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Show Moon -153 know. The call goes on and on. I pick up a copy of Fortune and pretend to look through it. This would be a good time to leave. I think staying here could be the dumbest thing I've ever done. Then John hangs up and moves toward me with sadness in his eyes, and I wonder if next he will say, "You don't love me enough." I slide away from myself, as if I'm floating in some dark place and must act the part of someone else, quickly, before rock-hard reason catches up to me. I hurry out of my clothes as if commanded, slip quickly under the covers. He brings his brandy to the bed, takes a long swallow, sets the snifter on the floor. His eyes are pleading and his teeth are clenched with need. He says, "I want you. Want you now." His stomach is soft, but his arms are as hard and insistent as any man's. I press against his body, and it's like slipping into the silk of the ocean. I force myself in deeper, push my face into his neck, diving, melting the atoms that divide us, that divide everyone. His breath in my ear is like the wind parting the daffodils, tumbling down the cradle. "Now!" he cries. I reach down, ready to guide him home. But to my great confusion, I find that he is soft. My body becomes my own again with a thud, a sudden landing from a long travel through time. I arrive as a newborn, wet and cold and alone. Then, out of this lost darkness, a great hot anger I've never felt before rises in my chest. I want to spill it over him like a pitcher of curdled milk. I want to stand up and shake my hair at him like a nest of snakes, turn him into stone. I feel so much rage it makes me dizzy. Where has this feeling come from? In the silence, I struggle against it, for I don't think John deserves this. |