by
Kate Folk
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Upstairs, Mark stood at the kitchen counter spreading almond butter on toast. From across the kitchen Reese was struck by a vision of him as a stranger. Mark was suddenly not her boyfriend of five years but an unfamiliar man in his late thirties with thinning hair, a swollen stomach, and small, soft hands. She could not imagine spotting this man across a train platform in some Central European capital and allowing the crowd to carry her to him, brushing against him in hope that some part of her would stick, burr-like, to the weft of his flannel.
“I don’t like the name Todd.” Reese had had an unsettling sexual encounter with a Todd in high school, in the wings of the stage where the marching band practiced. During their courtship Mark would have seized upon this allusion, a thread he could pull to unravel her.
Mark peeled his jacket from the back of a chair. “I’m late. See you tonight.” He kissed her cheek, hurting her with his beard.
:(
Reese struggled to individuate her descriptions of the three fucking-machine videos. She was running out of ways to describe a vagina as hungry. Her pussy is ravenous. Her pussy had a light lunch and now it’s dinnertime. Her pussy slavers for nourishment. Her pussy is about to faint from low blood sugar. Her pussy carries almonds in its purse to tide it over until the next meal.
this is hilarious
Reese watched as Mark tore the skin from a breast and set it aside. He pried up shards of white meat with his fork and wrapped the meat in its own skin, then placed the packet in his mouth so the skin wouldn’t lodge between his incisors. He appeared so self-possessed, so contented by his tiny rituals, that Reese was filled with resentment. She knew her anger didn’t correspond to the actual structure of their lives. She was free to do as she liked. She was not bound to the home by anything but the fact that they possessed a single car. And yet she felt a primordial rage toward Mark, as though he were a brute husband who went out to conquer the world, while she was trapped in this house with its flooded basement. She endeavored to say nothing to Mark, and to observe how much time would pass before he noticed.
oof
She returned to the living room, where she spent the morning summarizing videos in the categories of Water Bondage, Sadistic Rope, Electro Sluts. Her descriptions read increasingly like recipes. We start her on her back and stuff her until she squirts her savory juices. We finish her standing and drizzled with cream.
To be honest things weren’t going so well even before the head started coming out of my floor. I was unemployed and universally hated thanks to some choices I’d made. Afternoons I’d go sit in this median strip a few blocks from my apartment and write things in my notebook while cars barreled past. Sometimes I brought a guitar.
First it was just a soft patch. I figured maybe, you know, the floor was rotting. What did I know about floors?
so funny
I texted this guy Chris and was like. Hey Chris.
So Chris came over. He also seemed sort of a little bit more dressed up than the last time I saw him, though to be honest I don’t remember when that was or who Chris even is. He brought pizza. So I’m like, that’s cool. Better than Lee. Lee didn’t bring anything. When he saw the top of the head he—I mean Chris—well, you could tell he wasn’t expecting that. He brought his tools, too, I didn’t mention that. Both pizza and tools. Way better than Lee.
I asked Chris to touch it, you know, to see if it was warm. He said he didn’t want to. I said this is why I asked him to come over. This is what I needed him for. So Chris looked like he was going to throw up or like collapse in upon himself like a dead star due to this sudden revelation of like, the harrowing absurdity, futility, pain. I mean of existence. He laid the towel carefully over the head. I thought you just wanted to hang out, he said. He sounded like. Wounded. He took the pizza with him.
lmao
I asked Brandon if he’d touch the top of the head to see if it was warm. Meaning, alive. Brandon said no. I said, someone has to. He said, it’s your floor. I gave him this look. He sighed and told me how when we went on a date four years ago I was really rude. I tried to remember this date. I remembered lots of other dates, but none of those guys’ faces looked like Brandon’s, not really. I felt like I could grab Brandon’s wrist and put his hand on the head before he realized what was happening. Then we’d know.
Lily and the new patient enter the TV room, and I feel my skin blanch. She’s cut from the cloth of my nightmares: petite, with wide hazel eyes, caramel-colored hair, bangs cut low across her forehead. Her arms and legs are delicate, milky stems protruding from the silken edges of a blue polka-dotted dress. She wears no makeup, no jewelry, no polish on her nails. My career writing ad copy to exploit women’s physical insecurities has rendered me expert in the minutiae of female beauty. In this sense, I am like a judge of pedigree dogs or horses. When I say that this woman is flawless, I do not mean it lightly. She possesses no attribute that I would, in good faith, suggest augmenting or reducing, highlighting or minimizing, smoothing or shaping or lengthening or rejuvenating or otherwise subjecting to any of the verbs I employed daily to describe the infinite ways in which a woman might fail to achieve her corporeal potential. I would not know how to sell her a thing.
In an exam room, I complete my surrender. Bradley presses his body to mine. He kisses the nape of my neck. His fingers press my pelvis and thighs, molding my supple bones into the shape of his desire. I taste his skin, wishing I could unhinge my jaw and swallow him whole. As we lie entwined, my back to his, I cry silently, because I know I will never actually have him. The other times I’ve been in love, there was hope of a future. With Bradley, I harbor no such illusions. I have given up on the dream of a life together beyond the ward. What I feared from the beginning was confirmed the day Olivia arrived—that given a world of women to choose from, he will never, ever choose me.
Perhaps it is possible, though, to revise my idea of love. To remain in the present; to love Bradley now even though I know he will only hurt me, in the end. But it doesn’t really matter either way. I am too weak not to claim every moment with him that is offered.