an unrehearsed universe

Cold Sandwich

Craving, yearning, burning all those words that mean hunger, nasty brutish hunger for the forearms of one, coated with coarse black hairs, for the vulnerable spot where the nape of the neck peeks out from the collar of a dress shirt of another, men on the bus, the train, walking their dogs, their children, their wives, men queued on the crowded line of a deli counter, short, fat, beautiful, tall, ugly old men, I quake with the hunger of a swooning romance novel ingénue’s mousy best friend, willing and trembling, quietly desperate with this insatiable need for that one’s hands, fingers blunt and blackened with construction dirt, the jeans clinging like my hands, nails cut short and sharp, ought to be, for another one’s lips, full and well-formed, as he worries his bottom lip with Chiclet teeth in concentration before taking a drag from a water bottle I feel the need to replace with my breasts because I imagine those hands, those lips stabbing into me, biting down on my ass until sitting at my desk thinking filthy thoughts my hand works its way down into my pants to touch the pussy I had left bare since it is lunchtime and nobody is in the office to see me squirm at my desk with my eyes closed, head thrown back against the ergonomic chair while I fuck myself to those strangers, to the blue-eyed man on the train who said, 'excuse me' as he brushed past me smelling of winter and leather, to the memory of the silver-haired black man sitting across from me in the café who I would not in real life ask to bend me over the table and paddle me raw though I furtively pleasure myself all the same to the idea of it, that he will look up again, catching my eye because he knows what I am doing, what I am imagining, urging me on with a sly smile because he likes what he sees, this being, with a clitoris engorged with fantasies, enough to tumble me through, though I have the presence of mind to turn the triumphant scream into a muffled cough as he goes back to reading his paper, smile still in place, and I take a bite of a sandwich that has gone cold.