Tag Archives: affair

2016/12/12

Philosophical Acumen

By dsholloway

I must have fallen asleep, for I don’t know how long – at some point she had lit her favorite candle (shaped like a man’s bashed in skull), so I had probably slept a while. She was as I remembered: arms hugging her legs, book in her hands. The flame of her favorite candle looked like a man trying to shake off his own immolation. He writhed, casting her profile in varying depths of black.

She smiled. “Someone was tired.”

I rubbed my eyes. “I guess.”

The house was shadowy and cool.

“It’s snowing,” she said, eyes returned to her book.

I looked behind me. “Jesus,” I said, transfixed by the vast white on the other side of the window. “How long was I asleep?”

She shrugged. “A few days. It hasn’t been snowing this whole time, though. Just since yesterday.”

Yesterday?

I swung my legs off of the couch and stared at her. She caught my gaze, momentarily, before the shadow cast by her favorite candle swelled again.

“What,” she said from somewhere in the shadow. “I wanted to finish my book. But your friend K came over instead.”

The shadow receded from her face and she was still smiling.

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2015/11/17

So Many Scattered Signs

By dsholloway

Climbing the fire escape, I thought about all the times I’ve been rejected: elementary school kickball teams, high school dances, college orgies, post-college job interviews. The higher I climbed—certain that she was in the apartment on the top floor and not “catching happy hour with a colleague”—the lower into despair I sank. The sun was descending and my shadow lagged further and further behind, as though it didn’t want to accompany me on my quest for vindication.

The knife in my pocket suddenly felt heavy.

Once, a girl broke my heart and I slashed her tires. As a peace offering I gave her some pears that I found in the middle of the highway, the result of a crashed fruit truck. I told her they came from the mall.

I heard her laughter through the door. Peering between the blinds I saw tangled bodies. Overcome with rage, I charged the door.

“K,” she screamed, “what are you doing here?”

I looked for my shadow, which had decided to wait outside. I readied my knife but paused when I realized she was in bed with a woman.

Arousal overtook me and my shadow shook its head from the doorway.

 

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2015/10/28

The Redoubled Denouement

By dsholloway

“Another one is dead,” she said flatly. I rolled my eyes: “Well, go get a new one.”

“If you neglect them, they’ll die.”

I wasn’t listening. Her engagement ring caught the light and cast her every word in doubt. Despite my harsh tone, she grabbed her Burberry and left for the pet store.

I approached the birdcage. The remaining birds had pecked the third one to death. It was new, a replacement for my first bird, which died of old age. The birds were huddled together keeping warm in the winter air. I nudged the birdcage with my hip and made my way to the coffee table.

She came home empty handed. “Sorry, K. They’re out of birds.” She wasn’t sorry. She didn’t understand my affection for things that die easily. “It’s fine,” I murmured, pressing my chai to my lips. “Get in the cage.”

She went to the closet and fished out last year’s Halloween costume.

I reminisced fondly of ripping the parrot head off in lusty urgency, pulling the zipper the length of her body. She opened the birdcage and crawled in.

She and I used to be like those birds. I closed the cage and locked it.

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2015/10/11

The Moment of Anamorphosis

By dsholloway

She was certain that we would either get caught and arrested or piss off the spirits of all the people in the ground.

“Look,” I implored, arms spread wide, “this place is so big nobody will ever find us if we choose the right spot.”

“And the ghosts?”
“The spirits aren’t going to be here—unless all these people were buried alive.”

She offered a strained smile of defeat. I took her hand, leading her away from the sunlight, tour busses, and plots of important people.

“Over there.” I gestured toward a gloomy stone that had the rejected air of being cast off by the other stones.

She bent over and gripped the top with both hands while I yanked her pants down.

“Um, wait.”

“Why?”

“This stone has your name on it.”

“Bullshit.”

“I’m serious. Look.”

I leaned over her, my now flaccid penis brushing against her bare ass. I rolled my eyes and scoffed.

“That doesn’t concern you?”

“Why would it?”

“It says you die today.”

Just before my gruesome death, I felt a figure lurch in my periphery and heard her scream—“K! Stop it!”—as the jealous knife of her husband sank repeatedly into my flesh.

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2015/04/07

Organs Without Bodies

By dsholloway

Her boyfriend sold sex toys. He was probably nice enough, though I tried not to think about him too much–all things considered.

She got out of bed and cascaded over to her closet. “Check it out,” she said, as she began chucking vibrators at me: red ones, blue ones, pink ones, grey ones. “I have tons.”

“Do you use them,” I asked, genuinely interested.

“Yes,” she said evenly. “He won’t have sex with me. He just gives me these.” She threw another on the bed. “He always has.”

“How many do you have?”

“I’ve lost count. He’ll come home, give me one, and demand I use it then and there.”

He was obviously crazy. But I kind of admired his twisted bravado.

“Have you ever had sex?” I needed to know.

“With him—no.”

She flittered back to bed and we had sex amidst her rainbow of vibrators—countless reminders of her weird relationship with her weird boyfriend. One after the other her vibrators turned on, as if controlled by some unseen being: Humming, buzzing, mocking.

“He’s here,” she whispered later on. “You need to go.”

I slipped out the back door, one of her vibrators firmly in my grasp.

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