Black Silk (23 page)

Without argument we left the condom in its wrapper. I inhaled sharply as you guided yourself inside me. We used pressure and
counterpressure. Pauses and jerks. Belly rolls and hip rocking. We were inventing new motion. The air beat against us in furious
waves. Suddenly I was impatient to see your face. I rolled over and touched your cheek. I remember how your eyes burned as
they held me. I remember thinking there was no other place for me. Nowhere on this earth. I pushed you onto your back. Your
face was so serious. I planted a moist kiss on your forehead and I placed my feet on both sides of your hips. We locked hands
and stared into each other’s eyes. You grunted and pushed your jaw against the pillow. I arched away from you and drew closer.
We were alone together. Lost in the currents crackling through our pelvises. I erupted into convulsions. You came inside me.
I dropped, panting, against your chest.

Minutes later I was sitting on the toilet, grumbling about pregnancy and responsibility. I heard your voice reaching toward
me from the bed. You didn’t want to stop, did you? you asked knowingly. I lowered my head without answering. The next morning,
you patted my belly and said, I hope it grows. I’m lucky it didn’t, I say to the empty room and slip on my black dress. My
cells know the truth. That night, me forgetting barriers and precautions, your seed shooting into my womb—those seconds were
the sexiest of my life. It is a restless secret germinating inside me. You live here in my flesh. When I touch myself, we
are together again. No protection, no regret, no hesitation.

Through the veil of memory, I imagine I hear you calling me from the street. I’m already running down the hall when the doorbell
rings. Before it rings again, I’m on the balcony. You are there below. Smiling up at me. Clapping, spreading your arms to
welcome me. Come up, I yell. Then I run down the stairs. I don’t care about cockroaches tonight. Fuck the mosquitoes and the
spiders. This moment is ours. We make the most of it in a dark curved stairway with narrow stairs and no light. Your eyes
are moist. I believe I am crying. My face aches with joy. We crush each other as if force can convey our feelings. There is
nothing to be said. No words. The answers lie in the press of flesh, the meeting of breath.

_________________

by Elissa G. Perry

Shelley reached for Darla’s hand to soothe the wild this woman had sparked in Darla’s eyes. Darla recoiled. Spinning her way
to the edge of Shelley’s orbital, finding the charged attraction of the outside world much more appealing. Fish continued
to hug his beer and stare at the jukebox as if it held the key to the night’s unfolding. He was consciously oblivious. Choosing
blindness over uncertainty he did not look when Darla walked out and Shelley followed. He did not have the answers. He did
not yet have the questions.

Darla stood with no thought or rather too many to distinguish just one. She had been splayed open by the tip of this woman’s
tongue. Her entrails were shiny on the edge of the stranger’s wit. She had been branded by the handprint—the brief touch on
her back—seared by the certain furtive glance. Her glass, drained of liquid, still held chunks of ice. She had not yet learned
the superiority of neat.

As she moved toward the door, Glenlivet-given confidence strengthened and lengthened her gait. She swung open the door making
an entrance to the world and was met with the receding red lights of some classically finned auto. They blended well with
the decor of her movie’s set.

Red-light district. Perception of light. There was sound and motion everywhere jagged and curved. Musicians were examining
linear chronology with instruments and random perceptions of distance. There were odd synchopations of jazzical reality. Wild
relationships with time and timing. Lightning and burnout were neighbors with slow and methodical but there was no interdependency
required for definition. Differing and contradicting realities in the same plane of existence. Corpuscles pulsing—singing
constant within random. Pattern within chaos. There was life and for the first time Darla did not feel dead. Darla was on
the brink of something new.

Darla wished she was her own culture, but she had not been housed in a consistent nutrient-filled media. She had never known
if she was leaving or going to or the requisite piece of time for anything. Her nutrient media had been sharp and leaned toward
gin. Shelley came out of the door behind her.

Darla sighed at the remnants of a high summer dusk reflected in the storefront window across the street. She spun around to
face Shelley and her brother. She felt the slight ellipse in her move taking note then ignoring her hint of imbalance.

Darla was surprised not to see the tall frame of Fish standing behind his sister. Their mass number was always three. Yet
she was still jealous of Fish and Shelley. She herself had never shared spontaneous homophonic utterances with another. When
two people share the same tone, rhythm, and time, there are tingles and smiles and hairs stand on end.

At first, Darla wanted to make Fish jealous, but that was a quicksilver thought that slivered down the back of her throat
in a hard swallow. She knew that this was not possible. He was what some people called evolved. Darla had subscribed to that
theory of evolution in the beginning, finding his defiance of category mysterious. He seemed to be all contradictions perfectly
wed—chaos perfectly ordered—a confounding balance in one being. Now two years into marriage, she found faith in anything elusive.

“Dancing. I want to dance.”

“Dancing, huh.” Shelley drew her shoulders toward her ears putting her hands in her pockets. There were these periods of time
where being with Darla and Fish was a little uneasy. Shelley didn’t feel danger or fear but it was clear that they were each
uncomfortable and sought Shelley for comfort of some sort. There was always that possibility though that the discomfort did
not just signal time for one of them to roll over but time to get out of bed and leave the room all together.

“Yes, I want to dance. Forget about the contemplative one.”