bad day

i decided to go ahead of misha and the kids to our hotel to change, or something. as i rounded the corner, i saw a huge, red, double-decker bus coming up the street i was turning onto. there was a fellow sticking half his body out of a top hatch, pointing at a banner strung across the street and yelling at the bus driver to slow down and back up so he could read it properly. the bus driver, with a grin on his face, slammed the bus into reverse and hit the gas pedal as hard as he could. he lost control and the bus started wobbling. to my surprise, rather than easing off the gas, he seemed to floor it, and right in front of my eyes, the entire vehicle tipped onto it's side and began skidding down the street. people were screaming from inside, and i started screaming too, watching this unfold. the bus was going so fast it flipped again, onto it's roof, and finally came to rest like that just outside a gas station. the people inside were shrieking in horror and pain. i saw the guy that had been leaning out the top hatch get crushed. other people were being squeezed by thousands of pounds of bus, too. a large, dark, shiny pool of blood was forming under the overturned bus. i screamed and screamed and covered my eyes and ran into my hotel room. i felt guilty, thinking that i should have gone over to try to help; but i couldn't bring myself to face the gruesome reality of it all. i almost thought to phone 911, but then figured 911 had probably already been called by a dozen people. i sat on the bed in the hotel room and rocked myself slowly back and forth with my hands wrapped around my head. i just wanted leon and the kids with me.

i could hear them coming, and i flung open the door to our room. julian tried to toddle off to see what all the commotion was down the block and i screamed at misha to not let him go look, that it was a terrible accident. misha scooped him up and we all went into the hotel room. some friends came by and we talked about it and i learned that the paramedics and ambulances and fire squads had all shown up and rescued a good portion of the people, though everyone was injured. it occurred to me to ask what it was that was written on the banner strung across the street, that the in the top of the bus had insisted the driver pull back for him to read. an ex-boyfriend who was in the room with us told me, "i didn't get to read it all. i think it was by a famous poet - enid, maybe? it read a bit like victorian nonsense. what bawling and tearing of hair out! pigs and babies! butterflies and candy! all rolling around in the filthy streets together! there was more. that's all i remember. it was gruesome. all of it."

i shut my eyes and waited.

soon i found myself at a wedding reception. the children were dancing, i was dressed up and beautiful, and my husband was all over me. he kept hiking up my skirt, and rubbing against my legs. i kept fending him off but his relentless desire made me feel lustful, too. so we wandered off to find a private place and ended up slipping into a janitor's closet. he pushed me down onto the ground and forced my legs apart. he tried to rip my stockings off but i begged him not to as there was still a party to attend afterwards. he complied and pulled them off gently. as he took himself out of his pants i was ready, completely, to make crazy passionate love. imagine my horror when, blank-faced and determined, he began to piss all over me. great, copious, hot yellow gushes of urine, all over me. when i started to protest, he aimed it at my face and i got mouthfuls of it. i started to vomit and cry and could feel my dress become soaked through. i kept puking up the wine and as soon as my mouth emptied of it's acrid taste, it would fill again with his urine. it was horrid. i was horrified. i started to scream, and that's when he found himself emptied. i started to yell at him. i got up and beat on him. he remained blank-faced and uneffected. i told him to fuck off and die. i was rinsing my face in the big steel grey sink in the closet and sobbing. he didn't say anything at all, just did up his pants and watched me, like i was his irrational haggard screaming chattel. he wasn't amused. he was slightly pissed that i did not conform to his fantasy being fulfilled. but mostly he seemed disaffected with my fury. i hated him with a rage so intense that gall kept rising in my throat. i had to go back out to the wedding reception in a soaked, stinking and stained dress, my whole body rank with the smell of his piss. i had no other clothes to wear.

temporary tattoos

we were talking 'bout porn, and i said i wanted to see and experience some that wasn't all about dehumanizing women, and that had women it in that sort remotely resembled me. too tall an order, i thought.

you vanished for a few hours while i hung out in the cafe with two unbelievably gorgeous men, sharing veggie wontons dipped in an incredibly sour red sauce and drinking thick, sweet coffee. then robyn popped in to say hi, and invited us all out to a mountain lake with her and her man, so we piled in her beat-up old car, and drove, smoking reefer on the way, the music loud. after hiking through the misty woods for a while, we came upon the hugest, clearest lake i have ever had the good fortune to see. robyn told us it had been gouged out of the ground a mere 2000 years ago by a huge glacier. the sides of the lake offered no shore, just a sheer, muddy drop-off into a deep pool. i could look down into the water and see the roots of the trees that resided next to the reflecting water, just under the surface. it was a cool, rainy day, but one of the men was so overtaken with the beauty he saw there he stripped down completely and took a run at the water, his bare feet digging into the dark, damp soil, flinging it up behind him, spattering mud onto his back and flexing buttocks. he leapt, arms and legs splayed, into the water and splashed down, hooting at the shock of cold, while we all stood on the shore, laughing and smoking.

the experience drained from us all, we made our way back to the car, robyn saying she had to get back to work, and me, curious to know where you had gone, wanting to be there when you returned.

i was dropped off at home, and my phone rang incessantly as i tried to fix myself some tea and biscuits. a woman was talking to me, telling me how much she needed help, she was standing outside the cafe, in pain, so much pain, and i told her i'd take a message, and give it to robyn when i saw her. the urgency in her voice left me unmoved, however.

and then you came home.

you skin was tan. you hair, bleached at the tips. you wore a roughly woven dark green vest with no shirt beneath it, and at your throat rested a thickly embroidered hemp-and-bead necklace. your body was scented, deeply scented, like spice and chocolate, and the women at the shop you told me you had been to, in search of the porn i desired, had written love notes to me all over every inch of the skin you had left exposed that day. you were smiling, and warm, and all of the words on your body spoke to me, singing my praises, singing about the love you carry around in yourself, for me. and when you took me in your arms, and tried to to talk about what you had seen at the sexy little store you'd been to, about how you'd professed your undying devotion and deep desire to bring me to the peak of ecstasy to the women there, they'd fawned over you, and tried to make sure that the next time we met, you'd be properly armed with everything required for my very important seduction.

you hadn't purchased porn, or even a toy, to stimulate me with. you'd only talked about me, with other people who might have understood, and they'd decorated you and layered you with fragrance, and as you laid me back and fell into me, the words they'd written on your arms, and cheeks, and throat, the ink there bled off of you and formed tiny, cold rivulets that seeped onto my own trembling flesh.