by Ann Bogle
Another writer was not always another writer. Before that she was a young woman writer and before that a girl who wrote, before that a child and before that an infant, before that an egg in the scenic camaraderie of heaven, in a film about two pants, parents enjoining her to take up.
She has lived with her and inside her. Has she seen it? She has not seen it, but she has roamed its hall until airborne, a cord dripping. Who cut it? Saw. He saw it, the boy, from the foot of his mother's deathbed, her covers flung off--dark furry snail suddenly visible--signal of what's next, his dying at the beginning or her end.
Another writer writes a serious paw, a mistake of cat, a dripping maw, a dune of replacement. "Sex is a renewable resource," she says. "If I have slept with all of North America, then you have slept with all of North America and Iceland besides. Wake up, lizard!" but he has slid off the bed.
She'd rather write his penis than her pussy. She's seen that.
Her clit is off limits to all except a stranger. He sends her a chestnut-sized, handpainted black and pink-petaled vibrator with twelve speeds and two gyrations. When it runs out of energy, she plugs in the long one, long like a rolling pin.
“It was the size of my forearm,” she said when he asked her about the largest man. “I squatted over it. The head was inside me, and I covered only the top of it like a helmet. He didn't thrust. ”
She is long and curved up near a bell; only the carillonneur has knocked it.
She goes to the garden in August with her camera. She pictures it for the wild rhinoceros, a serious writer, living in Reading. She has never met him. He sends her fifty photos of his pumped-up self, even one of his erection during a handstand. She says, “I'm not big enough for you, not wide.” He texts her from a restaurant in Philly where he is eating mussels: when r u cum-ing?
In the photo an elegant nail partitions the leaves: a flower, she's heard that, or an ear of prime rib. She posts the photo to her weblog under the heading "Sex and Taxes” and leaves it for fowl to peck at for a week.
“I don't want you to get a Brazilian,” he tells her, only he calls it a Bolivian. She has to get a Brazilian, every few weeks for a year. “I like you with hair there,” he says, “I like women with hair there,” but his position is a losing climb. “Suit yourself,” he says, “but it's for men who fantasize girls.” “It's cleaner,” she says, thinking of the artist in St. Paul who wouldn't let hair near his mouth. She has told him about the camera but not about the rhinoceros who texts her in Reading: gitting any? like a common pornographer or a crowd.
Blood everywhere, and this time she hasn't prepared for him or shaved. Fifteen pillow shams at the Palmer House devastated, a serious poet from Philadelphia, not the writer from Reading afterall.
The third first he: Had he seen it? The ring. He couldn't move forward to be inside it with her: It was a deadlock in several positions. He went down to look at her, to shell gaze. There was a wedding band. “You said you weren't a virgin when I met you,” he said. “I'm not,” she said. And he turned it.
8
favs |
1510 views
19 comments |
638 words
All rights reserved. |
"Écriture de la chatte," "How to Be Another Writer," "YKK," and "Feuilleton"
YKK is a zipper manufacturer whose initials stand for Yoshida Kōgyō Kabushikigaisha. A boy told me (and I believed as a child) that YKK was my name in code.
This story has no tags.
this is fabulous.
My favorite line? "He texts her from a restaurant in Philly where he is eating mussels: when r u cum-ing?" oh god.
and I love the rhinoceros in Reading.. "gitting any?" Your dialogue. These really..er.. classy writer guys! ha!
sad and funny - terribly human and sterile at the same time..
Just wonderful.
PS: 14 speeds?
goes places others fear to follow
love it. especially the first paragraph, and there are lines...that you must expand upon. i like how the story goes on after the ending (in my mind). very strong. both meg's and gary's comments spot on.
to read properly, i needed my robert-coover-shades which i inherited from lucky pierre.
Star.
Posted: Jan. 10, 2010 3:30 p.m. Revised: Jan. 11 at 4:15 p.m.
Thanks for the comments and stars, Meg, Gary, Finnegan, and Sam.
Rev. Jan. 11 at 7 p.m.
Rev. Jan. 11 at 7:30 p.m.
Rev. Jan. 11 at 8:15 p.m.
CN asks why I revise at all since I reject the submission process and will only submit when asked. It is because my standards "are high and complex," as Rosellen said.
So you did it! You fit the Bolivian into a story!
Bogle-rific, as always.
BJoh sends an email about a novel by Joseph Roth and includes a dictionary definition of "feuilleton." Fascinating, I think, not seeing until a few hours later that "Feuilleton" is a better title for this piece. Three titles. He expects me to realize it; I did, and he's right!
I can hardly pronounce "feuilleton." What if I call it YKK?
Ann, this writing is just so gorgeously dense it seems to me more poetry than prose. And courageous. And beautiful. Bravo.
Steve, well, thanks.
. . .
The phone today, "your breasts, your globes." I'm like, "yeah, yeah."
Then I realized that I left that out of "YKK" or whatever it's called, entirely!
No breasts, no nipples, not even men's nipples. Waist-down nudity.
Bald or a Mohawk, that should be the only question, and you shouldn't use anything the size of a forarm or rolling pin We're all small by comparison. Who can live up to that?
Rev. Mon. Mar. 22, 2010: clarification related to JY's comment.
Minor rev's 9/21/10.
This is so rich. Love the lines:
"She'd rather write his penis than her pussy. She's seen that."
"Her clit is off limits to all except a stranger."
And the answer when he asked about the largest man, hysterical.
Feminism at it's best.
Added photo.
Revised second sentence.