Fantomina

after "Fantomina; or, Love in a Maze" (Haywood 1725)

I know it’ll feel right when it makes me feel like one of those songs. Tragedy, longing, loss: I’ll be proud of all that beauty as soon as I get it. And I know it will be worth it when it works out. As it has to, when something feels like that.

How can I spend each day waiting for the next, unless something is coming within that N-E-X-T-

I said to the last guy: “there are a thousand other boys out there waiting to break my heart.” I thought it sounded like a pretty good play-off of the wretched state of my heart when he said he, “wasn’t feeling it.”

I thought about that for a very long time.

Yesterday, I stood between the unenforced aisles of a thrift store and stared at my hands clutching a cotton-poly blend. The dress was pink with white polka dots hanging on a chest-high metal rack. Next to it was a pleather jacket, and, on the other side, corduroy pants. I thought about how there are so many kinds of women in the world. How everyone is looking for someone different. And how many times have we looked over a potential soulmate (or been looked over ourselves) because of these “types?” Wouldn’t it be easier if we weren’t so prescriptive? If we could look beyond the aesthetics and see what matters?

That will never happen.

Today I was thinking about that dress, those pants and the jacket. And I guess I came to the idea: if you can’t beat them, join them.

—

I began the morning at five AM. I exercised, showered, scrubbed, shaved, did an extensive skin care routine, and finished off with a smoothie and my vibrator. I didn’t want to leave the house dehydrated, so I finished off a full bottle of water as well.

Taking a step onto the street at 8 in the morning means commuters, means women and men in suits heading god knows where. The pavement scuffed under my Hokas. And I walked the three blocks to the expensive gym.

Starting with a day pass, I joined yoga after yoga class. But after my third, I noticed that the only other participants were recently recovering mothers, and unfortunately that is not my thing.

I switched to the weight room, looking clearly out of place in my Lululemon next to all the Gym Shark girlies. But, I certainly stood out. When I was just starting to think about how I do not know how to use anything beyond dumbbells, Nial walked over to me.

“You need any help?”

I pushed a curtain bang behind my ear, just for it to fall back in front of my eye. “You can tell I’m new?”

He looked me up and down; I sucked in my gut, stood a little straighter, but kept my wide legged stance to project that confident gym-girl energy. “New to this part of the gym at least.”

“I’m Andi,” I lied, the fear rippling off me like nothing else.

“Nial,” he clapped my shoulder, and used his hand to turn me.

The instructions were prolonged, and unhelpful. He took special care with my form, using his hands to adjust my posture. “Focus on the pushing up,” he kept saying, and I pretended to know what he meant until I did it right.

“That’s the end of my set,” I told him, tightening my ponytail.

He folded his hands behind his head. “Where you headed next?”

We went for smoothies after the gym, and with his hand on my knee, made plans to meet up after his shift was over at this tech company.

“It is really a re-envisioning of basic neo-marketing toolkits,” he explained as a waiter placed my green-goddess salad and his salmon filet. “We export cross-culturally imported, and scientifically backed information encoded with spatial and graphic elements to encourage development, satisfaction, and turnover.”

I nodded, pushed around my green-goddess salad, and bit my lip.

“For me, the gym really lets me see how far I am,” he said, unprompted, and gazed over my left shoulder pressing a fist to his thoughtful mouth. I turned to look, but there was just the waiter helping a different table. His eyes flicked to mine, checking to see if I was even paying attention.

“Like, what do you mean by that?” I took the world's smallest bite.

He laughed, and finally returned my gaze. “I just see a lot of guys out here who don’t push themselves. You know all these… guys who are, frankly, not able to do what I can do.”

“And, what is it that you do, exactly?”

“Well, you know, I code the smart watch faces. But there's really a lot that goes into that.” He waved the words away from his face, “What I mean is that I am working at a fortune-five-hundred company, and I am in peak physical form. If there was like a complete collapse of the western marketplace, I would be on top of all of it. You know that’s why I’m such a good…” he slipped out of his reverie for a moment, “gym buddy,” and winked.

I leaned in on my elbows, “You were really helpful today,”

“Yeah, you know I was just raised right that way I think. I know how to be a gentleman. I know what girls need.” He laughed, “you know you impressed me for your first time, some regular Gym-Baddies will show up and not even know how to use the equipment. That’s a real joke, when girls fucking pretend to know what they’re doing. I like that you just asked for help.”

I thought back to his version of history, and nodded.

—

So my first attempt was a bust—so what?

I went back with him, thinking that it was gentlemanly that he wanted me at his apartment and not my own. I thought that some spark would fly out and nip me and everything would happen when we got there. But he had to stretch for like fifteen minutes before anything started, and even though he tried to include it in foreplay, huffing and growling and pawing, I just wanted it to be over as soon as possible.

So what was next?—I needed a new angle, was what.

Inspired by TikTok, I started my Monday on a walk downtown, hair slicked back, dewy skin, and a sleek yet feminine skirt suit. With a Starbucks in hand, I passed by skyscraper after skyscraper, peeping the men out of the corner of my eye.

I slipped out of my stiletto, right in front of a brand new patagonia vest.

“Whoa there, are you alright?” British? Fantastic.

I pressed back my slick ponytail with flat fingers. “New shoes, I can’t get the hang of them.” My affect was flat, but not humorless.

“You should try shoes from La Collectivo, they do great stuff.” He says, laughing, “That’s actually where I got these from.” He popped his heel off the ground and gave me a look at the neutral yet expensive loafers. I caught him checking me out.

“So what are you doing downtown on a Monday morning?” I asked.

“I was hoping to get run over by pretty girls in high heels,” he smirked, “though I was expecting one with better taste in coffee.”

The boy, whose name I discovered was Chris, worked for the same company as Nial, but didn’t know him. He handled the books, and had a shockingly flexible schedule. That morning, we went for coffee, his choice, and I learned that he was also new to the city, that he was also new to this job, that he also went to his parent’s Alma Mater, and that he was also interested in me.

“Can I see you again?”

“I guess it depends on how you’re hoping to,” a coy smile played at my lips. I tucked a loosened strand back into my bun.

We were outside his office building, a vibrator-shaped silver spectacle, barely standing out in the skyline. He, spinning the ball of his foot against the pavement, said “Well, Angela, I was thinking about dinner tomorrow, around 7:30.”

I thought through my plans for tomorrow: calling my parents, pretending to work on a resume, watching 500 Days of Summer again. “I think I can fit you in.”

—

And so Chris and I began to go out. I saw him the next night, and the night after that. On Thursday he took me to a jazz concert, and we swing-danced in the crowd. He dressed well, and sent me websites of boutiques to check out. I bought the other shoes, and wore them despite their discomfort and similar style to my preferred heels. I thought they looked better on my feet, thinned my ankles and hid my toes.

We were at an uptown cocktail lounge his coworkers recommended one night when I met Rob.

Rob was a greyed, well-suited, well-watched man in his 50’s. He was working in upper management of Chris’ job, and they ran into each other there as he and I were ordering.

My back was turned to the rest of the bar, a little black dress and pearls clutching my body like a corset, and I felt a hand I didn’t recognize on my back. I turned to Chris, about to tell him, but was beaten to the punch.

“Rob!” Chris said, eyes fluttering widely, “how are you doing?”

“Not bad, young man,” Rob had removed his hand to shake hands and clap Chris on the shoulder. “Such a pleasure to see you here.”

“This is my date,” Chris gestured to me, and Rob took my hand, kissing the back of it. I blushed and looked away.

“Well I’m on my way out, but it’s good seeing you here, kid. Listen, put the first round on me. Garçon!” He called to the bartender, who dropped the customer he was helping and rushed over, “get these two whatever they want,” and here Rob looked right at me, “my treat.”

Chris started to protest, but there was nothing to be done.

“Thank you,” I said, demurely.

—

Chris and I spent six out of seven days a week together for half a month. He walked me home, even if we were across town, and always let me stay the night at his mid-sized apartment. I looked at Chris, who had bug-big eyes, hazel with green and brown and orange, and expertly cut light brown hair, who stood only a few inches taller than me in heels, but I didn’t care. I thought he was the most beautiful man I had ever seen by our third date, walking back from the Jazz concert with a kebab he had bought for me in one hand. He talked about his mom, how close they were, how he had always looked out for his little siblings. He didn’t talk about his dad, and got pissed if I asked, but that didn’t matter. By the end of the week I was in love.

I had thought I was in love before this. College was a long series of trial and error, searching for this perfect man who would find me perfect and everything would be perfect. But those were all flukes, failed feelings or neutrality or nothing at all. Chris was real, and every time I touched him I wanted every part of him with me all the time.

I thought, I can’t believe this worked! And so soon! I was ready to let my guard down, to start showing up in flats instead of stilettos, to talk about the rom-coms I had watched recently, to wear my hair in a messy pony. I thought, how hard could this be? He doesn’t even know what my fake job is (marketing) so it’ll be easy for him when I come clean (trust-fund). I didn’t want to get ahead of myself, but I thought I had met my soulmate.

One day, lying in his bed, he was brushing a lock of my blow-out out of my eye. I said “This feels really special to me. This feels different than before.”

He smiled at me, eyes flickering.

“I guess I just want you to know,” I said, my voice wavering with nervousness, “I really, really like you.” I blushed, heavy and hard, “I don’t know what to say.”

He kissed me, one time deeply, and one time a flash of a peck.

I saw him one other time after that. He called me in the middle of the work day, at the end of our two weeks.

“What’s up?” I answered, and he sighed immediately.

“I don’t think I can see you tonight.”

My stomach dropped, but I picked up the stone anyway like a bodybuilder. “Is tomorrow better?”

“You’re not getting it. I can’t see you at all. Not any more.”

“Are you breaking up with me?”

“I just don’t think we should see each other. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Then what happened?”

“I’m just not feeling it.”

—

I hate to admit it, but I kept returning to that cocktail bar. In my defense, only three times was it by myself. Because, on the third, Rob showed up again. I was sitting at the bar, talking to the bartender to avoid talking to the other man that was technically also in the conversation, when the silver fox rolled up.

He placed himself between the third participant and I, signaling the bartender and pretending to notice me for the first time just then.

“Good evening!” he said, pressing his eyes against me, “didn’t see you there. Where’s Christopher?”

I flushed and looked to the side, trying to hide it, “Why should I know?”

He blinked, “I see,” and looked to our left, “I’m not interrupting anything, am I?” With his forgone conclusion, he turned back to the bartender, “scotch, rocks, and,” looking to the stranger’s full glass and my empty martini, “another for the lady.” His voice singed the stranger, who downed half and walked away from the bar. Rob wasted no time in taking up his seat. “My tab,” we accepted the refreshments.

“I hate to see a man neglecting a woman's drink.” I used the olive garnish to spin my drink, and watched him carefully. “I’m sorry to hear about Christopher,”

“There's nothing to hear,” I corrected him, measured.

Rob smiled, the lines on his face presenting age, weather, the people that have come and gone in his life. He sipped his scotch—an embarrassing drink—revealing no ring, and no tan line. “Then let’s talk about something more interesting.”

So he did. Rob was a man with German and Russian citizenship (“though I can’t tell you how,” he said with a wink), who was born in Iowa. I would find out later that he had been married twice before, to a woman from the city, and then some “exotic girl with a temper.” He would often say things like “it is such a pleasure to finally meet a girl in your generation with some class,” or “you drink slower than my grandmother,” to which I involuntarily giggled, which he seemed to really like. My chest shivered with discomfort at his attentions, something in there snapping everytime he referred to me as a “girl,” or put his hand on my knee or arm when he laughed at his own joke. But, during one of his long nostalgic monologues, I tried to gain some perspective.

Rob was a good looking man—salt and pepper hair, not totally greyed, perfect level of dad-muscle (though everytime I noted his kids were my age, he shifted the topic immediately). Truly single (I did not want to be a mistress, again), and truly rich (he flaunted in the new-money-grown-old way which I always admired). A further step back—I am a very young woman looking for happiness in this world. It is easier to love a rich man than a poor man. And this is so much more attention than any other guy my age has ever given me.

So, as he finished his poorly detailed explanation of Berlin (mostly laughing where explanation should have been), I smiled and laughed too. “That is so interesting,” I said.

Rob and I spent a few months together. I told him my name was Lola, and every time he said it his eyes sparkled. There wasn’t much for us to do together. He worked, a lot, and I would hangout in my apartment or sometimes in his, and read the books he told me about on our dates. He was a little better in bed than I was used to, which was a plus, and I seriously expanded my closet while we were together. The only real problem appeared when he introduced me to his friends.

It had been about a month into the relationship—or thing, or whatever you would call it—and we had been going to all his favorite places, but only ever just the two of us. He never wondered why he never met my friends (I didn’t have any), but started our drinks that day like this: “I bet you’re wondering why you haven’t met anyone in my life,” I hadn’t been, as a matter of fact. Two ex wives, two estranged kids: I never wondered if there was anyone else who could stand his presence. “Well, as a matter of fact I’m part of a boys club of sorts,”—he might have known what that meant—“and they’re all dying to meet the silly girl who’s been stealing me away.”

I blinked at “silly girl,” but clicked the heels of his gifted Louboutins, and smiled. “Aww,” I whined, “that’s so sweet. You haven’t been telling them about me, have you?”

Rob swelled with pride. “Lo-la,” he pulled out my name like a slinky, “how could anyone not?” His hand, meaty and horribly hot, landed heavy on my thigh, skipping the knee altogether. “Tonight we’re skipping Gesuyaro, and going to The Dignitaries Club.”

I scanned my memory of places he’d name dropped, and my own research on Michelin star restaurants in the city, but couldn’t find anything. Once again I answered him, “I’ve never heard of it?”

“I didn’t expect that of you,” he winked, “finish your drink, I’ll tell you on the way there.”

I had to attempt a quick yet graceful consumption of my cosmo, as the martini glass was still half-full of the pomegranate-seed-syrup. We stepped outside, and instead of taking his car (a 1964, racer-red Aston Martin, “just like Bond”), the concierge opened the door of a town car. I stepped in first, as always, and he followed right behind. Putting his arm behind me on my seat, he spoke as the car drove away, “this is a top secret organization we’re headed to. Girl’s aren’t often allowed inside, so you ought to mind your manners there. I don’t want to lose my membership over a little firecracker like you.” He winked, again, and I watched a couple enter the cocktail lounge we just left over his shoulder. No one had ever before or has since called me a firecracker. I cowed and blushed and swatted his knee.

“You think I’m that silly?” I teased. Referencing his term bit at my throat and eyes.

He leans in close to my neck, and growls, “how could you not be?” A meaty paw turned to the inside of my bare thigh, and I gasped in surprise. I looked at the rearview mirror, where the driver's eyes remained entirely trained on the road ahead of him. A horrible thought passed: What must he think of me?

As those always wet lips pressed my suddenly chaste skin, I had to lean back, hitting my head on the window pane, and pushed him back with a polite, and demure, smile. “Don’t ruin my makeup before I meet your friends, I don’t want to look bad in front of them.”

He put a hand against the door next to me, right next to my shirking shoulder, pining me there. I didn’t like it. “What are you afraid of, kiddo? They’ll think something nasty of you?”

I meant, yes. But he said it like it was ridiculous. I took a silent, deep breath, all choked-up on his expensive cologne. I smiled, bashfully, my heart cracking a little under its own weight.

The Dignitaries Club was hosted in a big, white-stone building, sort of neoclassical, sort of robber-baron, inset with a huge, dark-wood door, red carpet, and doorman who was dressed like a bodyguard but not built like one. Even he sort of leered at me as Rob and I climbed the stairs, his hand pushing against my low back. The door opened for us, with the doorman acknowledging Rob by his last name. Inside was as dark and wooden as the front door, though significantly more stuffy and confining. The paneling made it impossible for the light-sconces to do any work, and the space the tall ceiling provided was swallowed by oil portraits, black and white photographs of men with mustaches, and hunting scenes. When Rob said women weren’t allowed in here, he seemed to mean it in the most literal sense. Eyes, hundreds of eyes of hundred-year-old men watched me, their looks marked by a year in time, but living on through Rob.

Rob’s friends were not far, in an over-stuffed and over-decorated room I had the displeasure of entering. Each was merely a different shade of Rob—spilling out of their suits, perfectly groomed hair and beards seeming to shine with oil or gel, too-straight teeth and breath reeking of coffee and alcohol.

A small uproar was the welcome I received, walking into this room. It seemed as though this was not a common occurrence, though they’d had some practice with it. I suddenly resented being one of the girls allowing herself to be brought onto the slaughterhouse floor.

Bookshelves lined the walls, same dark paneling, and filled with books either too old to touch or shiny and new and plastered with one old historian after the next.

I didn’t last long there, in all honesty. I could only stand two drinks before a tour of said bookshelf led to… well, Rob’s friend Todd making a very clear pass behind a smokescreen of… friendliness, I’m sure he’d say.

That wasn’t the final straw. At an off-moment, I pulled Rob aside and told him. I don’t know what I expected—perhaps jealousy, at the very least—but he blinked any negative emotion away before I could recognize it. What did he say to me exactly? Something, boys will be boys?

I was off balance, maybe a little tipsy. I let it get to me.

And, with less than a slap, another wasted opportunity passed me by. Not even all the gifts, every fine-dimed thing I had gotten could console me, and the worst of it, I didn’t even miss him. I just needed to cope. He sent me home in an uber, and I shattered a bottle of perfume in the bathtub.

—

I needed fresh air, or something like it from the city, so I started attending open mics. You could find three- or four- of them a week at the time in a neighborhood of the city I didn’t live in, but staying in my apartment had become a horrific nightmare for me. There was a couple next door who would not stop throwing their headboard against the wall, and they didn’t seem to like it when the favor was returned. Besides, I didn’t particularly like bringing guests into my space, much preferring to spend a night outside the brick nightmare.

But I’m not one for one-night stands. I tried, for a little bit, thinking I could get the life fucked out of me and then I wouldn’t want any more from it. But it didn’t work. And none of them were as good as Rob was, which is what really pissed me off.

So, one day at one of these open mics, in a cafe that may have been smoke filled in another life, I saw a young man get on stage, and knew what I wanted.

It felt like fate, like my bad luck had run out, and showed me a new opportunity. I needed to cusp the high life, I thought, to know that I really needed a grittier, more real world.

I cut my hair to shoulders—blunt and effortless, I hoped—and stopped at the local flea market, buying much baggier, worn, eccentric clothing. I looked entirely different the next time I went out, Kohl around my eyes, bangs and an approachable lipstick.

The Beatnik Cafe was the same as I remembered it. I got there before the open mic started, and ordered their shit house-red while I waited.

Matthias, which was the poet's name, took his sweet time getting to the stage. I was four or five glasses in, moist-eyed by the time he entered that hot, warm light, dirty blonde hair and beanie absorbing and reflecting the glow. He could have been a surfer in another life, so matching the thought of warmth and beauty. He got up and read from a black moleskin notebook. I didn’t understand a word of what he said, every unfamiliar word became something foreign and stunning in the off-kilter meter and rhyme. But I watched from heavy lids like the Messiah was speaking, breathing his beautiful art like incense. And, at some point, he started reading as if only to me, every other glance away from the page landing on my heart, already skipping beats.

We met in the alley outback. He offered me a smoke, and though I had never tried cigarettes, I gritted my teeth and choked on the choking pain of that horrible tar. I didn’t say much, thinking less is more, especially when he spoke such incredible words so fluently, like they had been born into his tongue.

“Who are you?” He asked.

I kicked my leg against the wall, hating the thought of giving an unoriginal answer to a man like him.

“You can call me Ophelia,” I murmured, keeping my voice pitched higher and softer for the entirety of the conversation.

“Ophelia—” he breathed so deeply that I knew it was the exact right thing to say.

—

The next time I saw Matthias, he was standing outside of my apartment, chucking pebbles through my open window.

“What are you doing?” I called down to him, my body reacting to the smile which lifted his face heaven-toward.

“Pissing off your neighbors!” He yelled back, laughing, “I have terrible aim. Come down!”

In that moment, I knew this was a life-changing choice. What would the girl I want to be do?

I sped through applying fresh makeup, putting on a loose shirt and taking off my bra, and struggling into my new Doc Martens before huffing it down the three flights of stairs to the street.

When I stepped out the front door, Matthias was leaning against the brick with a cigarette. Upon the offer I took it, taking what I hoped was a seductive drag from the disgusting stick. I wasn’t able to stop the cough this time, though the pain didn’t last nearly as long. The poet merely chuckled, taking it back from me with good humor. “What do you like to do at this time of night?” he asked.

What would that girl say?

“How ‘bout I show you?” and I grabbed his hand, pushing back any fear getting in my way.

We caught a night bus, going as many stops toward downtown until I saw something that looked interesting. I didn’t know the city at all, so the dive we landed in was a bit of luck and charm, and we drank hazy IPAs on the back porch while the smell of weed and tobacco perforated the air. He told me about his art, how it all started, with dropping out of university to find “truth” for his art, something he strongly believed higher-ed couldn’t offer. Given that I couldn’t really remember what my degree was, I was more than happy to stay draped over his shoulder, nursing a cup of hog-wash.

The conversation lulled, my worst nightmare. An idea grabbed me. I pressed my hand to his chest, firm and warm in the night air. “Watch this,” I whispered in his ear. Without leaving time for second thought, I stood, and teetered over to a trio of beanied young men, who were doing most of the work of scenting the patio.

I didn’t really greet them on that cold Tuesday night, and they didn’t notice me approaching until I was there.

“Hi…” I murmured, tucking my hair behind my ear. “My friend back there,” and I gestured with my head, “has had a really rough day, and we forgot to pack— do you have anything you can spare for some new friends?”

They looked at each other, innocent enough, and one of them, with a halo of curly hair and a baseball cap, shrugged and passed the blunt from between his lips to mine.

Now, this was the first time I had ever had any kind of weed. Despite my familiarity with binge drinking, I was raised a Good Girl, and hadn’t, until this very moment, enjoyed any of the interests in it.

And so, as I have heard reflected by many people since, I didn’t feel a thing as I puffed and passed. I became very nervous, nonetheless, looking out at the group of boys I had been adopted into, feeling that way even about Matthias as he adopted their comradery in a way I never would be able to. It pissed me off, but I was practically sober on my fifth drink and third pass, so nothing untowardly ever happened. Little did I know at the time, that quietness I took on, watching and never responding to a conversation I practically wasn’t a part of, only assisted my goal. Matthias thought I was the most intellectual girl he had ever met, according to him later that night in his apartment.

It was frankly disgusting there. I had been in my fair share of dormitories, and men’s apartments, but this was the first time I had ever seen anything like that. Halfway through sex his roommate came home and we had to pretend like no one even saw anything. While they talked in the hallway, I scavenged under clothes on dressers and papers on desks, finding remnants of white powder and granules of green flower fucking everywhere. His rough drafts were nearly illegible, but I found one I can still recall to this day, a paper pinned to the wall, covering a fist-sized hole in the wall. Not getting that deposit back, I guessed.

It read:

Cavernous soul,
You deadly deep darkness.
I loved, and then was frozen over. Hearts
Aren’t meant to break
Like this
Like what she did
A knock off the cliff
A stones throw from her lucious
Unconquered flesh – I found a heart
Mine, a heart she owned
And pleasured in
Her crushing of it

Maybe I didn’t get it. It didn’t matter: Matthias re-entered the room, a pouty, spoiled look on his face. He shuffled over, kicking aside piles of clothes, and shoved his face into the crook of my neck. He wasn’t much taller than me, so it was very easy.

“Do I need to leave?” I asked insipidly.

He sighed, his breath reeking even at that angle. “Let’s go up to the roof? I’ll roll for us.”

We were sitting on the ledge of the building, me trying so hard to not show the terror I felt looking down five stories. He lost granules on the cement in front of us, fumbling a roll which would be obviously shit to any eye other than mine. Including his.

His hands shook, “I swear I’m usually better than this.”

I shrugged, buying time to think of something to say. “I’ve seen worse.” I had never seen this done before, ever.

We smoked, and I had too much, sitting up there, eventually slinked to giggle and lean against the half-wall. Once the joint was done, he lit a cigarette, and we started on that.

“I think it’s so much more romantic to share one,” I said, blowing out a mouthful of the horrible smoke. If I didn’t actually inhale, I found the experience much better.

“I think you’re the most intellectual girl I’ve ever met,” he said, “and you… you’re so different from other girls I know. They all try so hard, and you just…”

“Float through?” I filled in, not even meaning to. Shit, I thought, did I push it?

But he smiled, my words choice, “exactly. You don’t need all their books and shit, you just get it. I bet, if you wrote poetry, you’d have the muses immediately on your side.”

“I don’t write poetry,” he hadn’t bothered to ask, by the way.

“Then maybe,” he leaned in, breathing smoke out with his words into my face. I blinked. “Maybe, you were sent here as my muse.” His hand slid over my jeaned thigh, “it’s been so long since I’ve felt inspired like the way I do with you.”

I thought about the poem in his room. Who was the last person he said that to? I pulled my fingers through his hair. “You hold on too tight,” I said. “You have to let go, find that freedom. I know that’s what resides in you.”

Don’t ever let anyone tell you that word salad doesn’t work. He kissed me there, and we would keep kissing. Eventually, he learned how to schedule enough time to do more, too, and eventually I learned to stop caring where we did it.

I began to buy his constant muse-oriented compliments, especially as, post-coitus, he did seem to become more creative, writing me poems, sending them as thank you’s, invitations, good nights and good mornings. I would lay naked in his bed at noon, while he would lean over his desk, still naked, still sweating, and scribble something onto a page. I don’t know if he ever cleaned his sheets, or just had a strong system of the same dark blue.

At parties he would introduce me as “just Ophelia,” like he really believed I was a god-send. His friends were like carbon copies of him—smelling of four different kinds of smoke, dark eyeliner and turtlenecks, doc martens and berets. Even with my new closet of three band tee shirts and seven sets of jeans, I felt like they could tell I was a faker. I always felt that way around him. The more time we spent together, the less I could avoid actually saying something to him, and he seemed to laugh at me more and more, even as he liked it less and less.

What kept up was the sex, frequent and fast, often in public bathrooms or backstage at open mics. I was his lucky charm, his diaphanous something or other.

I should have known something was wrong when I was in the audience at his third open mic that week, and brought out of his pocket a crumpled paper. He looked at me as he dedicated it, and I smiled and winked back at him. Before he began, Matthias's eyes worked the room, savoring the silence like he often did. And then he began to read. “Cavernous soul, you deadly deep darkness…”

Something in me twinged, but it wasn’t until he reached “her luscious unconquered flesh,” that I remembered that first night in his room, this poem pinned against the hole in his wall. I was a little confused, the flattery of the dedication turned sour in my mouth like the aftertaste of coffee. Did I do something wrong?

At the after-party, he was all over me, but I felt stiff, cold. He was pulled away by a friend with a ponytail, and that’s when the guitarist came over to me.

I’d seen him at another open mic, and thought he was good at playing John Mayer. He had shaggy hair that waved down to the top of his shoulders, and round glasses he only wore to read music.

I was leaning against a wall, not really watching the room, a bottle of Blue Moon in my hand. I was wearing a vintage leather jacket and beanie, eyeliner like Matthias's friends, if more smudged on the bottom, and wishing I was dead.

I didn’t respond to his first request for attention, genuinely having no idea how to reply to a “hey” in that moment.

But then he said, “you okay? Kinda seems like you’re not having a great time.”

“Are you?” Was my reply.

“Well, I like being the guy with a guitar at parties as much as anyone, but sometimes it's a little stressful.” I thought about the way Matthias complained about people like the Guitarist, saying they were attention-Whores (emphasis on ‘Whores’), who didn’t have any real talent in their bodies or else they wouldn’t be “pandering to idiots at parties.” He always said that loudly, so the audiences around these musicians could definitely hear. And then they would glare at me, like it was my fault. I didn’t care either way.

“I just, you know,” he started, mumbling and stuttering like he meant to piss me off. I was wearing my teeth down to nubs. “I think you should check out the bathroom.”

“Huh?” I spun on him, energy enough to beat the shit out of him overpowering my senses.

He choked. “I mean, like, the restroom down here is weird, you ought to check it out. Like, you might be interested.”

I could not have been more annoyed or put off by this man at this point. He had become repulsive to me. So, to get away, I followed his advice, and went to wash my hands. The door was closed, the lights were on, and when I knocked, I heard Matthias’s voice, “Busy!” and the giggle of someone else.

They didn’t lock the door.

The weird thing in the bathroom was a line of coke on the counter and Matthias on his knees in front of a girl I had never seen before.

I poured the last quarter of my bottle on his head, did the line of coke, and woke up the next morning with the Guitarist.

And that was how I met Jason.

—

After he texted me about “not thinking we were exclusive,” the last thing I heard about Matthias was from his instagram story, a video of him reading a poem about him as Orpheus, and the “Most Intellectual Girl” he ever met as Eurydice. Jason hit the block button for me.

But Jason didn’t even last long. Not just in bed: he was way too into me. At first it was almost sweet: he had seen me go through this bullshit with Matthias, and was so thoughtful and caring; and then after two weeks I was sort of over the constant calling, and worrying, and jealousy, and one day, as I was on his couch, half clothed while he ground into me muttering “oh, I want you so bad,” and, “ugh, I need you so bad,” I figured I wanted a way out.

The marathon of boyfriends must’ve been catching up to me because I started modeling for a painting class. I was at a cafe/wine bar, drinking at 11 AM on a Monday, avoiding Jason when I saw the flier, asking for models at the community college, doing nude and clothed modeling for the advanced art classes. It was perfect.

I started that Friday, bags under my eyes and stomach empty, and sat still for three hours of class. The teacher referred to me, spoke to me, I spoke back, but never knew what I said. I came back every Monday, Wednesday, Friday at the same time to continue the work.

I was laying on my back, legs propped on a chair, feeling the weight of my left breast shift with my breath, when the figure of a medium skinned brunet man leaned over me. “The class is over.” He told me. He watched me with a familiar hunger, an unfamiliar honesty.

“Is it?” I replied, bland. He was right, a student was speaking to the professor in the corner, while most of the rest of the population had silently shimmied out the solid blue-metal door. The boy remained where he was, not ogling me, with charcoal on his fingers.

“There’s no class after this. Would you mind sticking around for my personal study?”

I couldn’t help it, and huffed a rude sigh. “I don’t think I get paid for private lessons.” My drape slipped off the chair and into my hands. I wrapped it around my arms.

“I’ll buy you a coffee.”

“I’m not paid in coffee.” But I didn’t get up. The tone of my voice sounded so much more cruel, more dull than I remembered. Everything frustrated me those days. I couldn’t escape a feeling of being constantly watched, consumed, and I didn’t know where it came from or when it had started to bother me.

“Okay,” he said. “No coffee. How about a drink? Seems like you need one.”

I stood, pulled the robe tight around myself. When I had dressed, a loose sweater and jeans, nothing I was proud of having on, he was waiting in the hallway.

“You’re still here?”

“You didn’t tell me to leave.”

“What kind of drink?”

Perhaps the first red flag was his willingness to drink before noon. But I’m not a hypocrite, so I didn’t mind it.

The pint of shitty local beer numbed my hands, and curdled my stomach. Half done, and my head was too fuzzy to regret the empty stomach. He sat at the bar next to me, same beer, watching me in silence. We hadn’t really spoken, but a free beer is a free beer. Above the Liquor mirror was a cut-off print of “The Kiss,” only the top half fitting between the top shelf and ceiling.

I felt a knuckle drag over the skin of my jaw. I flicked only my eyes to him. “What?”

“You’re a very well constructed woman,” he said. I nearly laughed. Didn’t. “Good for drawing.”

“Why are you here?” I asked, almost itching for a cigarette. I drank another quarter of the pint. He signaled for two more.

“Why are you? Drinking isn’t good for models. It bloats the figure, making it hard to capture the real lines of the body.”

“A good artist should be able to represent any body, no matter the issue.”

“But it is an issue.”

I finished the pint.

“Are you going to answer me?” He asked.

I accepted the next pint, the flavor not so bad this time. Sitting next to this guy, I still felt naked. “I don’t have any good reason.”

“Do you have anything?”

I choked. He rubbed my back as I hacked in the empty bar. The keep brought a glass of water over.

“I thought as much. You seem really at a loss for things. Do you have any friends?”

It sent a chill down my back. I don’t stay friends with exes. Not since…

“Who are you?” Something eerie about this guy, he was too knowing. He could read me so well. I didn’t know anyone… like that at all.

“I told you before, I’m Peter.”

“That doesn’t tell me anything about you.” I retorted sloppily.

He leaned in on me. “That’s because,” he said, hardly a murmur in my ear. “I’m more interested in you.”

I’m tired of this, I thought, I don’t want to do this again right now.

Like a message from god, my phone buzzed in front of me. Jason’s fifth text appeared, a bunch of letters I couldn’t comprehend.

“So you do have a friend.” Peter said.

I finished my beer. “You’re rude.”

—

Peter was persistent, if that could be termed for it. He was at least interesting to watch. Jason started picking me up after classes, which I kind of gave him permission to do. Jason bored me. He was a very insecure guy, not liking that I was doing nude modeling at all. Not liking that I was “selling myself” as he argued one time. He apologized, later, of course. But I didn’t care either way. I couldn’t bring myself to like him or hate him, to stay or to leave.

Peter kept buying me drinks, but we graduated to clear liquors—“better for the shape,” he’d say—and I’d snipe back eventually, not really able to keep my cool around him. I liked that, that there was some seed of feeling between us. We’d go drink and argue, drink and argue. Sometimes I would go home and throw up.

Peter wasn’t really handsome after I’d looked at him for a while. I think he knew I noticed, because he tended to point out things about me, so I’d point things out about him, and we’d start to yell.

One day, after class, where I had stayed late to do one extra pose for him, I found him outside arguing with Jason. A single eyebrow tilted up my forehead.

Peter had his large sketchbook under his shoulder, which Jason was trying to grab from him like a child.

“Where have you been? I’ve been waiting out here for forty minutes with no response. I thought you were kidnapped or something!” Jason began cheerily.

I pressed two fingers to my temple, my loose caftan top brushing down my arm. “You shouldn’t have waited.”

“I was trying to be nice,” he spat, defeating the purpose.

“Buddy,” Peter said, embarrassing me, “take a hint. She doesn’t want you here.”

“I don’t need your help, Peter,” I told him.

“So you two do know each other? Why won't you show me what you were drawing then, huh?” Jason, like I’d never seen him before, failed to swipe away the sketchbook again.

“Because— whoa, buddy,”

“I’m not your ‘buddy.’” Jason sneered.

I snapped. “Jason. Get a hold of yourself. Don’t look at naked people in public.”

“If you’re—” he started.

But I cut him off, “I literally can’t handle this. We aren’t together Jason.”

“Then why’d you say that to my mom? And why are you lying about these classes to me?”

“I’m not lying,”

“With the level of trust we have, I thought—” Jason sucked in a breath, stepped toward me, and continued at a lower volume. “I know you’re dealing with a lot right now, with just being cheated on and all those failed relationships, but do you think recreating the cycle and just switching to someone new is going to make you happy?”

“Ugh,” I said, out loud, unintentionally. “Jason. Just because I told you about some unimportant bullshit doesn’t mean you’re allowed to psychoanalyze me. I’m not your fucking project. Why don’t you go to another party and play your fucking guitar.”

That night I slept with Peter for the first time. He had a lot of bacne, and after we finished, I lit a cigarette and called Jason to tell him to block my number.

“Feel better?” Peter said, his hand on my bare stomach.

“This isn’t happening again.”

He nuzzled behind my ear, “that’s what they all say.”

—

Peter knew me as Emilie. He had a lot of drug dealer friends, and was clearly spending his trust fund down faster than his parents liked. He lived on the north side of town, in a pretty old stone building. We had a routine. I would ignore him in the art classes. He would find me in or heading into a bar. He would buy me drinks or argue with me about drinking. We would do some lines in the bathroom. He would draw me after sex.

I kept thinking, these don’t count.

Peter liked to pinch the thin rim of fat on my arms, legs, and stomach and tisk. I liked to wake him up by popping the pimples on his back. He would hold my hair in the bathroom, when I was bent over the sink or the toilet. I lost 15 pounds in two months. And then the term ended.

After the last of the last modeling class I was booked for, I walked across the city to my apartment. I felt dry, sticky, stiff, exhausted. I shivered the whole way there, the freezing winter breeze cutting through the loose, draping clothes I’d begun to wear. I walked to my apartment and laid down on my bare mattress, and I couldn’t sleep.

The apartment was in shit shape. I still couldn’t sleep. I called Jason. I think he actually blocked my number. That pissed me off. I didn’t shower. I didn’t eat. I lit a cigarette and dug through my Great-Grandmother's perfume box for something to stifle me.

Fuck, Fuck my life.

I called Jax, Peter’s only cool friend, dealer, and as of late, my dealer too.

45 minutes later, until I left after first light, I was in the sub-basement of some brownstone, listening to Jax explain conspiracy theories. Luckily, I had taken enough to not remember any of what he said.

I didn’t see Peter until I did again. It was around Christmas, I was back at one of the bars we went to. My parents were calling, but I had “forgotten” to buy a plane ticket home, and I couldn’t pick up. For the first time in a while, I was sitting by myself, nursing a half pint of Guinness.

“I thought you agreed you look better with your hair down,” was his opener, a classic Peter hello.

“I thought most of us learned to shower in middle school,” I replied. Kind of a projection, to be honest, since my hair was up because I hadn’t washed in a week. I reeked of sweat and weed and alcohol but I hadn’t really slept either and just bought this new perfume and maybe that’s why no one had approached me after all.

“Come on,” he leaned in anyways, so maybe it actually wasn’t as bad as I thought, “I know you missed me. If you say it I might even admit that I missed you, too.”

Not my proudest moment. He washed my back at his apartment that night, and then came over to clean mine the next day after dinner.

“You ever try soylent?” He asked as he cleaned out my fridge.

He was a, um, giving person.

—

The basement where Jax lived and did business out of was a dark, musty, probably lead-painted pit. He had color-changing LED strips around the pinned curtains, lining the ceiling and floor, tapestries of psychedelic and tribal AI art, blankets “from Mexico,” and, like, fifteen hookahs on display.

I wasn’t really cheating on Peter, because he deserved it. Peter was a fucking control freak, and was pushy about my messiness when it suited him. Jax didn’t notice. And my afternoons there eventually evolved into evenings, I didn’t even realize what I was doing until it was too late. And while Jax was thoughtful and loving in our acquaintance, most of the reason I liked him was because I felt like I was killing Peter a little each time.

And one day, between episodes with Peter and with Jax, I was looking at a giant painting of an unfamiliar body, the title reading Emilie #74. I was thinking if I actually looked like that, snow fluttering outside, the streetlamp light flickering through the huge gallery windows, her skin almost purple with paint and shadow, each breast small and pressed against a forearm. The canvas cut off the hip, a deep impression of lack. I pressed a hand to my stomach, wondering if it really shadowed that way. Peter liked to think he saw me as I should be seen, that his artists-vision cut through the “fluff” and created a more true version of me.

I really hated him, more so than anyone I’ve ever met, I think.

And then a half-necked cashmere sweater walked over with a champagne flute, replacing my empty one. “The artist,” the sweater said, “seems to have an infatuation with this model. Emilie. You know that’s the name of Picasso’s most beloved muse? Seems a little too on the nose.” He leaned in conspiratorially, “I wonder if this form even exists, judging by the artist himself.”

“I,” began sharply, empty stomach curdling, “would say that the boy has a fetish for corpses.”

Sweater smiled, toothy, perfectly straight teeth. “You’re funny. Girls don’t usually make me laugh,” he hadn’t laughed. “What is your name?”

I looked him up and down. A designed man, he seemed to be. The sweater was lined with a very fine collared shirt, his slacks pressed, neat, wool. Gucci slippers, not even wet. In fact, he was dressed nearly too explicitly, too cautiously. I wondered if he actually had any money to his name at all.

The painting hovered, and I felt light in the head. “Reyna,” I told him.

—

Peter was shockingly easy to get rid of. I think he sold one of the bodies, and after I demanded a cut of the profits he got so mad I let him catch me with Jax.

The breakup barely made it to the top spot of the amount of slurs I’d been called. Jax was sweet, giving me a couple free baggies and telling me to lay low for a while until Peter was feeling better and then he’d call me. I trusted his word, but didn’t care much either way. I had found Sweater to keep me warm and moving toward something actually productive.

Maybe my stint with the bohemians was sweet, a passing thing I needed to engage with until I settled among my own again, made my parents happy, and actually walked toward a future.

On our first date, I wore a soft, lacy pink dress cut at the shins, feminine and demure and fine. I was ready to move on. I was ready to be a new girl again.

We were sitting in a dark restaurant, and I had zoned out while he talked with the sommelier, a perfect choice for when he deferred to me.

“What does the lady think?”

I blinked out of my daze, and made sure to smile softly, “explain it to me?”

It was like a match lit. He went on to me about this bottle he wanted, had it before and it was the best he’d ever had and now the price had increased and he’s wondering if I thought 300 was too much.

“Why, no,” I replied, blinking.

We walked around the block so I could sober up before he called me a cab, but it was clear even at the time that he wanted to ask me back.

We were standing in front of his building, his hand on my waist, and I said, “I don’t think so, not tonight.”

I was worried that he would recognize my body from the paintings, or that he would be disgusted by what it had become. I was bruising extremely easily, my skin thin and transparent, and really about as purple as the painting represented.

I had to flick the thought away. Peter’s face disturbed me.

Sweater was looking at me funny. Shit, I thought.

“I mean,” I muttered, trying to make my voice flattering, “I just don’t really do that… on first dates.” A harmless lie. Like, what, is he going to check?

Presumed understanding lit up his eyes. “I see,” he said, “there’s no trouble there.”

On date #2, he asked me, “so, what do you look for in the bedroom?”

I had begun to find him boring, and was literally in the middle of repressing that feeling when he asked, so I was a little off guard. I thought he was going to continue to explain crypto to me.

I swallowed hard, and blushed, unlike myself. “I guess, a comforter?” Was that a joke? Did I just tell a joke?

He smiled again.

—

“He thinks you’re a virgin,” Jax said.

“There’s no way.” I told him. Bare knees pressed to my bare chest. “Why the fuck would he think that?”

It took three whole days before Jax called me again. I told him I didn’t want to do coke anymore, and he told me that he just got more K in so I showed up.

Jax shrugged, stubbing his cigarette out. I was about to go see Sweater, so I didn’t want my breath to smell like it. “Guys are just like that. He wants it to be true so … yeah.”

“But I didn’t say anything!”

“You said enough.”

—

Sitting over dinner that night I watched Sweater much closer than I had before. He bought another expensive bottle, we drank it, but he was less insistent on cocktails before and after dinner. In fact, when I asked for a glass of port, he seemed almost annoyed.

“Should I not have ordered it?” I asked after the waiter left. I wouldn’t have actually rescinded the order.

“It’s nothing,” I didn’t ask, “you just drink a lot.”

“Huh?” I blinked at him. I would’ve wiped my eyes but I badly needed the concealer.

“I just can’t figure you out.”

Jax’s words came back to me.

What to do? What. To. Do?

For the first time in front of him, I rested my elbows on the table. “You know, I’m embarrassed. I feel like I need to be transparent with you,” I watched him through my eyelashes.

Sweater stiffened, pulled at his collar. “Is, ah, is everything alright?”

“Yes, well,” I turned my head away, nearly too much. “I hope it will be alright. It’s just, this is our third date and, well, I thought I should tell you, in case you’re expecting anything, that I don’t, well, I don’t have a lot of good sexual experience.”

He held his face back from becoming a light bulb. “What do you mean?”

What do I mean? Fucking—“oh, stop it. You know what I mean. You’re embarrassing me.”

“No, no!” he leaned over the table quickly, nearly knocking over my glass of port. “Don’t be embarrassed. There’s no need, nothing to be embarrassed about. Honestly, that’s a good thing. Lack of… experience,” he breathed through his teeth, “you’re better- better off, for it.”

Oh my fucking god.

—

Jax had friends who were women. A nice change of pace. I’d never really had close female friends before, so suddenly I was talking to them a lot more. It was not what I expected. They laughed about the stories I told them, when Jax was out of the room. They gave him a hard time and spoke Spanish so I could tune out.

For some reason, I didn’t care that Jax and I weren’t exclusive. He got mad sometimes when I talked too much to his clients or whatever but usually we would either end up together at the end of his party, or leave with other people.

For me, it was a struggle, sometimes, to leave with other people. Well, maybe leave isn’t the right word. Go might be better.

Jax was broad chested and beautiful, wide and heavy and solid. He would lift you up and—

But a lot of his customers were twinks.

“I like that dress,” a certain High School dropout said over my shoulder at one event. I was chain smoking against the bed, and Ben Jordan had been poking, snorting something on top. “It doesn’t fit quite right.”

He wasted no time slipping off the bed onto his back next to me. He was pale, square, thin, and handsome enough to deserve reference by full name.

I thought about it. Didn’t say anything.

“I’ve seen you at one of these things before,” he said, sitting up, “you Jax’s girl?”

“I’m nobody’s ‘girl,’” I pointlessly told him.

Ben Jordan just smiled. “What, you some SJW?” I didn’t understand what he meant. “Nah, I’m just kidding. But I don’t recognize you from High School.”

I had smoked maybe too much, because the whole time he was talking I wanted to get up and leave, but couldn’t move my body to get there. He talked at me for maybe three hours before shocking me back into lucidity. We were in the bathroom and he was massaging my foot and said “Oh, shit. I shouldn’t tell you this… but I feel like you really get me. Ah, fuck it. Okay, so in High School I had to take four months off school because—” he had raped some girl and didn’t get away with it right away “—but then—” he had gotten off scott free and still got to drop out of college on his own terms but “—no one really talks about the way these allegations affect boys. Like I heard she—” had sought justice against another student who was two years older than her at the time and he only went to UC Davis.

“Okay.” I said at the end of it. “Why are you telling me this?”

—

“You really haven’t heard of The Bell Curve?” Joe O’Reilly leered at me over the paraphernalia covered glass table. “It's like, a hugely important academic text on IQ,”

I was chewing a flick of skin on my second knuckle. The skin was sweet, not sticky, and had no flavor I could recognize. As I angled my teeth to better peel back the sliver, the tip of my tongue would dab the intact flesh, another curious clue to where this taste had come from.

“I found it at the Stanford library, can’t believe it wasn’t like—” the routine eyeing up to see if I was safe to share this with. “—gotten rid of, you know?”

I finally got the piece off, teeth clacking, skin pulled up. I began to nibble at the blood, and pull the loose flesh of the knuckle around. The sweetness mixed with the iron in a horrible hard candy flavor.

“Wait, where’d you go?”

Not letting go of the skin, I mumbled, “nowhere.” I crashed my teeth onto my third knuckle joint, no skin, no blood, no sweet.

“Harvard?” he misheard. “So, I mean, damn. You might even be smarter than me.”

—

Jax had a pickup basketball group he went to often. It took a while, but I figured out where it was. He would ghost me for days sometimes, and if I needed something really bad for whatever reason, I’d have to seek him out. But, at some point I had to stop going over to his apartment. All his High School buddies were back from college, and were constantly crowding his room. Jax and I had a bad habit of, whenever we did have alone time, finishing the night inside of each other, and mutually decided without talking about it, that we weren’t feeling that anymore. I had wanted to talk to him the last dozen times or so, but it was like a habit we couldn’t break. Like we were conditioned to go through the motions as long as the room was dark, hot, and empty enough.

So his public park pickup basketball was a good change of pace. All of that, and these players were a lot easier to get along with than Jax’s other cronies. So, I would show up and he would have to give back my socks and usually an “I’m sorry” joint which I would float on as I watched their game.

Like Jax, most of these friends were bigger, broader shouldered than most of my prior experience. And this is where I inevitably met Bronte.

I was half crumpled on the gray-weathered-wood bench, back curled against a chain-link fence for the side of the court closest to the road. My first time sitting here, smoking a joint, I arched my back unnoticeably to the unnoticing eye, wore shorts and a tight sweater. I watched men in cars stop at the light on my phone camera, watched them watch me, fantasized about the expensive cars pulling aside and a real James Bond of a man tearing me to shreds.

The day I met Bronte, I was too weak to stand, much less make the walk back to the train station for my apartment. Before I left, the mirror splattered with makeup and perfume and spit by my front door revealed what my personal business-casual: black hoodie, black sweats, black circles. My hand shook as I fumbled my cigarette box. Jax wasn’t there yet.

The box struck the ground uselessly, my last half butt of a cig rolling out. I was prone to tears around this time, and my lack of energy to begin with meant water works, no matter how I tried to control them.

“Hey, sis, you okay?” Bronte stood in front of me. He was darker skinned than Jax, had cropped hair and big, downturned brown eyes. “Wait, you know Jax right?”

“He getting here soon?” I asked, elbows propped up on my knees, head tilted the bare minimum up to be able to see this guy.

“Whoa, huh,” he had a way of musing where you could hear all of his thoughts. “You want a sandwich? I made it for after the game but, seems like you might need it more.”

Of course I was going to say no. But when he pulled out a PB and banana, I forgot how sweet the smell of fruit and peanut butter could be. At the time I felt weak, as Bronte sat heavy on the bench next to me and palmed me the sandwich. But I couldn’t stop myself from eating it. My stomach hurt at the touch of food. But hurt in a good way.

“You shouldn’t smoke those,” he said, “my brother got lung cancer couple years back.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, eyes wet already.

“He’s okay now. But, it scared me, I guess. Oh shit,” he put his hands up, “I mean, no judgment, don’t mean to be a dick.”

I had not thought about cancer in maybe a year, maybe even more.

“What's your name?”

“Bronte,” he said, “yours?”

“It’s not important.”

—

Bronte worked as an eighth grade teacher—my version of hell—and lived near his family. He was born and raised in the city, he still went to church if his mom asked him to, and he told me about himself with such openness and an indiscretion that I couldn’t stop myself from asking more.

And asking more meant spending more time together. And spending more time together meant that I could stand the company of Jax, of any Jax’s friends less and less. I couldn’t help but wonder why my routines with him looked that way when I could go get a bagel with Bronte and only get a bagel.

It wasn’t even that Bronte was so pure or innocent. I knew, in the way I knew every time, that he had something about me, but it didn’t scare me, it didn’t send a shiver down my back. Mostly I felt bad about it. Guilty about it. I began sincerely tucking my hair behind my ear. I began laughing.

Bronte rarely complained, and while he didn’t much ask about me, he tried. And somehow, once I started with him, something about the focus in his eyes, the crinkle of interest on his nose, I had to keep going. And I kept going, until, a few hours into each conversation, my voice would stop coming. I hadn’t spoken that long since I’d moved to the city.

Bronte was beautiful, something that I took for granted at first, and then became something I thought about constantly. I fell asleep thinking about the way his body moved, how he dozed off in movies, smiled at squirrels and pigeons. I kept myself up, thinking about this till two or three in the morning, cutting up cigarettes. He was always on his way to or from meeting with someone else, but I never felt jealous of his time away.

And then, one day, I leaned in and kissed him. And he smiled, so much. And I brought him to my apartment, which I had cleaned for him, and I had the lights dimmed and a record on and a bottle of wine and I went through every well-practiced motion with the usual perfection and… I failed. I fluttered. For some reason, I couldn’t remember my tricks, or I moved with too much or too little intensity. I used to be good at this, I thought to myself. Bronte seemed so far away. My windows were open, sirens and the closest thing to fresh air pushing against barer and barer skin and once we made it to the bed, where I had choreographed the scene exactly the way it went except I tripped, and I had to work harder than usual, and I kept pulling back too far for air and looking at him and thinking he’s beautiful, he’s so beautiful, and it happened so fast that I wasn’t even there for it.

“Are you okay?” he asked, holding me by the shoulders. I wasn’t looking at him, but my hand on his chest. He said, “I don’t think you want to do this.”

“I don’t understand,” I said, not meaning to, “I’m good at this, usually.”

“‘Usually’?” Bronte let me go and stood up. I felt so cold. “Do you usually force yourself through it?”

I had to look at him. “What else,” I swallowed, “are you supposed to do?”