Selling of Stories
The place was a wreck. Her clothes, her brilliantly white, clean clothes were scattered throughout the apartment. If I weren’t home most of the time, I would think she was having an affair. It’s the way her shoes end up somehow on the dining room table, or her pants are trailed into the bedroom, or her blouses are hanging from the coat rack.
***********************************
The tights itch against the inside of my thigh. The women all have yellow teeth. Yellow teeth that chomp down on that yellow gum. The streetlight above me is yellow, casting a yellow pallor on my tan skin. The yellow is making me ill. I look around to all of the chomping women, tug at the crotch of my tights. Yellow eyes study me from a balcony upstairs. I wish I had nine lives so I could live mine over.
************************************
His eyes take on a sharper look. He blames me for it all. He told me the letter didn’t work, only made it worse. “She went out last night,” he chokes out. Out where? To dinner? To the grocery store? To another man? “Out with them,” he says as he flicks his eyes toward the street and clenches his fists.
*************************************
She demanded we put the sofa by the window overlooking the street. I was confused by why she needed it to be in that spot and not in the more likely position across from the pre-positioned television. She says the air flow is better near the window. Air flow? I kept walking back and forth across the room trying to feel the air flow, tilting my face back and forth like a hound trying to pick up a scent, but I couldn’t get it. I know why the sofa had to be in that spot now. I watched her at night, as she stared for hours at the women below. Even the brutal cold couldn’t keep her from jamming her forehead up against the glass and touching it so lightly with her fingertips there were barely ever any prints showing in the morning.
*************************************
My handwriting seemed too small on a letter that was so big. It was being forced. All I could hear is him saying, “You did this to her, you know. You stole her from me before she was even mine.” Oh, she used to radiate during the lessons, her eyes so bright. Bright and green like her favorite crayon she would color pictures with. “Fern,” she would say, opening her eyes wide like she was telling me something extremely important, “my favorite color is fern.”
*************************************
Her hair stuck to the sweat on her face. The air froze it there. Her heels hit the cement hard, her breathing was labored. I wondered what could possibly be making her run like that. She pushed into the building, so I hid in the closet across from the kitchen, waiting for her to burst through the door. She did. She ran into our bedroom and rummaged around in the drawers. Her whispers made their way to my ears, something about it being what she had to do. Her long legs showed through the slats in the door. Fishnets. I couldn’t think of where she’d have gotten those. She tugged against the door. Please don’t, I repeated in my mind over and over and over. I begged the door not to release her into that dark world below our window. Her protests got stronger as she tugged more violently and the door gave.
***********************************
The night I started, I had cut my hip open on a jagged edge on the railing coming up to the apartment. Twenty stitches it took to sew me up. The painkillers made me nauseous so I sat up for a while, wandering about the apartment until I caught sight of them down below. They were magnificent. The street light they stood under made it seem as if they had an aura around them. Spindly arms hinged on sharp shoulders stroked the air as they brought the cigarettes up to their thin lips, their chests rising as if their life depended on the poison. Smoke drifted out their mouths, and flooded up their noses. There’s a reason it’s called the French inhale. Perfection. They seem as if they were born for it.
**************************************
Bent over the stove, spatula in hand, pushing the eggs tenderly from one side of the pan to the other was the first time I noticed the purple spots running along the underside of her right arm. It was six months since the night she went down on the street, six months since smoking the Gitanes with the dark skinned woman in a velvet miniskirt as town cars drove past slowly, perusing their options.
************************************
Five years old and my mother would tell me to never look them in the eye. They were evils, she would call them. Never look them in the eye, or in the mouth because you never knew what was going to come out of it. I didn’t care if they were evils, I looked them square in the eye, looked at their twisted mouths and found them so beautiful, the way they lurked below, the way their eyes were so dark. They were so exotic compared to my mother and all the people who came for tea, and attended the extravagant dinner parties.
**************************************
I watch the dark woman suck the smoke in, her eyes rolling back, gold eyeliner sparkling like the stars. Dark brown stains and lumps freckle the right side of the woman’s outstretched neck. Her eyes land on me, snarling, she brushes her hair in front of her neck, covering the rash. “Once you got the worm, spread it.” The woman says, puckering her lips, not blinking, raising her eyebrows as if in a challenge.
**************************************
The door shut with a soft click. I stood on the sidewalk, following the dark skinned woman’s movements through the upstairs’ windows, watching as she slipped out of her pants and unbuttoned her blouse. I moved my eyes away as the woman pulled the sheer lace of her bra over her head, and looped her fingers underneath the band of her underwear. I stood there horrified at how much power this one person had over me. The woman in the window made no move to close the blinds.
************************************
Through the window, I saw her cheek was bruising, matching the color of her nipples. The burnt umber of her skin created a sharp silhouette against the backdrop of the sun on the white marble walls of her bathroom.
***********************************
The tights itch against the inside of my thigh. The women all have yellow teeth. Yellow teeth that chomp down on that yellow gum. The streetlight above me is yellow, casting a yellow pallor on my tan skin. The yellow is making me ill. I look around to all of the chomping women, tug at the crotch of my tights. Yellow eyes study me from a balcony upstairs. I wish I had nine lives so I could live mine over.
************************************
His eyes take on a sharper look. He blames me for it all. He told me the letter didn’t work, only made it worse. “She went out last night,” he chokes out. Out where? To dinner? To the grocery store? To another man? “Out with them,” he says as he flicks his eyes toward the street and clenches his fists.
*************************************
She demanded we put the sofa by the window overlooking the street. I was confused by why she needed it to be in that spot and not in the more likely position across from the pre-positioned television. She says the air flow is better near the window. Air flow? I kept walking back and forth across the room trying to feel the air flow, tilting my face back and forth like a hound trying to pick up a scent, but I couldn’t get it. I know why the sofa had to be in that spot now. I watched her at night, as she stared for hours at the women below. Even the brutal cold couldn’t keep her from jamming her forehead up against the glass and touching it so lightly with her fingertips there were barely ever any prints showing in the morning.
*************************************
My handwriting seemed too small on a letter that was so big. It was being forced. All I could hear is him saying, “You did this to her, you know. You stole her from me before she was even mine.” Oh, she used to radiate during the lessons, her eyes so bright. Bright and green like her favorite crayon she would color pictures with. “Fern,” she would say, opening her eyes wide like she was telling me something extremely important, “my favorite color is fern.”
*************************************
Her hair stuck to the sweat on her face. The air froze it there. Her heels hit the cement hard, her breathing was labored. I wondered what could possibly be making her run like that. She pushed into the building, so I hid in the closet across from the kitchen, waiting for her to burst through the door. She did. She ran into our bedroom and rummaged around in the drawers. Her whispers made their way to my ears, something about it being what she had to do. Her long legs showed through the slats in the door. Fishnets. I couldn’t think of where she’d have gotten those. She tugged against the door. Please don’t, I repeated in my mind over and over and over. I begged the door not to release her into that dark world below our window. Her protests got stronger as she tugged more violently and the door gave.
***********************************
The night I started, I had cut my hip open on a jagged edge on the railing coming up to the apartment. Twenty stitches it took to sew me up. The painkillers made me nauseous so I sat up for a while, wandering about the apartment until I caught sight of them down below. They were magnificent. The street light they stood under made it seem as if they had an aura around them. Spindly arms hinged on sharp shoulders stroked the air as they brought the cigarettes up to their thin lips, their chests rising as if their life depended on the poison. Smoke drifted out their mouths, and flooded up their noses. There’s a reason it’s called the French inhale. Perfection. They seem as if they were born for it.
**************************************
Bent over the stove, spatula in hand, pushing the eggs tenderly from one side of the pan to the other was the first time I noticed the purple spots running along the underside of her right arm. It was six months since the night she went down on the street, six months since smoking the Gitanes with the dark skinned woman in a velvet miniskirt as town cars drove past slowly, perusing their options.
************************************
Five years old and my mother would tell me to never look them in the eye. They were evils, she would call them. Never look them in the eye, or in the mouth because you never knew what was going to come out of it. I didn’t care if they were evils, I looked them square in the eye, looked at their twisted mouths and found them so beautiful, the way they lurked below, the way their eyes were so dark. They were so exotic compared to my mother and all the people who came for tea, and attended the extravagant dinner parties.
**************************************
I watch the dark woman suck the smoke in, her eyes rolling back, gold eyeliner sparkling like the stars. Dark brown stains and lumps freckle the right side of the woman’s outstretched neck. Her eyes land on me, snarling, she brushes her hair in front of her neck, covering the rash. “Once you got the worm, spread it.” The woman says, puckering her lips, not blinking, raising her eyebrows as if in a challenge.
**************************************
The door shut with a soft click. I stood on the sidewalk, following the dark skinned woman’s movements through the upstairs’ windows, watching as she slipped out of her pants and unbuttoned her blouse. I moved my eyes away as the woman pulled the sheer lace of her bra over her head, and looped her fingers underneath the band of her underwear. I stood there horrified at how much power this one person had over me. The woman in the window made no move to close the blinds.
************************************
Through the window, I saw her cheek was bruising, matching the color of her nipples. The burnt umber of her skin created a sharp silhouette against the backdrop of the sun on the white marble walls of her bathroom.