Two pieces of fiction up for the weekend. For your reading pleasure. "Abandon" was originally published in print in The MacGuffin literary journal in the Winter 2007 Edition Vol. XXIII No. 2.
Welcome to my world.
Enjoy.
Abandon
by Lis Anna
Frost comes to the
window
but I am warm,
naked,
in the middle of a
great room with windows all around.
No curtains, only
shadows cast against white walls.
No furniture.
Just one long
hallway that leads to a bed.
I am there.
Outside the trees
are turning into old women,
reaching with
dying fingers
into a darkness
that comes earlier, stays later.
So we make love
long into the night.
When he is not
with me my lover is on the phone.
As he showers I
slip into his closet,
running my
fingertips down the rows of perfectly crisp
hand tailored
shirts from Hong Kong.
He catches me,
laughs,
says I am nosey
and should be spanked.
He has no idea.
Pulling a shirt
from the plastic covering he slides it over my bare arms.
I wear his clothes more and more.
I do not know what
it means.
It means I belong
to him.
His skin smells of
expensive cologne,
imported
cigarettes, saffron, sandlewood, surrender.
Sometimes, late,
drinking tequila, sucking limes,
I lay in his arms
spinning into dawn.
He says, “I don’t
know your last name, have never known it.”
Then he laughs
when I am silent.
He begs, pleads,
shivers.
He is like the
moon.
Still I refuse.
In the mornings I
sleep buried in the scent of pillow
talk.
Later, wrapped in
a long velvet coat I descend the fire escape.
My teeth chatter
but my body is warm.
He begs me to accept gloves, scarf, hat but I
won’t.
The chill does not
penetrate his breath deep in the curves of my neck.
A heavy sun rises
over the avenues of asphalt
but still I only know the tremble,
the abandon,
the scent of me rising from his season, hungry.
Copyright 2007 Lis Anna
