Despertar

surfaces

Valerie said, "Would it bother you if I said I'd had sex on our kitchen counter?"

I said, "...Um, I guess so? A lot, probably?"

She said, "Oh, that's funny! Because I did, a lot, before you moved in."

*

Tonight, searching the apartment for my bobby pins, I had a sudden flash of memory: setting them down, the handful of them, on some surface, in the dark. The bathroom sink? My desk? I searched everywhere. There are piles and piles of shit on every available surface. Textbooks with things tucked into them, half-empty bottles of products I don't use anymore, debris I can't throw away because I haven't taken the time to filter out the significant.

I turned off the lights and began my search again, hoping to recreate the circumstances of setting the bobby pins down, and, in so doing, to find them.

I did, finally. On the kitchen counter. Where I don't put anything, anymore.

*

Sometimes she writes me notes. Sets them where I'll see them, on common surfaces like the dining room table, the ottomans in front of the living room TV. Passive aggressive sentiments. Hey darling, whenever you have time, it's your turn to take out the trash. Or, Don't forget to let me know what you think about painting the living room in Peanut Shell. Or, I know you're busy (we both are), but the trash won't take itself out! Squares of yellow on every available surface. I can't look anywhere without my throat constricting. So many things that need doing, and I can't stop thinking about Justin long enough to do any of them.

*

Besides the bed, we had sex on the couch a few times, the desk twice, the floor once.

The couch was awful. My back was bent at the worst possible angle, the remote scrunched up between my shoulder blades. Roommates were out of town, so there was no danger of getting caught at it in a public place, but it felt weird, anyway, doing it in front of a giant TV screen. Like the Grand Theft Auto characters could see us.

The desk was wonderful. First sitting on it, then bent over it. Bumping my head on the overhead study lamp, not caring because I was so intensely focused on the view. The purest possible sensations.

The floor was doubly wonderful, during. It was right after San Francisco, our first evening together, with three of his friends sitting out on the other side of his bedroom door. Right after he bought the new bedlifts, discovering for the first time that they lifted the bed too high for comfortable positioning. Urgent, though, because we hadn't seen each other, so the floor it was. He put down a towel, but it shifted away over time, so it was my bare back against the carpet. A week later, my mother, helping me try on dresses for the wedding, noticed the rug burn and said, I don't even want to know where that came from.

*

But we'd never have done it where we prepare our food.