Redneck Press with Fried Chicken and Coffee

When I cup my palm against my mouth I can smell her on me.  A not unpleas­ant odor that instills a desire for more.  I stand in the bath­room of an almost expen­sive hotel.  There’s enough light bulbs above the mir­ror to illu­mi­nate a Hol­ly­wood movie.  I can feel my self-esteem pud­dling at my toes, see­ing the bath­room spot­lights embla­zon my scalp through the spar­sity of mousy brown hair.

The water con­tin­ues to gush and swirl down the drain.  The toi­letries loosely gath­ered around the sink belong solely to Holly.  A bot­tle of eye­liner rep­re­sents her make-up.  There’s a lone white tooth brush, bris­tles like an unmown lawn.  I scrub my face with her bar of pink soap, it’s brand name worn away with use.

I have to go home soon.  Never have I been more aware of time than dur­ing the last month.  The warm taffy expan­sion of days lead­ing to last night.  The quick rub­ber­band snap of our night together.

I have to go soon.  And I can’t kiss my wife smelling like Holly.  Return­ing home freshly show­ered won’t alle­vi­ate sus­pi­cion, either.  Sera likely already sus­pects.  I prob­a­bly gave myself away the moment I took the col­lec­tion of Leonard Cohen poetry off my book shelf.

Holly enters, except that’s not quite the right way to describe what she does or how she does it.  Holly doesn’t enter a room; she expands into it, fills the room from wall to wall like a burst of light irra­di­at­ing the cor­ners and mak­ing one uncom­fort­ably aware of one’s flaws.

I could have writ­ten this para­graph before I met her in the flesh, though, so badly did I want to believe she was more than just a woman, no less clue­less than I.  Don’t make me out to be more than I am, she warned early on, when the extent of our affair was the exchange of instant mes­sages.  I can never be what you want.

She trails her fin­ger across my sweat damp back as she passes; her unpainted fin­ger­nails softly carves along the cur­va­ture of my spine.  I watch her through the mir­ror.  Her nudity such a nov­elty to me.  I want it always to be this way.  I want to mem­o­rize every inch of her pale skin.  I want to map her every anatom­i­cal angle, every land­mark blem­ish.  I want to still know sur­prise every time I unwrap her.

I want the abil­ity to express these thoughts with­out com­ing across like an utter fool.

Holly sits down and begins pissing.

“You don’t mind, do you?”

“Of course not.”  Eight years of mar­riage, I’ve always man­aged to avoid see­ing Sera on the toilet.

“In Japan the women are very self con­scious about piss­ing within earshot of any­one else.  A lot of restrooms have speaker boxes where you push the but­ton and it makes a flush­ing sound so you can piss, covertly.  I never used it.  I think it’s kinda erotic, the sound of urine hit­ting water.  Espe­cially if it makes some­one else uncomfortable.”

“It doesn’t make me uncomfortable.”

She wipes and flushes.  “I was talk­ing peo­ple in gen­eral, Vic.”  She kisses me on the cor­ner of my mouth as she leaves.  Her exit con­tracts the room.  Her absence threat­ens an implosion.

“You still smell like me,” she calls from the bed.

Though Ten­nessee born of German/Irish ances­try, six years of liv­ing in Fukuoka, Japan has given her Eng­lish an odd, slightly slurred accent that makes me want to embrace her every time she speaks.

I dry off my face with the anony­mous white towel.  I lift the toi­let seat, flush, and begin pissing.

Holly lies on the bed, arms stretched out, breasts lolling, legs slightly open, left leg bent at the knee.  She said she’s gained weight since she arrived State­side, but I don’t see it.  If I had a can­vas and oils and even a mod­icum of tal­ent and train­ing I could paint a mas­ter­piece of her.  As it is, the last thing I painted, a wolf in water col­ors, gar­nered a C+ from my eighth grade art teacher.

My clothes are draped over the unas­sum­ing chair.  She catches my glance.

“You have to go already?”  Her voice is alarm­ingly devoid of emotion.

I don’t look at the clock.  “No.  I have time.”

“Lay down with me.”

I slide into bed beside her.  The sheets, moist from our recent love-making clings to my skin as we repo­si­tion our­selves.  I lay on my back, Holly’s head rest­ing on my shoul­der, my hand dip­ping right into her black, shoulder-length hair, brush­ing the thick strands back from her tem­ple.  I’m aware of her pubic hair stub­ble sand­pa­per­ing my hip, her erect nip­ples brush­ing my skin with every slight movement.

Her heart beats against my ribcage.  When was the last time I felt Sera’s heart beat?  When was the last time I did any­thing other than mon­i­tor the reg­u­lar­ity of her breath­ing, ensur­ing her sleep was deep enough for me to escape our bed into the false life pro­vided by my computer?

Holly, my melan­choly angel, her life under­scored with dis­il­lu­sion­ment and advanced dis­ap­point­ment.  In my eyes, she wears this sad­ness, beau­ti­fully.  I’ve always believed a tight smile and down­cast eyes held more radi­ance than the bleached smiles and sparkling eyes of run-of-the-mill glam­our queens.

The gut­ter­ing can­dle light pro­vided by the Home Inte­rior can­dles Holly brought casts minia­ture St. Elmo's fires across the ceil­ing and walls.  Maybe she’s won­der­ing what I’m think­ing.  And if she asks I’ll say I’m not think­ing of any­thing at all, just bask­ing in the moment.  But she’s never shown an inter­est in my thoughts.

"How much longer can you stay?”  She asks.

 "Until the hour and minute hand meet.”

 Her lips draw into a smile against my chest.  It’s an inside joke involv­ing Edgar Allan Poe’s story “A Predica­ment”.  We dis­cov­ered early on in our get-to-know-you phase a mutual love of lit­er­a­ture and a mutual admi­ra­tion for Poe’s canon.   We’d occa­sion­ally read each other pas­sages on voice chat.

 Holly’s favorite para­graph involved the female pro­tag­o­nist from the Poe story, her head caught between the hour and minute hand of a clock tower.  The vise-like pres­sure increases minutely until, first, on eye­ball pops out of its socket.  Its ocu­lar brother in the body politic watches the dis­lodged orb roll into the gut­ter before swiftly join­ing it.

 First hear­ing Poe’s words from Holly’s lips, I enter­tained the pos­si­bil­ity I could become more emo­tion­ally invested in her than we agreed at the out­set to allow our­selves.  We even scoffed at the notion of an inter­net love affair.

 There’s no com­put­ers, no dis­tances of DSL cable, sep­a­rat­ing us, now.  Why should the old rules apply?

 I kiss the top of her head and play with the ends of her hair.  From those dark fol­li­cles, my fin­gers trace along her col­lar­bone up the hol­low of her throat.  I draw her chin up until our lips brush.  My eyes adjust to the dark­ness in her eyes.

 And I know that I’m a liar.  I don’t want her to remain emo­tion­ally aloof.  I want her to love me.  I want the vic­tory such emo­tional attach­ment entails.  I want to wear her love like a shiny medal on the lapel of my bad ass leather jacket.  I want the entire world (exclud­ing my wife and every­one asso­ci­ated with my wife) to know Holly belongs to me.  Her love for me val­i­dat­ing my love for her.

 But she doesn’t love me.  My thoughts turn to her more than her thoughts include me.

“You’re so tense,” she whis­pers, her hands in motion, fin­gers roam­ing my chest and abdomen, search­ing for weak points in the armor of my flesh.  I’m weak all over.

“Lot o
n my mind, I guess.”

“Guilt?”

“I don’t feel guilt.”

“Why not?  It’s an inter­est­ing sen­sa­tion.  Kinda like antic­i­pa­tion with­out all the giddiness.”

My thumb presses against the divot in her chin that she hates but I love.

“Holly, I love you.”

The words escape.  Imme­di­ately, I want to apol­o­gize.  My lit­tle inef­fec­tual defense mech­a­nism.  She hates those two mean­ing­less bull­shit words.  I’m sorry.

When she answers, her voice con­tin­ues its trend of emo­tional vacu­ity.  “We agreed from the begin­ning this wasn’t going to be a ‘love’ thing.”

“I’m sorry.”  The words hang there.  Holly draws away from me.  “No, wait, Holly.  I’m not sorry.”

“You can’t love me.  I don’t love you.”

“Don’t you feel any­thing about me?”

She crouches on the edge of the bed, cat-like.  Her eyes.  I stare into her eyes, hop­ing for a flash of emo­tion, any­thing.  Her dark eyes like vor­texes suck the light from the room.

I can’t hold her gaze.  My eyes drop down to her lips.  So long I’ve fan­ta­sized kiss­ing those lips.  The real­ity of her lips pressed against mine is worth this.  Her mouth that I’ve claimed is not given to smiles.  I’m such a liar.  She smiles all the time.  She’s quick to laugh.  She’s not my melan­choly angel.  Strange I should fic­tion­al­ize her in such a way.

She’s not smil­ing at the moment.

“What do you want me to say, Vic?”

“Noth­ing.  Never mind.”

“No, noth­ing, never mind.  What do you want me to fuck­ing say?  That you’re my num­ber one man?”

“I don’t cat­e­go­rize peo­ple numer­i­cally.  Guess again.”

“Oh, lis­ten to you.  How do you cat­e­go­rize peo­ple?  By whether I fuck them or not?  You’re the one always ask­ing who I’m talk­ing to.  Always afraid you’re gonna get knocked out of the saddle.”

She’s off the bed and gath­er­ing her clothes.  The bor­ing white panties.  The bor­ing white bra.  The jeans she has such a dif­fi­cult time find­ing at the stores because her legs are so stubby and her ass is so wide.  The shape­less blouse with the dol­lar store flo­ral print she claims is of African design.

“I’m not ask­ing you to marry me.  I’m happy.  I’m happy with you.  So I tell you I love you.  So what?  I know you don’t love me.  I know I like you more than you like me.  You remind me this every fuck­ing day.  Or at least every day you’re gra­cious enough to make time in your busy sched­ule to speak to me.”

I keep talk­ing as she keeps get­ting dressed.  If there’s a com­bi­na­tion of words that will make her stop, get undressed, lay back in this rented bed and for­give me; I’d spit in my mother’s face for a hint at the sequence of words.

Holly grabs her purse and the hotel key.

“How dare you ask me if I feel any­thing for you?  I’m here, aren’t I?”

“I’m sorry, Holly.  I didn’t mean…”

“Go home to your wife, Vic.  Tell her you love her.”

She leaves the room the way she entered–furtively, like a thief.

 It’s all I can do to keep myself from step­ping, naked, into the hotel cor­ri­dor and call­ing her name.  I stare at the phone like an anchor dropped on the table.  I could call her cell phone.  It’d be long dis­tance.  What could I say?

I lay back down on the bed.  Her smells are every­where.  I close my eyes and inhale.

Karl Koweski is a dis­placed Chicagoan now liv­ing on top of a moun­tain in Alabama.  His chap­book of smut, Low Life, will be avail­able within the month from www​.zygotein​my​cof​fee​.com.  His poetry chap, Dimin­ish­ing Returns, is avail­able at www​.sun​ny​out​side​.com.  He writes the monthly col­umn, "Obser­va­tions of a Dumb Polack", at Zygote.