“Maybe this wasn’t a good idea,” she said. “I didn’t mean to put you in a bad spot, Mark. I just thought it would be better, easier, if we could still be friends.”
“Right. Friends,” I said and stopped myself from staring at her chest. Although I’d touched her breasts thousands of times, they now seemed as strange and new and exciting as a shuttle into space.
When Theodore Wistang’s wedding ring slipped off his finger and went down the drain, into the garbage disposal no less, he knew he had to retrieve it. Even though it wasn’t his fault—it just slipped off in the soapy water during the dish duty—it would still cause an uproar not seen for hundreds of years.
The crowd stood up from their seats and applauded. As I propped myself up on my crutches and made my way to the podium, Annie glared at me, stone-faced and slow clapping. As Rick handed me the chip, I sensed that I was about to do one of the worst things I’d ever done, drunk or sober.
“I’ve changed,” Ivy argued. “The Ivy you married doesn’t exist anymore.” She desperately, fervently tried to convince Roy he had nothing whatsoever to do with her lesbian leanings. “You know the way you love a woman’s body?” she asked. “Her lips, her breasts, her vagina, her legs? Well, I’ve come to admire those attributes, too.” It took a while, but Roy finally accepted the bizarre, surreal reality of the situation, though he was far from ecstatic about it.
The train arrived at Gard Du Nord and Jack thought he was going to be sick. He hadn’t slept on the plane and during the train journey he’d had snatches of sleep but kept waking with a start with his heart pounding in case they had arrived. This felt like a thousand first dates.
My little brother’s mouth was open. Probably mine was too. We had been sent to buy milk, bread, and apples at the corner store. Mother had told us to be good, to go to Gorzock’s store, come home, and help with fixing supper. We were diverted from our task by the circus parade, and we followed the circus people down the street. I saw old Mrs. Sherburne watching the parade too. She wore a frilled sleeveless dress that showed her wrinkled and loose arms. The trumpeter marched at the front by Heineman’s mortuary, the calliope rolled on wheels at the rear, and in the middle was the strong man wearing a leopard skin across one shoulder and a bandana at his throat. He stuck out his tongue at us children, and I jumped back and pulled on Leo’s hand.
A few weeks ago, my mother caught me in the most cliché of precarious situations: beneath the bleachers, making out with my boyfriend. We weren’t having sex, but we were going at it pretty hot and heavy. Out of nowhere I heard a scream and was lifted up by my favorite Green Lantern shirt.
Janice’s experiences were always impersonal, with bodies unfamiliar and occasionally less than beautiful. But the faceless men needed to connect physically, to fill a need, like Janice did. Never did she invite her sexual partner to sleep over at her small, austere apartment. Often she would doze off, and when she woke up she barely recalled the encounter.
He waved his arms to and fro, burnt sandalwood incense and carried it from corner to corner. He inhaled until his lungs were about to burst and with the slow exhale sent every particle of her out of his body. “I divorce thee, I divorce thee, I divorce thee,” he chanted.
Doctor Harvey Worthington had been lying awake for almost fifteen minutes. Since there was nothing better to do, he performed a self exam. He used a simple pinch and roll, a technique he found favorable. The brief joy he received was quickly overshadowed by the discovery of an extraneous bump. It felt like a pea had lodged itself in his scrotum, but he couldn’t remember eating any peas.