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All the Times I Didn’t Have Sex #6 (500-Word Memoir Contest Entrant) |
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by Zach Powers
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2:01 |
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This is where we live, she said. Not talking about the physical structure of the house or the city we then inhabited, but some observation about where we were as people. I guess she could have meant her and her roommate.
We weren’t naked, and that probably didn’t help my confusion. My mind is prone to wander, and needs strong external stimuli, like breasts, to keep it focused. In a kowtow to the self-deprecating, that’s why so often I ramble.
We flopped on the couch, where we lived. Where she lived. I didn’t live there yet, or ever, unless of course we accept the observational interpretation of her offhand comment (I’m giving too much credence to what was likely a pleasantry, but then, no one was naked). She handed me a beer. Corona, but no citrus. Lukewarm piss from a faulty refrigerator, reminding me I had to use the bathroom. I did so. I always feel awkward pissing in someone else’s toilet, some vestigial instinct about marking territory.
We watched Ernest Goes to Jail on cable, pausing at commercial breaks to kiss and fondle. We weren’t naked. My kissing was erratic. I’ve been told I’m okay, but I find people are generally nice enough to lie about things like that. Ernest came back on. We watched, but seldom laughed. She sat against my hip, leaned back into my chest, my chin on her head. We touched all over, but not really, because of the clothes. We talked about life. We hinted at all those things we wanted, but couldn’t admit outright. We talked about where we lived and where we wanted to live.
She told me about this place she wanted downtown. It was an old carriage house, converted into a barely adequate apartment. It was really cute, she said, painted soft pink with white shutters. You could almost forget carriage house was an old word for garage.
We kissed some more. I was getting the hang of it. Actually, I’d met her with a kiss. Nothing romantic. Just a drunken birthday thing. We weren’t naked. It was at a bar, after all. Later I called her and she invited me over. And we sat on her couch watching Ernest and kissing during commercials (I have to admit sometimes we kissed during the movie – I don’t know how it ends).
The movie came to an unknown climax, and we never even developed our little plot on the couch. It was late, and droopy eyes exchanged longing but sleepy stares. Chapped lips begged for balm more than skin, and the evening quietly folded into itself, like the clothes you pick up the morning after, flipped inside out at the sleeves, halfway unbuttoned. We weren’t naked.
We got up off the couch, achy from the contortions of cuddling. I stretched and looked for a clock that wasn’t there. Outside on the front step I kissed her. We smiled goodbye.
This is where we live, she said. But we never lived there together.
Zach Powers is an Emmy-winning television producer, and author of absurdist fiction on the side, frequently published on his website, LowbrowZen.com. He lives in Savannah, GA, and is much less Southern than one might think.
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