Stroke

If I fast, it is only because I am beyond reason by someone or something. I’m too interested in excess. Food, drink, sex, thought. I can eat myself sick, drink myself under a table, fuck myself sore, and think myself into a corner. I do not ‘eat clean’. I am stupid and distracted. Easily duped. Too true a believer of love. Or that feeling that hits right before love. The pull towards it. The draw.

I follow the mildest touch. The slightest brush of fingers on my forearm. She points to the delicate strokes of ink. She says, “swallow” with her tongue thick in her mouth. I can taste her lisp. It sticks in my throat when I try to keep up my end of the bargain.

We sit on a bench in the shittiest and only park we passed. I talk her down from the dream she must have had before she met me and keep her from the certainty of wherever she was going and what it would mean. She is going to be with me today.

The park was entirely wrong. Birds without feet somehow moving lightly through filth. It didn’t take much on either side to wind up somewhere on a couch. Her hand on my thigh. My mouth on her neck. Pushing her head against me. Our thick breaths.

My hand takes hers and moves it up and down. I let go to take it in and feel her stroke. My thighs grip. I hold my mouth on her neck. I hold her tight, not wanting to feel anything except her hand. The movement. Losing track. Forgetting who she is.

I don’t know what to give her. I just want this. Her fingers curved and pulling against my pants. I grip her wrist but let her lead. Feeling her feel me. The air gets hard. I’m going to come. Here. On the couch. In my clothes. And I don’t want her to know.

Later, I have touched her and her hair is wet and matted against her neck. I leave my fingers inside her and rest my head on her hip.

She has the smell of a stranger. And sandalwood. I close my eyes and see a factory. I’m in India again with sandalwood sawdust stirred up by box fans. Big and small Ganeshas pile up all around.

I don’t want her to know about India. About the factory. About the boys outside with envelopes of postcards.

But she’s there with me. I can feel my fingers inside her.

Walking back home, I take the long way, the opposite route. I’m distracted again. Thinking about how I want to feel that touch. Someone’s hand on my thigh, creeping up. Maybe with my belt undone next time. Maybe she’s on her knees next to me on the couch. Bent over just a little. And I can stare.