your server was em w.

I ordered it in the tall red glass. Table for one. Her tiny hand placed it in front of me. And she smiled, like a nymph, a seraph, a tiny siren, sent to tease me. I wanted to talk to her, more than just thank you and I don’t need anything else. But I didn’t. Her smile kept coming. And at the end, the check. Your server was Em W. Em W.

red

I could hear the sound of spinning. He asked me to pick a color. I was terrified of losing but picked red. Please let it be a winner, pressure was no friend of mine. And then I leaned in too close, pressing my groin against his hand as it rested on the side of the table. I felt him take a deep breath, followed by a large swallow of whatever he was drinking. He then looked down at me. He smiled. He hadn’t noticed but the tiny orb had landed. Blood red.

beyond ballroom

The party was going strong in the other room. I say room, but it was more ballroom than anything. I was on my way back down and saw lights strain into the foyer. The stairs were clothed in shadow and I slipped down the winding way quietly. And before I reached the bottom I noticed her. As she floated in the candles flickered and bathed her silhouette in a dark, sweet ochre. She looked up at me and smiled. I smiled back at her and met her at the bottom step. The air became a third person, filled with music and fragrance; it intoxicated us both. This is a beautiful house, she said with a silly grin, her champagne glass swaying in hand. Beautiful, I responded. And we both stood there, much too close, grinning at each other as the candlelight danced around us. The ballroom suddenly seemed very far away and I found myself in her arms. She had started to kiss me. It was the most unexpected thing. But the moment I tasted her mouth, I couldn’t stop wanting more of it. The ballroom, I knew, we’d never make it back there.

untitled

I pulled into my driveway. It was dark, the streetlights painted the line of houses in an orange glow. The air was cool and sharp. I could feel the sparks. I stepped out of my car to retrieve a newspaper that was lying in the grass. And I heard music. The Star Spangled Banner. It was coming from somewhere. It was as if I was in a dark, misty opera. And the entire street was my stage. I looked around but couldn’t pinpoint the source, only the direction and vaguely. I felt the night’s darkness close in around me. The song played boldly. The air was orange. The air was sharp.

the break

Four walls and a dingy floor. Three tables and a Coke machine. One sink and two microwaves. It’s the saddest looking breakroom. Others are reading, texting, eating. But she isn’t. She’s lost in thought. I wonder what she’s thinking about.

A wasp flies into view and perches itself on the white cupboard above the sink. She rises and moves toward the little beast, pausing to pick up an abandoned magazine. After folding it into a cylindrical weapon she swats the bug, down it goes. It lands on the countertop with a crispy –tink!-. She brushes it into the waste basket and walks back to her seat. And as she sits, she laughs at something. I laugh with her, but not where she can hear. Somebody claps briefly and she flashes them a nod and a grin. Then off she goes, back into her thoughts. What are they about, I wonder. What are they about?

man of steel

I walk in and it looks like a crime scene. Blood everywhere. On the floor, soaking the pillow that hangs over the green chair, blossoming on the sheet underneath him. I keep my cool and smile at him. He is reclining, his left arm slung over his head and he speaks. Dear God, why has this happened. I tell him how impressed I am with his courage and then I start cleaning. Trying to get rid of the blood. What good are nurses if they won’t take care of their patients? And then a joke from him breaks my concentration. He’s laughing. He can’t not be a superman. I almost cry, not from pain but from pride. The same blood that’s been spilled all over this room also runs through my veins. I smile with him.

october

The window was open. He was naked, except for dirty torn blue jeans. He was looking out the window and his hands were on the windowsill. His back was facing me. The sheets were white and I could smell clover. The autumn breeze blew in. I blew a smoke ring and he laughed at something. The neighbors were hammering and a car peeled out below. He turned around to face me and sat on the window ledge.
Vegas, he said.
Vegas. I smiled.

adagio

I asked the ballet instructor if the dancers would like a fan. Since it’s so hot, I told her. She told me not to worry about it, it didn’t affect her anyway. I laughed at her honesty; its meanness struck a chord. How hot could tiny dancers get anyway, I thought.

Painted teenagers dancing. Painted eyes, painted lips, painted cheeks. Tiny, taut muscles, squeezed into blue costumes. Am I the ogre? I wanted to believe I wasn’t so I stayed hidden in the shadow. Tiny bodies with wicked curves here and there. The music swam through air. I looked away.

gypsy beads

I was watching him while holding her hand. Her hand was tiny and cool to the touch. Her body was tiny. I could crush it if I wanted to.

He was sporting a mustache. As a joke I guess. But something about it was wickedly hot. I stared at him and then she laughed. Her giggle caught my attention. And then she kissed my cheek, giggling in my ear. You smell so good, she told me. I grinned.

rockstar

The cold air followed me inside. He was the first thing I noticed. The icy air became a flame. Cowboy boots, blue jeans and stubble on a godly face. I came in to order hot chocolate but now the thought of sugar made me sick. I suddenly wanted salt. Salty face. Salty prickly facial hair stabbing my lips and my tongue. So I stood there, stupidly. We’d only met once. I knew his name and wanted to say it but I didn’t, I just stared at him, hoping he wouldn’t look up. Glasses clanked, other people laughed, cappuccino machines whirred and I listened to him type. May I help you, came from somewhere, a kid screamed for no reason and I took a deep breath. Can I get a mug of whip cream? Oh God, why did I ask that. But she didn’t bat an eye.

I stared at him the entire time I waited for my ridiculous order. I could smell chocolate so I imagined him eating chocolate. I imagined him naked. And my scarf started to soak up the sweat around my neck.

He looked up at me. I smiled. He smiled and tilted his head in that, I-know-you kind of way. Hi, he said.

the stepladder

She steadied me on the stepladder. Her hands were a vice and my lower torso stayed fast in her grip. I was impressed at her shameless embrace. She never shied away, she never cowered. I convinced myself there was a hunger in the way she held me. I always fancied myself nimble and balanced. But not this time, this time I needed someone else.

I noticed her laughter was brighter, her voice melodic, her smile more genuine, as long as her hands were touching me. I purposely let the current wash through me into her fingers. She is enjoying this. And strangely enough, so am I.

21

The pattern on the floor looks like a circus. The carpet designed to camouflage any accidental drops. There are no windows. Only clicking, dinging, and sighs hang in the air. There are three other faces at the table but confidence worn on only one. Not the vain, arrogant kind but the there’s-actually-a-spine-in-my-back and it connects to a leg and a foot that can truly kick your *** kind of self-assurance. Self assured and winning like a mother ******. The fastest flash of a Mona Lisa smile is chased by another huge bet. And the dealer, a tiny Zeus, releases cards with lightning quickness. No one can beat him, no one can outwit him. He is a counter and as the last sip of his drink spills down his throat, the others watch. They watch the chips, stacked in a miniature cityscape, slide into his shadow.

rosalie's wedding

The rain spilled onto my windshield. I was running late because I forgot my wallet and went back home to retrieve it. The clock was on the dash, staring at me, the rear view mirror was above me, beckoning me and the stereo was broken, infuriating me. But I drove on. In fifteen minutes she’ll marry. A complete idiot will have her hand, her everything.

Somehow I arrived on time and found my seat in the crowd. Ridiculously enough the wedding was outside and the seats were wet, as were the trees, the ground, the air itself. I mindlessly flirted with the guy seated in front of me. And afterward he kept turning around to continue but I always looked the other way.

At some point she appeared. A tiny perfect doll in a white dress. I felt nothing. She was were she wanted to be, apparently, and I just watched. Maybe I had a quick flashback of the two of us, alone, laughing, but it faded. The idiot was crying as he said his vows but she was solid, as women always are, her smoky little voice a soft caress in the humid air. I hadn’t heard that voice in over a year. And to hear it now, saying those words…

Later on she would talk to me, midst dozens of friends and relatives, hungry for her attention. And she would smile and laugh and hug me. Her face was still the same beautiful portrait it had always been. Yet the dress seemed out of place. But only to me.

Soon after, I left the party. The night was wet and full of music. And I walked, by lamp-lit pathway, to my car. I smelled the magnolias along the way. Maybe I would see her again, accidentally run into her some day, somewhere. She’ll be smiling as always and so will I. We’ll chat and then say goodbye. And her face, it will still be the same beautiful portrait it’s always been.

wet marble

I watched him take a bath. He had no idea I was there. The steam clouded the air around his face and bubbles, silly and round, fluttered over him. I watched him take off his glasses. I wanted to put them on. I wanted to feel the sweat, collected from around his eyes and clinging to the Burberry plastic frames, stick to my face. I wanted to eat the glass, crush it into bits of sand. But I stood there, paralyzed. The tub was near overflowing and I could hear the water slosh with his every move. His body was chiseled wet marble. White, sinewy and naked.

I was already there when he walked in. I’d never seen a room like this. I’d never before seen columns, phallicly lovely and huge, tower into a ceiling, wherever it ended, too far up to see, up into the darkness. And as he turned his back to me he took off his robe. I caught only the barest bit of lower back as he slid from it. Into the water he went as I watched every moment. I was merely a ghost, a vapor. I could stare blatantly and he’d never notice. My mouth got hot and my neck was sweating a ring of fire around me. He was beautifully oblivious of my presence and as he sat there, staring into nothing I touched my face. I imagined it was his wet warm hand.

the costumed afternoon

I was conscious of the wig, I was conscious of the costume but they weren’t an encumbrance. They felt as natural as my own winter coat or my own headband. Being someone or something else for a while, it felt far more natural than being myself. It was her idea and I loved it immediately. She asked me to wear the costume and I agreed. I panicked a little, worried that I wouldn’t do it justice but I agreed. The soft, pale, brown-haired girl took pictures of us. She seemed so bored and yet she took many. I wanted to stare at her, the one who asked me. Her costume was a sight. Her hair was down and her skin was pink tinted cheeks on smooth caramel. Her eyes hid much and her mouth was a wicked giggle. I wouldn’t notice until later how close to me she had stood. The way her tiny frame relaxed itself on my knee, my shoulder, my arm. But now, as I stare at the photographs, her floral breath whispering in my ear as she narrates each one, I notice.

four

I guess I knew she’d ask me into the fitting room. It wasn’t as if I didn’t want to go, I just couldn’t bear accepting that I did. I walked behind her, never looking at the pert caramel colored body before me. She was beautiful but she was making me sick at this moment. I allowed myself to drift off, to become a part of something else, the clothing racks, the smell of canvas shoes, the laughter of the sales ladies. Anything other than her. ‘How many?’ asked a woman wearing a headset. I imagined headset woman onstage in a Britney Spears outfit, and wondered if she could sing. ‘Uh, four,’ she replied. Four times. Four times I’ll die at the sight of her.

the jacket

It is hanging in my closet. My senses feel so acute I swear I can smell it from where I sit.

Three weeks ago today. Three weeks ago she saturated it with her body. Her smell, her charm, her laughter. It’s ridiculous but I can feel her hot skin and hear her smoky floral voice the moment I pull it from my closet.

My suit jacket. She wore my suit jacket for ten minutes or so. It was cold and the night air bit through my face and my ears. But I was impervious to natural unpleasantries that night. Only the caramel color of her thighs, mostly hidden by the red satin of her dress could really punch me in the stomach.

I sat there in the fog and watched the dizzy colors of people and things move past me. I concentrated on nothing and let only the euphoria of my stupor embrace me. And then her face, her arm extended out to me, my jacket in her hand. I kissed her fingers. She kissed mine. I kissed her lips. She kissed mine. I stared at her, for one long moment. She kept my gaze, boldly, and then turned to go.

I sit here now, three weeks later. The jacket is hanging. I am looking at a picture of her. I plan on wearing the jacket while masturbating to her scent and her photograph. Her black hair won’t be in my face while I *u** myself and her tiny body won’t be impaling itself on my *ock but I’ll imagine it. My dirty thoughts will do her justice. The jacket. It will bring her back to me.

muse

He came over every day. I set the lights, I laid the fabrics and the furs. I even brought a giant yellow snake once. He was my muse and my object and every afternoon he belonged to me inside a tiny studio. He was blue jeans and gray t-shirts, stubble and boyish smiles. Blue eyes tinted with black magic. And every day began the same. He would listen to my instruction, nod his head in accordance, grin at me and then undress. At first he used the changing room to disrobe before stepping into the lights, wrapped in a towel. But after his trust in me became absolute he undressed right in front of me, under the lights, under heaven. His body was a mind****. It made me hurt, it made me sick. It was angels and devils, purity and sin. Adonis’s cum and Aphrodite’s cream. No words could explain it though I tried. I tried, for my own amusement. I tried to see, I tried to breath but the sound of his belt whipping through the loops of his jeans knocked me unconscious each and every time. And in that millisecond of lusty darkness my body was an infant, tiny and naked, soaked in a sweat of lava and napalm. The air surrounding my face was burnt to a crisp and I could almost see the black crust of the charred atmosphere. Surely I would die here, my camera cracking itself in two as it hit the floor, with me to follow, knees first. This monster, how could he have done this? He was only a man after all. And so I snapped. The lens could endure what my eyes could barely withstand. The perfect white skin tautly pulled over muscle and bone. The slightest of dark hair trickling down from his navel to holy land. I smiled to myself and clicked like mad. His grin was shy but his eyes were madly bold. I wanted to **** him. It seemed so obvious to me. Surely he could feel my desire from where he stood and it surprised me the sheer force of it didn’t knock him over. You’re a ****ing animal, I told him one day, trying to elicit some response, a laugh or a smirk. Some cute expression on that wicked gorgeous face. Then he flashed perfect white teeth, too sharp canines. A vein pulsed in his temple. Oh God. He was naked, he was letting me take his picture and he was smiling.