Straight No Chaser

Fetus

oh yeah, i forgot to show off:

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thank you, highly evolved.

he called and woke me up at four o'clock this morning, a little wounded because i'd forgotten to call at two when i said i would, which made me feel powerful and wanted, and the day began well, though entirely too early. sleepy as i was when i picked up, i managed not to tell him i'd just been dreaming about having sex with him. he picked up on it anyway, though, because he said my voice sounded different, which incidentally i thought was just because i'm coming down with strep throat. (fortunately, i till have two bottles of leftover amoxicillin from last time. i am always one to self-prescribe.) sexy, all that mucus. i didn't tell him about the strep. let him think i'm sexy.

mostly, i miss his hands. his eyes are very dark, so dark you can't read his pupils, dark enough that i'm not sure i could use them to recognize him in a lineup, but his hands speak volumes. i wrote another sonnet, for him, about being written on. by him. pen and ink metaphor, i'm rather proud of it, and waiting to hear what he thinks. i think he'll like it, because he's a writer, and will hopefully be dually appreciative: first of the metaphor, then of the craft. the last six lines, at least, i'm confident about those. and katrina liked it.

i miss him. sniffle and sigh.

other reasons to read grim's journal: he puts things in much-needed perspective, on a daily basis. and he has great ideas, like pissing people off by winding clocks, or whatever. and he's my favorite color. (green.)

i came in this motherfucka hundred grand strong. and now i'm, like, broke. looking for quarters under the rug and behind the laundry basket. and all i want is some skittles, and to sit next to somebody i love, and i'm about to come down with a roaring case of strep throat, and then i won't be able to roar anymore, i'll only be able to squeak, feebly and painfully.

meow.

**********

"Actually," she says in between nibbles of coconut, "if it was a poisonous berry that killed you, I wouldn't eat you anyway. You'd be contaminated goods. You'd poison us, too."

Caveman surges in his throat. "Us," he repeats, then stands and hurls a coconut, hard, at the ocean. It thunks against the surface; in the instant before it disappears, he thinks of doctors, of vitamins, of ultrasound machines and folic acid. "Fuck," he says.

She stands, oblivious and giggling, and caps him with a hollowed-out brown shell. "Still starving," she says. "I'm going to find to find some more fruit."

He watches her go. She's turned a swatch of glossy green fabric into a tight bandeau top, tying it off just below her ribcage. The tummy that peeks out beneath, he sees, looks different now. Curves out just noticeably, like the imperfect line of the horizon. She's the same everywhere else, because this eating thing, it only happens in spurts. She's hungry now, but she'll pout later, when he cooks the pig he's going to catch this afternoon.

*

He hunts like Tarzan, now. Fuck that, he amends, crouching noiselessly behind a dense bush, watching his targets chew their porcine cud. Two males, both bristly like his coconut helmet, snouts pointed in his direction. Learning to be still and quiet was the hard part. This, though, the coming technique, came to him in a flash of easy brilliance; the movements are instinctive now, mechanical. With spear poised to strike, he pitches a stone over the boars' heads; it strikes a tree behind them and they startle, dropping their snack, squealing and rushing instinctively in Aaron's direction, away from the sound. Two pigs, one spear, and he kills them both. I am Tarzan.

*

He tells himself she'd eat it if she knew how proud he is of the catch.

"You don't touch me very much," she remarks, sitting cross-legged with her back to a tree, pen and paper in her lap. They are writing a story together, in alternating sections, an idea of hers that's kept them occupied for the better part of the evening, including now, dinnertime. He likes the way she writes, how she puts the words themselves first, how she cringes at the tiniest stylistic oversights. Her sections are strings, ornamented with bells and whistles. Balloons, actually. Airy little balls; she bats them in his direction and he bats back, and they haven't moved in hours, except to fix dinner, and he's never felt closer to her.

Except now. "I don't?" he repeats, frowning. They were together just before he went hunting, and there's probably more to come, once they've put the finishing touches on their joint opus. He waits for her qualifier.

She sets the pen atop the notebook and tosses her used kebab onto the sand. Her hands, tiny things, float down to her abdomen, cup the curve with a delicacy he doesn't see often, on this island. "Here, I mean," she says, not looking at him. "This is yours, too."

She won't say it, he's noticed. He smiles.