Love is a textbook word. You can find its definition in the back. The glossary will explain love to you. Your love? It's available when you need it most. When it's dry. When she's dry. She's young, you come running.
That love that you speak of? It's for the birds. The fucking, now that's where we fit right in. Consensual sex is good sex. Who doesn't love consensual sex? I remember taking your glasses off and staring into your eyes and saying to myself, "I just want to consensually fuck you." No relationship need apply. That comes from someone else. No one knows how you and I really are. If they did, they would judge you. And happiness comes from the idea that you aren't being judged, that you are being accepted. Acceptance is fun. Fun, fun, fun. Fun in your summer sun.
Her tanned skin moves in and out of vision. There were thighs, I'm sure of it. Lots of them. The opens and the closes. Like a trash bin she was. Like a place to put garbage. I thought we could just fuck too, and tanned skin girl would get the real stuff. If there is real stuff, I don't want it. She does. What is your real stuff anyway? Someone should cut you in half and look at your insides so precisely, like they did to that cow for the sake of art.
But the girls line up, and I step to the side. Secrets make things fun. Well, not really. Secrets make you boring and this played. Things go on in circles. Your circle, the periphery of my circle, the backseat of your car. She has been seen by more doctors than I can count on my fingers. With each one, there is a mark left on the inside of her tanned thigh, like marks on a chalkboard.
I think about how it would feel to strike her across the face with the back of my hand, or the baseball bat I keep in the trunk of my car for good measure. Or maybe just crush her face with one swift punch from a balled-up fist. I want to know if the knock-off Chanel ring sent to me straight from Chinatown would really leave a mark on her forehead. Like one of those hot metal seals in wax.
Happiness comes from summer, and gratification. Being safe in the knowledge that a secret, a secret is no fun. A secret is no fun until it hurts someone. To say it doesn't hurt me would be a lie. But it's all about consensual fucking. And I'm ready for summer. Bikinis, popsicles, sunburns, and some good, old-fashioned, consensual fucking.