker? Actually a wicker loom with like a cappuccino finish would go great in your bedroom.”

“I’m not big on Swiss cheeses actually,” you roll over and look at Her now, “French is good though. I can go for French cheese. I could eat a whole wheel of Roquefort. And Brie. We could get some Sherry and Brie on Friday maybe.”

She kisses your forehead and it takes every ounce of your fortitude not to visibly cringe or reel away.

“This city isn’t that bad. I see happy people all the time. We’re happy.”

“Look,” you start, “Actually I want to talk to you about that...”

“And the infrastructure is like that because it’s so old. That’s all. It’s cultured with its age. That’s why it’s America’s most European city.”

“Lately, I’ve been feeling weird. Like I miss someone. Someone I haven’t met.”

“When you get the Sherry, make sure it’s sweet Sherry. The good stuff, not cooking Sherry. Okay?”

“When a man is in a relationship, even though he still glances occasionally at women on the street or bus, he’s not like an addict, that... that actually looks at women and then envisions bedding them, marrying them, maybe raising their children, growing old, dying with them.”

“Actually. Pick up some Gravenstein apples too. They’d pair well with the Brie. They don’t retain their flavor or texture as well as other apples when they’re refrigerated, but we’ll just eat them that night. So don’t buy too many.”

“It’s not like that whole ‘When It Rains It Pours’ adage. People say that women look at a man more when the man is in a relationship. Like there is this aura. Because the men are relaxed. At ease. They’re not on the prowl. These women feel like they’re not being hunted by a predator. His hungry eyes aren’t all over them. But maybe those men aren’t any different than they were before the relationship. What they feel impacts women. The women find it attractive, not that he isn’t watching them, but that he still is. He’s watching them and through his glance he has this profound guilt. He feels bad about potentially cheating on his girlfriend or his wife. Just by looking. Maybe those women, the ones receiving the gaze, maybe they love the guilt. Maybe they find the guilt sexy.”

“Some Northern Spies might be nice too. Maybe we could make a pie. They’re a great fall apple.”

“There are times when you’re talking? And I zone out. I know that I just don’t care because you’re repeating yourself or listing facts and items from some filing cabinet in your head. Is it you? I don’t know. I don’t think it’s like I see you beneath me in some way. Or am I just so arrogant and so full of my own ideas and self-importance that I can’t appreciate your life as being as full or interesting as my own?”

“Or actually... if it’s a U.S. Brie then get a Beaujolais.”

You wish you could muster the energy to slide over and walk to the window, staring out pensively, just to do something to emphasize the dramatic for Her. But you’re frozen with the responsibility of this. You want to be upstairs, in the solitude of your room. She won’t go in there if she doesn’t have to. She hates the cold. You have two Duracraft rotary fans blasting, one propping up the window sill, the other on a one-hundred-and-eighty degree rotation just over your twin bed frame.

“If I get a Beaujolais,” you say, “we can try out the Bohemian decanter I bought last week. I just love crystal. I want to collect it. God. I feel like crying here... It goes nice on my Teak low boy. Crystal. Don’t you think?"

Mercifully, She retracts herself into the fetal position, until the only part of Her still touching you is the tip of Her knees on the small of your back.

“I love... I love your decanter,” She whispers. It sounds like a bubble of saliva spreads across the inside of Her mouth and pops.

“Thanks. Really. But see, maybe you’re not listening to me here. When a man realizes that other women get off on his guilt, he pursues it. It makes him feel invulnerable. He feels so energized by their acknowledgement, even if it is for his negative actions. Or not even actions but imagining those actions and then masochistically mentally punishing himself for them. Do you see? He finds himself striving to be a whipping boy to it. And so he looks at his actual relationship, the one he’s creating all this guilt over in the first place. He realizes it isn’t permanent. So he begins to physically cling to this girlfriend. And she in turn clings to him. Because they have to reaffirm to one another that they are in it for the long haul because they aren’t ready or willing to be alone. He hopes that all this physical contact will reaffirm and fool her into believing the long haul is going on, it’s happening, just so he won’t have to be alone. Because without her he can’t feel guilty for obsessing over strangers on the train and then derive satisfaction over getting slanted gazes for that guilt just being written plain as day all over his pathetic face. Without her he’s just another single guy gawking at women.”

You roll over on to your back because you want to make sure She’s engaged and attentive without actually looking at Her face. You can hear shallow breaths in your right ear, so you feel you can continue.

“So he’s worried this constant physical confirmation for her will get more and more flagrant until they start breaking social mores and even maybe federal laws with some totally inappropriate public displays of affection. This would ruin their goals. Right? I mean performing odd acrobatic gropes, that make their friends and acquaintances exceedingly uncomfortable, until it’s obvious to everybody that they don’t actually love or care for one another. Everyone will say they’re just afraid of being alone. Everyone will know the long haul is a lie.”

Still nothing from Her end. But you’re striding now. You don’t feel the need to run to your room anymore.

“Did you hear me? I’m talking with you. Not at you.”

“I like to be talked at,” She says immediately, “And sometimes I just want to be shadowed in you. You’re important.”

“Oh.”

“And incidentally, Bohemian crystal is beautiful. I don’t know how all those Czechs make it, but it is exquisite stuff. The other day I saw a little crystal figurine of a dolphin jumping through a hoop. Darling. You know with a little ball on its nose? It was marvelous. Somehow they made the crystal different colors so the dolphin was blue, the hoop was green and the ball was blue, a different hue of blue. But it was all one piece of crystal.”

At this, you finally sit up. A moment later, so does She, next to you. You reach around and grab the right side of Her head, pulling it towards you. You can see the perfect weight of Her chest through Her white V-neck blouse. Her breasts hang slightly to the side with heft. There are little decorative moth ball looking things hanging from strings along the noticeably low cut of the blouse. Her cleavage is such that you can see not just the descending, but also the beginnings of an ascending curve, one that may lead to the dark sunspot of an areola, just vaguely visible under the transparent cloth. And with a warm sense of closure, you lightly kiss Her slightly freckled forehead.