On the theme of Envy
First Kiss
Fuck, I’m drunk.
I don’t remember how I got from my car to wedged between the boxwood and the god damn house. Me on all fours outside his grimy basement window again. His Mother’s basement window. That window is the only thing about his mother’s house that’s grimy. Everything else hospital-cornered and spit-shined. I might be 15 and outside, soaking up dirt and catshit funk. But he’s 33 and divorced and lives with his mother.
That grimy window. I can’t stand watching. I can’t stop watching. I don’t even know who it is that I am seeing yet, but it’s the first time I see Mary Lou. Blonde and long and curls and knots in my stomach, knots through the window, pushing and pumping and blood to this part and to that part, straight to my temples and back to my cunt, and back through the window to a knot of his arm, her leg, his hand, his ass, her hair.
Her hair,
her hair,
her hair.
The knot eventually stops rolling around and gets down to the business of fucking. Missionary. I know this is only their first or second fuck, or she’d be up on her knees and he’d be fucking her from behind.
When it was me and him who first got together, it was me and him in the Winnebago, me and him in the church parking lot. Me and him in the shadows of the back yard, him saying close your eyes. Him saying not yet. Him all lips and fingers everywhere, saying don’t move. Me all raw and electric and new, saying please. Him saying no, not yet.
After a few months,
he took me downstairs.
And he took me downstairs.
And he took me downstairs.
And it was me and him missionary on the waterbed. I was 15 and downstairs meant making love. Indoors meant me and him together forever. But he put a pillow over my face the first time I got too loud and said don’t ever do that again. After that night, I told him I liked it better outside. So he took me to fuck in the graveyard. Like dead folks don’t hear.
Worms and dirt and catshit funk and all I wanted was to sleep. For just a minute. Face down on my arms-crossed pillow. But that was about half an hour ago. I rise up on my elbows and I can’t feel my fingers. Maybe it’s the half an hour of cut-off circulation or maybe it’s the air so cold now I can see my breath. A half an hour and their steam on the inside of the window competes with the grime on the outside for that little bit of window that is left to look through.
In and out of sight, blonde, soft, silent movie curls up and down and up and.
He never fucks that long unless the girl gets on top. I hate getting on top. I hate the way it makes my boobs bounce. He says I look beautiful. I think I look stupid. More than stupid. Boobs bouncing in the graveyard. There’s something wrong with that.
I am starting to sober up. I get back up on all fours. The kind of quiet here, it isn’t natural. Neighborhoods like this are dead. Residential. Civilized. Not like out where I live. Out where I live, it’s all farm houses and apple orchards. People-quiet, but plenty of nocturnal something or others making noise until all hours. Noise you can count on.
The fucking boxwood scratches my arm when I try to back out. That’s when the tears start. I want to know if he loves her like he loves me. That’s why I keep watching. That’s what I tell myself. My tongue crackle-dry and bitter. Tears and snot and sharp. Catshit funk sharp. I belch acid and swallow. If she would just get done, I could leave. Soon as I wish it, she leans forward, swings her leg back and hops off the fuck like she’s hopping off a bike. She puts on her dress. All legs and arms and sunflower yellow. All Girl.
She flips her hair back into a ponytail, and I swear for a moment, her eyes ice blue, they look right at me. Even through the grime, she sees me. I blink my eyelashes cold and hold on to the slowest of my tears. She leaves without begging him for a kiss good-bye. She leaves without even looking at him. She is a God.
The next night and the next night, I come back and I wait. Me in mom’s car in the shadows, I wait. Just to see Her. Her in Her car, She doesn’t come by, but I sit in the car and I wait. On the third night, She comes back. I don’t bother watching them through the grimy basement window. I just sit outside and I wait.
When She comes up from downstairs, and out to Her car, I follow Her. For hours into days into weeks, I still don’t know She’s Mary Lou.
I couldn’t help tonight but to follow Her home.
I turn off the car.
I have to know She is possible.
Tonight, I learn Her name.
Author Biography
Domi J Shoemaker is an Idaho-born gender flexer whose early writing career climaxed at age 15, writing epitaphs after a string of teenage drunk driving accidents. After 22 years of crisis work Domi came back to writing. While working on a novel with the Dangerous Writers writing group, Domi has had a story published at PANK, landed a gig with Lidia Yuknavitch for the launch of Dora: A Headcase, interned at Chiasmus Media, and is the founder and producer of the quarterly reading series, Burnt Tongue.