Story Slam, November 2011 #2

Words: saddle, stipulate, debonair

She smelled like a saddle. Like leather that's been oiled and oiled and thrown over the dusty coat of a living animal. She was debonair like a man is debonair. She was pressed cotton and shined shoes. Shoes your spit would bubble on. Shoes that squeaked on polished floors. She was full of stipulations. She would only eat open-faced grilled cheese sandwiches. She would only eat open-faced anything, and then she would only eat half. She always took leftovers. She always made the server package her food, preferably in tinfoil and paper and plastic. She demanded. She stood up straight. Her bones would bend but never break. But she'd break yours.

Story Slam, November 2011

Theme: Mercy

She was limp as a blue book, pages with no cover. She quivered when the wind blew.

She relaxed easily into couches, chairs, the corner of a bar, reached her arm across to play with the bartender's cufflinks. Put her starfish hand on men's backs until they moved away.

She was liquid, sleepy, her eyelids always low and shadowed, her movements never quick or jerky. She poured herself into a cab, onto the street, into the bar, onto a stool, and a different man bought each of her drinks. She spun her earrings, the beads of her necklace, her hair.

She drank, and drank until last call night after night. And at last call every night, the bartender touched her arm, her wrist, gave her water instead of gin, and then he drove her home.

Story Slam, October 2011

Sweet Sticky Thing

The honey drips slowly from the counter. She watches it drip, watches the sun light it sun-colored, watches it stretch from a drop to a string to a thread, lengthen and break and drop into a circle of light on the formica. She puts her finger in, dots it, smears it, watches another one start to lengthen, about to fall. Watches it all fall, all separate. Her finger newly sticky with light and furred with dust. The Ohio Players honey record cover, the woman dripping honey onto her naked body, her waist unreasonably slim.

And she wants to be that woman, that body, desire in female form. She takes the honey off the counter, squirts it on the floor, puts full hands in and draws it into wide circles that reach broader, broader, to the counters on either side. From the refrigerator she pulls out shelves and food – lettuce, which she drops leaf by leaf and crushes with her bare heels, lunch meat and slices of cheese and a can of beer that she shakes up and sprays. She wonders if she will ever meet that Ohio Players woman, if that woman is even alive anymore, or if she was ever alive.

She opens cabinets, shakes out cocoa and jelly, paprika and parsley and flour. And soon she has thrown it all out, all over the floor, thrown out being neat, being clean, being a person who does not waste food, who won’t cook anything too complicated. Soon she has become that Ohio Players woman, waist slimmed, legs lengthened, hard muscles inserted into her arms. Hair grown wild and huge. She puts on her coat, she takes her keys, and she leaves her kitchen to the ants and roaches, to the landlord, nosy neighbors, to anyone remaining responsible. Because she is not responsible, anymore.