by Retha Powers
“P” she says, “P is for Peacock Flounder. S is for Stinging Sea Cauliflower. T is for Throbbing Pink Moon Jellies. A is for the Atlantic Spotted Dolphin.D is for Farming Damsel Fish.”
They drown in each other’s language. Their play is a nautical loveland and they are worthy navigators reveling in each other’s wakes. They tickle each other’s bellies with their own little pectoral fins. They spin around that single blade of grass like ripe young maidens around a maypole.
Mrs. Sweet Pussy is coming like an old well-traveled estuary: a little fresh water, a little salt, a little oyster, and a little mother-of-pearl.
“Are you my little one?” she asks. “Are you my Sausage Boy?”
Sausage Boy is too somewhere else to answer. For the first time in her life she is wishing she had a penis, a dick, a hard stiff stick. She is having what Mrs. Sweet Pussy calls a phantom. She is like an amputee who still feels the thick throbbing limb years after it’s been removed.
They don’t know each other at all, yet they know each other very well. Sausage Boy already knows how much Mrs. Sweet Pussy likes to be fucked up her ass, and Mrs. Sweet Pussy knows that what Sausage Boy needs most, more than an apprenticeship and more than a Ph.D, is a mouthful of mammary glands rammed into every crevice of her throat.
So late one night in the kitchen Mrs. Sweet Pussy hoists herself onto the counter and opens her blouse as a treat. She takes out a breast and offers Sausage Boy a feeding. Sweet Pussy teases Sausage Boy, passing the hard raised mound too quickly through his lips. He clamps down, but Mrs. Sweet Pussy pulls it away, then spanks his cheeks with the tight, tiny sand dune masquerading as a nipple at the edge of her breast. Sausage Boy lifts her by her ass and spins her like a sea cucumber down onto the warm wooden floor.
He’s trying to put his knee in her, and Mrs. Sweet Pussy doesn’t mind at all. She can take a knee, she thinks, a knee, a foot, a leg, an elbow, an anything. Every part of her wraps around his torso, as if she is a giant monstrous squid. Mrs. Sausage Pussy Sweet Boy Boy Sausage Sausage Fingers Fingers Pussy, the older woman thinks, sweating, disoriented. Mother Bitch Cunt My Little Whore Filth Sin Devil in a Brown Body, he answers.
Sausage Boy is all apuddle. He feels his phantom. Mrs. Sweet Pussy throbs on her own accord. She’s pulling every spare molecule of oxygen deep into her own wet cavern. Her thick purple ink syrups their entire world.
The best part about the affair is that they are pretending they know each other better than this. They are not ready to admit that what is actually happening is that they have never fucked anybody’s body this way before. They have never let anyone in this way. And the joy of it all, the unleashed boredom finally taking its authoritative way, is a greater pleasure far exceeding any salty word or properly seasoned whip. Better than coming. Coming would be incomplete without the confession of each other’s private little historical dissatisfactions.
This is the Game of Life, but Sausage Boy thinks it’s called Love. This is a Trick of the Wrists, but Sausage Fingers thinks it’s called Happily Ever After. He wants to believe in something more than a warm wet slightly sugared strawberry. But Mrs. Sweet Pussy is only willing to believe the game is called How We Get Through the Night.
Mrs. Sweet Pussy is bored and likes her Sausage Boy because he is honest about his needs. He comes to her office one a week and gladly writes a check for her services because he is getting what he really came for: not a better understanding of his issues, but the actual thing he has wanted all along: a Mother, a Mamere, a Mamon to fuck. All Mrs. Sweet Pussy has to do is open her legs, and he falls right back in.
They pretend they are faggots meeting in the woods. She drops her skirt, wraps her arms around their imaginary tree, ass exposed, puckered and beaming for the world, and he’s in, way in. So in that Mrs. Sweet Pussy can feel him coming in, up, through her mouth.
He’s the best client she’s ever had. He learns more about his issues in one session than ten years of psychoanalysis could ever teach him.
But Sausage Boy only thinks about Mrs. Sweet Pussy in relation to himself. My Pussy. My own. Sweet Pussy is just what he needs to help him forget that vast howling canyon in the middle of his body. She is exactly what he doesn’t know he desires: an elaborate fantasy to fill his gaping motherless wound. Sausage Boy only wants to see Mrs. Sweet Pussy as his own personal convenience store. She is a microwave turned to its highest setting. Opened twenty-four hours a day. A place to stop for uncomplicated coffee, condoms, and high-octane fuel.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Sweet Pussy has her own Monument Valley to contend with. She’s ignored herself for so long, so busy milking herself for the world, that she’s developed an art, a career, of not listening to her own voice. She doesn’t know the wordno. She doesn’t even know the lettern. Her yes is automatic, something she can’t help. Her breasts leak milk at the very first glance of a mouth.
Mother. Mamere. Mamon. Sweet Pussy.
Until Sausage Boy, Mrs. Sweet Pussy has never told anyone that she wants to be tied up and left there. She has never been able to admit to all of those safe professional women with whom she has traveled, taken home, and purchased property that what she wants is rough and simple. Cell to cell. Southern, or not at all.
Mrs. Sweet Pussy is trying to admit that she is dying to be fucked properly, serviced regularly, lubricated on a ritual basis. She is trying to work her way up to telling her perfect, old-school, lefty girlfriend that what she needs right now—more than safety, more than feminist rhetoric, more than a progressive presidential candidate and a long-term monogamous relationship—is someone, anyone, with a tightly packed fist who does not want to get to know her.
Sausage Boy has never known a mother. Mrs. Sweet Pussy has never been a child. Sausage Fingers is trying to remember. Mrs. Sweet Pussy sees immeasurable value in forgetting. Sausage Fingers is a little boy trapped inside a young woman’s body. Mrs. Sweet Pussy is an older woman trying for one last time to get the animal in her right.
Three months later and their fucking gets ruined by their discovery of lovemaking. They slow down, having remembered how to think. Their gestures become complex. Intellectual engagement and elaborate calisthenics are not enough to keep them afloat.
Their boat is only one solitary plank of wood. And they have splinters and mother-of-pearl chafed into their asses. They are sinking like two large volcanic stones, and all they know how to do well together is fuck like young randy dolphins playing Grown Up beneath an ancient coral reef. Six moons later, when Sausage Boy’s apprenticeship is over, they see each other on the street, but they do not speak. Only their bodies know that brackish and salty language.
Mrs. Sweet Pussy is walking with her wife and grandkids. One of the children pretends he is playing volleyball with a purple balloon. Sausage Boy sees the balloon and remembers her thick dark ink. Sausage Boy is with her partner. They are carrying signs on their way to a rally. The girlfriend has no idea that the graying, older woman walking toward them, dripping in coral and freshwater pearls, has fucked her partner on several occasions in positions she herself is too landlocked to imagine.
They all pass each other like two friendly schools of fishes, the air around them mingling like warm currents in a small tide pool. Mrs. Sweet Pussy nods, Hello, and thinks that both women combined are younger than her own daughter. Sausage Boy nods back, like a dolphin pecking with his snout. Mamere. Mamon. My Pussy.
They don’t know each other at all. They fuck each other very well. Their bodies have a secret language, a private little alphabet.Mother is the first letter.Father is a dead language they laugh about no longer speaking.Pussyis a letter like ans or at. They use it all the time.
The young woman’s mouth smells like warm tortillas and her fingers feel like tightly packed blood sausage. The older woman’s breasts are like a million mothers. She is a walking ocean of sweet warm milk.
Orca.
Pectoral Fin.
Throbbing Pink Moon Jelly.
Hawk’s Beak Turtle.
Sargasm Weed.
Stinging Sea Cauliflower.
Damsel Fish.
Peacock Flounder.
Stingray.
A jellyfish.
If Only
_________________
by Krystal G. Williams
It’s Wednesday, six-thirty A.M. Summer solstice—the longest day of the year. The sun has only been up for an hour or so, but already the dreaded Houston humidity has kicked in. I don’t mind. Not really. I hardly notice the slick cool trickles of sweat making random tracks down my back. Perspiration beads across my forehead, settles in little droplets underneath my nose and across my top lip. If I stay here much longer, I’ll melt. But I don’t intend to be here long. No, not long at all. I’m on a mission, with no time for mistakes or delays.
Sounds of summer are all around me, chirping, buzzing, leaves rustling at the barest hint of a breeze. I can tell that it’s going to be another beautiful day in Memorial Park. I sit at the far edge of the parking lot—car windows tinted as dark as the law allows are partially lowered to give me a good view of the area. From where I sit, I can see the die-hard athletes preparing for their morning run. The savvy ones go in pairs, with either a partner or a faithful, if not willing, pet. If I listen really closely, I can hear the snap-snap of a leather leash to make the less willing more so, or the crunch of a well-deserved doggie treat given after a drag around the park.
The not-so-smart single runners stretch to make themselves limber. These joggers will be moving faster than the ones who’ve paired up. They’re racing as much against the probability that they’ll be singled out for mugging as they are racing against the rising sun with its heat-sapping strength.
“Looks like it’s gonna be another scorcher.”
A bike patrol officer coasts by. The sounds of gears changing, chain rattling, draw my eye. He gives me a half nod. I nod back, then fan my face with my hand. Three months’ worth of recognition in that nod. He’s seen me here before. It only took a couple of times of me stepping out of the car, going through the motions of the runner-style stretches and warm-up exercises, before duty-honed suspicion turned to pleasant surprise at seeing me here every Wednesday so diligently.
What am I doing here? What is my mission? Certainly not to run. Diligence, yes. But not for the benefit of my own body. It’s another body that I’m waiting and watching for. It’s a body that I’ve come to know and love just as dearly as my own. Stalking is such an ugly word. And I’m sure Mr. Bike Patrol Officer wouldn’t nod so kindly to me if he thought that’s what I was doing. I prefer not to use that word. Diligent admiration sounds so much better.
I check my watch. 6:42 A.M. Three more minutes and, yes… finally. Here he comes. Right on schedule. I get back into my car and slide farther into the comfort of cloth seats trimmed in vinyl. A popular newsstand rag raised as my shield. My ears, so accustomed to the sounds of the park, pick up the one sound I’ve been waiting for.
Day-Glo orange shoestrings, leather uppers with carefully crafted rubber soles slap against the pavement in an oh-so-familiar rhythm. I’ve been listening to that sound every Wednesday for that past three months. Steady. Strong. Purposeful.
Bronze skin streaked in sweat, white tank top, navy spandex leggings and gray, boxer-style shorts worn over them flash by. His stride is long and controlled. Biceps sculpted by hours of Soloflex pump in sync with the contractions of rock-hard thighs and ultracut calves. Power. Endurance. Commitment. Ten long strides and he disappears around a bend in the path. One hour’s wait for one minute of watching. I should be disappointed, but I’m not. Not really. It’s a trade-off that I’ve come to accept after all this time. But I can’t help thinking, If only I had the power to manipulate time. What would I do if I could make time bend to my will? If I had such power, would I end world hunger? Would I command world peace? My wants are simple, but all-consuming. All I want to do is sit and watch him, over and over, until time itself gets sick of watching the same scene and changes the channel.
6:49 A.M. Still on schedule. I back out of the parking space and onto the feeder road. A U-turn under the freeway, three lights, a side street, then another parking lot. This time I’m in for a longer wait. I’ve got to give him time to stretch out the kinks, chat with his frat, and saunter back to his car.
7:20 A.M. and the flow coming out of the coffeehouse is measurably more frantic than the flow going in. Caffeine-induced energy. Get the morning started with a jolt of mocha motivation. Out of the corner of my eye I see him. Full, firm lips are clamped to a white, lidded Styrofoam cup. Enough care taken in that first sip to keep from singeing his tongue. Oh, lucky coffee cup! Flecks of sugar foam are perfectly camouflaged by a salt-and-pepper mustache. He’s got his Wednesday-morning usual—one large coffee, one small bag with a bran muffin. That will be his breakfast. Got to be good for the doctor. Got to get that cholesterol level down. Only he and I know about the extra raspberry jelly-filled donut that he’ll pinch on from about noon until the end of the day. A steady stolen supply of saturated fat and complex carbohydrates, like a glucose drip, will get him through the rest of the day with just the right edge. Only he and I know.
Secrets within secrets. He doesn’t know that I know. I keep that to myself, even as I keep my diligent admiration to myself. If only I had as much power over him as that jelly donut. If only I could be the one to feed him, to give him his sustenance. Why can’t I be the one he longs to taste? I could go down as smooth as raspberry jam. I could make him smack his lips, long for another.
8:15 A.M. and I’ve got to go if I want to get back in time for lunch. We’ve got a standing lunch date on Wednesdays—he at his table and me at mine. At the sandwich shop, a sea of green-and-white-striped umbrellas stands between us. But that has never stopped me from enjoying my meal. Neither does the lack of conversation. In my head we’ve talked for hours. I know him so well. On Wednesdays past, I imagined that I knew what he was thinking. Nibble. Nibble. Munch. Munch. Wishing there was something more appetizing than tuna on wheat for lunch. No mustard. No mayo. Only a little pepper to kill the bland, fish taste. If only he knew he could make a meal of me. Spread me, smear me with any condiment he wishes. I wouldn’t complain. I would be better than that stale jelly donut that he’s always got stashed in his bottom desk drawer. I could be there for him. And I wouldn’t even attract the ants.
8:20 A.M. The freeway is packed by now. Inch by inch, I crawl. For the first time today, I’m starting to feel a little anxious. This traffic has put a serious crimp in my plans. I’ve got a 9:30 in the Fifth Ward to touch up my roots. If I’m a minute late, I know I’m going to be six deep in the waiting room. Chantalliqua doesn’t play. When she says be there, you be there. So I get there, passing two blue-and-white squad cars—one in the process of giving someone a ticket for trying to pass up traffic in the breakdown lane and the other simply stuck between an eighteen-wheeler and an overturned cattle car.
When I arrive at the beauty shop, Chantalliqua is as chatty as ever—cussing and fussing at the high price of hair rinses, and the worsening quality of wigs and weaves, and at Erica Kane because she wouldn’t know a good man if he came long and bit her. I laugh appreciatively, but my mind isn’t on shoptalk. I can’t work up the energy to talk about some soap opera sad case that’s hours away from taking up my TV airtime. I need to figure out how I can make time with my own man.
12:05 P.M. and Chantalliqua’s got my hair looking tight and oh-so-right. I haven’t had this much body and bounce since my great aunt Bobby-Lynn used a pressing comb and big pink, foam rollers slept in overnight with a scarf, more holy than righteous, tied around my head to keep me from sweating out the straightness.
I pay Chantalliqua for her time and add a little just to keep her happy. Because everybody knows, if Chantalliqua ain’t happy, nobody’s happy. The last time she was in a snit, there were more hats and wigs coming out of her shop than you cared to count. That was known as the Great Wig-Out of Ninety-eight—a dark, dark time in the h
istory of hair.
As I pass her the extra twenty-dollar bill, she grabs my hands and starts to inspect my nails. She clucks her tongue loudly, shaking her head. At her denouncement of the condition of my nails, you can feel the wind whip through the shop as everyone moves to hide their own hands from Chantalliqua’s field of vision. She nods her head in the direction of the chair. Oh no! I know my face is showing my dismay. Not The Chair!
It’s one thing to be trapped under a hooded hair dryer, trying to maintain conversation when it feels as though your ears are being seared and every time you try to shift positions, you wind up knocking the goosenecked dryer onto your forehead with a thunk. It’s quite another thing to sit face to face with someone who can’t stop talking while she’s filing your nails down to nubs. Even with huge box fans blowing, the smell of nail polish is so thick in your nostrils that you want to gag. But you can’t because if you open your mouth to try to breathe, Chantalliqua will take that as a sign that you’re trying to get a word in edgewise and will talk faster and longer to get in her point of view. The faster she talks, the slower she files. The slower she files, the longer you suffocate. No. Anything but The Chair.
I try to beg off. I’ve got to run. I may not make my lunch date with him, but I’ve got other errands to run. I’ve got other tasks I need to accomplish before tonight. For you see, tonight I will wait and watch no more.
On second thought, I take another look at my hands. I weigh how they look now against how they’re bound to look later. I imagine them raking themselves across his broad, bronzed back and give a shudder of disgust. Not because of him! Heaven knows, that man is way too fine to give a woman a response like that. I tremble because these chipped, cracked ends would splinter before he could utter his first moans of pleasure.
I sigh. Chantalliqua is right. She always is. Well, almost always. There was that time last summer when she convinced me to go cherry red. If only I hadn’t let her convince me that that color would be good for my dusky skin tones. I looked like an inside-out cherry cordial. After a few wisecracks from my friends and what I’m sure was one offhand, chance disapproving glance from him, you could best believe that my disposition was far from sweet. Just in case, I give Chantalliqua the go-ahead to set me up for a pedicure, too. Nothing kills the romantic mood faster than when you’re playing footsie with some doggish-looking feet.
