Bruce Shields

He stands and paces the room, a strut, she thinks, before slipping on his boxers and plopping himself back onto the mattress. It makes a sudden rust-iron squeak, as if surprised by his weight. Even in the afternoon, he smells like morning, stale and yeasty.

He stands and walks over to the dresser and for the first time since she’s sat, she looks up to regard him. She’s curious more than anything. He curls his back, hunches, pressing his face closer to the puffer. She can only see him from behind, his spine curled, his buttocks flaccid and relaxed beneath the thin fabric of his shorts, but she knows he’s face-to-face and the puffer is looking at him. It, too, is curious.

Where did it come from? he asks, but his voice is so thin and filled with static she doesn’t think he’s talking to her, only to himself.

If she were to answer, she’d tell him it didn’t come from anywhere. It’s always been a part of her. It wasn’t a thing born but a thing released like a plug of mucus her body was ready to dislodge. Before she’d expelled it, the puffer slinked up through her esophagus like a mat of hair, choking and suffocating, until it spilled out like a slosh of vomit. Before then, she’d felt it in her gut. For years, it sat there, painful as a needle’s prick if a needle’s prick could be a permanent sensation and not fleeting and temporary.

She wants to tell him he doesn’t understand it because he doesn’t understand her body. Last night and then again this afternoon, she’d let him press his body atop hers and fidget with his prick until he slipped it inside, all the while wearing a mask of dumb-teenager befuddlement and awe across his face. She’d be willing to bet he has that same stupid expression on his face now.

You can touch it, she hears herself say even though she doesn’t remember willing the words from her mouth.

I don’t want to . . .

Go on. It’s okay. I don’t mind.

For a moment, he just stands there and she knows he’s thinking about it. In a way it’s beautiful, the color so deep and black it looks like an endless void, space without stars. It puffs, fills the edges of the jar and he reaches toward it, tapping the tips of his fingers against the glass’s edge.

BRUCE SHIELDS writes and lives along the Colorado Front Range where he received his MFA from Colorado State University. Previous work has appeared or is forthcoming in Occulum, Coffin Bell, and Kansas City Voices. You can find and follow him on Twitter @ 321ReadySetGo.