In Places of Orange

2020.

"He's got two little hangnails, always on his index finger, and he chews at them beforehand. He doesn't realize he is making it worse," She says.

"You smell like vodka covered lilacs." He says, sniffing at her arm pit.

She wiggles away enough to separate them, "You're not listening. It's important."

"It always is."

"I wonder if I mention about him getting a manicure. Do you think he would go for it?"

"I'm wondering if people ever really smell you. Not the sex, but you."

"Because I smell like vodka and lilacs?"

"Would it matter if that was it? You smell like life."

"Life is full of gasoline, burnt plastic, and rotten eggs. I do not smell like life."

"The good life, that is." He inhales her musk again. She is uncomfortable because she is modest, oddly so. She hasn't always been, he notes.

"Listen to me," She says, snaps her fingers as if to command him out of his stupor, "hangnails in my vagina feel like tiny blades of grass tickling my insides. You don't understand. Maybe I should send him your way, he is a proctologist after all."

To him she is like a subatomic discography for sexual deviance and addiction wrapped in an overcoat of meaty thighs and perfume, but she is also the very essence that gives him life. He watches her, a tempestuous body of curves like mountains weaving through a landscape of pink skin, and feels himself stiffen. He often does not listen to her, not in the way that people do when they converse. He listens to the rasp in her throat, the clarity of her vernacular, and most of all the slither of her tongue against the roof of her mouth. She is his weakness as much as she is his escape.

"You have the kind of voice you hear on the radio," He says, dreamy, wishful.

"Who says you haven't heard it already?"

"On the radio?"

"Where else? You've heard it in person, but it's different when you hear it through speakers."

"I always feel like you're deja vu to me."

"You think you've heard my voice in another life?"

"I'm sure of it, and I'm sure I'll hear it in the next."

She smiles, her red lips parting, "I promise you will."

"Can we make love again?"

"Only if you pay me extra."

"When am I going to stop paying you to be my girlfriend?"

"I'd never be your girlfriend."

"Why not?"

"You have no taste in music."

"Should I listen to your radio show then?"

"Ah, so you do know."

"Took me a minute, but I'd never forget that voice."

"Maybe when you get a favorite band instead of some guy tapping buttons on his computer, we'll talk."

"Don't underestimate the power of a keyboard."

"Don't underestimate the power of guitar strings after you've slammed."

"So if I find a band I like, you'll be my girlfriend? No more playtime after hours in your dungeon of sex and ecstasy?"

"I'll test you, to see if you're really true about it."

"What band do you recommend?"

"Pink Floyd."

"Is that recent?"

She laughs, "I hate you for saying that."

"Okay, okay. What album?"

"The Wall."

"I'll listen to it and come back Friday for testing."

"You will." She assured.