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{boomerang} alika tanaka yarnell I can’t tell you how hard this is. That’s what Jack said when I crawled into bed with him the first time. And I knew he meant it both ways. Because that’s how he was. Full of double meaning. But I wasn’t going to let him fuck me. No. I was tired of being fucked. But I should’ve taken him up on it. I should’ve while I had the chance. Now it’s been a long time. Too long. Now men will have none of me. Each time I crawl into one of their beds, they put out the light and turn their backs. I know I’m still sexy. I know they’re still hot for me. It’s Jack, he put a curse on me. I didn’t let him fuck me and now he’s fucked me for good. And then today, today I saw someone I never thought I’d see again. So I was sitting in this god-forsaken pish-posh uppity-yuppity furniture store––no, Design store, where the chairs are made of clear acrylic and sell for $2000. A chair! And a teacup, plain white with a light blue rim is $99. A teacup! I was sitting on one of their leather couches, the back too low, hard and cold and smelling dead. I was sitting there to get out of the rain. I’d been walking down Fillmore after getting some cash. I walked all the way from the bay through the “good” part of the street to where I live in the “bad” part. I had to travel through the shmancy boutiques and eighteenthousanddollar lattes and Chihuahuas with little plaid sweaters on them to get down the street, back home, when the sky fell out. No warning, just buckets on my bare head and me running into the open doors of this plastic, dead cow store. This is the beauty of living in the modern world. You don’t have to look rich to be rich. I convinced the salesman that I was interested in a boomerang-shaped coffee table. Or at least that’s what I thought it was. It had a little lip on it though, like it could be the back of a chair. A man came up to me and asked if he could help me. Me, dirty sneakers, wet dog hair, torn corduroys and a faded t-shirt. Yes, I could be rich. I could be one of those famous hipsters with a message making my art, too good for Armani or Gucci or even Ivory. Yes, the rain had brought out the stink in me. I normally smell good but I told you, Jack put a curse on me and after being rejected from all those men I was feeling down, downright depressed even, and I had let myself go. I took to walking around the city, all over, wherever my feet felt like going, and I would work up a sweat and then get home and be too tired for a shower. I did this for a few days straight. I just wanted to sleep. I wanted to be able to sleep. It was easy when it was me turning my back to them. But when I wanted it, when I wanted to feel that hard cock shoved down my pussy and I couldn’t have it, and they wouldn’t let me have it, I got all hollow inside and I couldn’t sleep. So I had to wear myself out and started walking around the city. And then I figured I might as well pay some people a visit, get some cash while I was in the neighborhood. I was thinking: You can work for a company, or you can have company over for dinner. You can grow and live in a culture or watch a culture grow and live in a Petri dish. You can be homesick for your family, or be home sick in bed or at home, your family is making you sick, sick with the company and the cultures and the pussies and the cocks. The pussy is Siamese or tabby or calico or sister or mother. The cock is red and yellow and black and brown and daddy. So this yuppie guy in the store, he came up to me and asked if he could help me. He asked me. What other colors do they come in? I said, meaning the table, but thinking about cocks and pussies. And he said, This only comes in white, but it’s available in three different sizes. I blinked once. And then again. He was staring at me and I was staring at him. Don’t I know you? he said. Then I became very hot. Not sexy hot, but sweaty pink. Of all the places, of all the times. Miles! I said. Mercedes! he said. How long has it been? High school was a long time ago, Miles. And then he smiled at me in a secret kind of way. A secret that I wasn’t in on. What brings you here? he said. I could feel him looking me over. If it wasn’t for Jack’s curse, I might’ve thought he was eying me, looking through my rained-on t-shirt, trying to remember what it was like to squeeze my tits in that gray alley so long ago. I’m just passing through, I said. I forgot about my fake interest in the boomerang table/chair. I’m about to get off, he said, looking at his silver-and-gold wristwatch. Do you want to get a cup of coffee or a bite to eat? Okay, I said, and then wished I hadn’t. He grabbed a brown pinstriped jacket and heavy-duty umbrella and we left the store together. He hunched in close to me holding the umbrella over us both and I knew I must have smelled ripe. He didn’t seem to mind, just kept smiling and saying he couldn’t believe he ran into me, all these years. I knew what he wanted. I knew that look that men get burning from the backs of their minds through their eyeballs. But then there was Jack’s curse. I couldn’t stand the thought of Miles turning his back to me, Miles, my first high-school fuck, not Miles. But then he was leading me into a gray alley, not coffee after all, a bite to eat. It was still raining a little. I was thinking finally, finally Jack’s curse has been broken, broken by Miles, miles and miles away a fourteen-year-old kitty gets her fur ruffled, hiss, hiss goes baby cat, cockadoodledoo goes the red rooster, one, two, buckle my shoe, his hands were squeezing my tits, three four, shut the door, his hands were groping my ass, five six, pick up sticks, his fingers were filling up my hole, seven eight, lay them straight, nine, ten, big fat hen, Miles has the magic touch–– ––his pants unbuckled, he could do it, but I looked at him with his slick black hair and tortoise-shell glasses and cold metal watch digging into my leg and I pushed him off me. Curse be damned. I wasn’t going to let some yuppie shit fuck me. I said, Get off me. And I walked away. Just walked away. It was nothing. |
