Category Archives: I

2015/07/01

But the Attacks Continue

By dsholloway

She said she wanted only to swim with the jellyfish. “It’ll hurt,” I said, “a lot.”

We gazed out at the ocean.

“I know,” she replied, sharply.

She had this thing about being hurt during sex–they always do at first–and was ready to make the jump to daily life.

“I’m a masochist,” she had said the first time we had sex. She didn’t understand that masochism is a complex theory of living. And I didn’t feel like explaining it to her. So I did as she asked and broke her fingers with a hammer before fucking her.

But as she eyed the ocean I became concerned. “Masochism is contractual,” I pleaded, suddenly feeling as though I were discouraging her from having an orgy with numerous men who weren’t me. “I know when to stop. Those creatures don’t.”

She sighed. “Jesus, K. Give it a rest. I know what I’m doing.” She stood and untied her bathing suit. Without looking back, she ran toward the ocean and dived in. I haven’t seen her since.

I wonder about her from time to time: did she drown, did she find her jellyfish?

I ignore rumors of a jellyfish woman with mangled fingers.

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2015/05/01

Communal Spaces

By dsholloway

K had heard it before, from other women less attractive than the one whose tongue was slowly constricting his neck:

“I just love your eyes. They’re so dark–I can’t even see your pupils.”

She flexed her tongue and K’s eyes bulged a little further from his face. She brought her face–eyes green, I think, but maybe they were blue–to meet his. “Amazing. Your eyes are just these black puddles.” She brought a well-manicured fingernail to his face. Then she tapped it on his left eye, creating mild undulations.

He had heard that last line before, too. As K lost consciousness he envisioned all of the women who got lost in his eyes. He thought of the woman who climbed in his left eye and drowned in the darkness. Her name was in the paper for a while and on TV. He thought of the woman who ran screaming from his apartment–underwear balled up in her fist–because she was convinced K’s eyes betrayed a darkness of a different sort.

From the depths of asphyxiation, he heard her jaw unhinge. Then he heard him being swallowed hole. “I guess I’m finally inside her,” K muttered as her digestive system pulled him down.

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2015/04/23

Unconstrained Productivity

By dsholloway

She yanked at her roots, both fists tangled in brownish/blonde hair. She had been doing it for weeks, eyes locked on herself in the bathroom mirror–tugging and pulling with all her might, until her eyes swelled with tears and her face twisted into a grimace.

“It’s not going to grow any faster,” I said in the most sympathetic way I could. 

“You just don’t get it, “she spat, glaring at me in the mirror. 

Everything changed the evening she came home with her new hair cut, the recommendation of an inept stylist whose theories of hair design have no place in reality. She hated me now. Not because I did anything wrong, but rather because I was part of the world in which she, now seven inches shorter, so to speak, had to live. 

“Just go away.” She pulled on her hair again and slammed the bathroom door.

“You were wrong, K.” I woke in the morning to find myself floating in a sea of her hair. Her voice continued to utter ominous things, but, because of the mass of hair, I couldn’t locate the source. 

I felt myself being dragged  under. It was either the undertow or something else. 

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2015/04/21

A Malfunction of Evolution

By dsholloway

I didn’t ask–you don’t ask women about their bodies. But she obviously felt like explaining. She put her martini down.

“I adopted this bird–a macaw. Birds are really affectionate, and she loved to cuddle. But whenever I tried to set her down she’d get upset and latch on. I had to take her back.”

The blackish rings looked like railroad tracks traveling from wrist to shoulder. They were too symmetrical and evenly spaced to be the work of an animal. But her story seemed reasonable.

We went to her apartment. I saw an ugly green birdcage on the floor.
“I’m going to paint it black,” she said proudly. “Then I’ll keep my victims in it.”

I smiled.

Another martini. Her body invited me in. I turned it down. She seemed feeble, breakable, all of a sudden. She said she “like[s] it rough.” But women always say that, especially when you don’t really know them.

I went home.

At 3AM someone knocked on my door. I hoped it was her (men always hope for this). It was a gray bird. Slightly taller than I am. Probably stronger too.
We locked eyes.

“Stay the fuck away from my woman,” it said.

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