Getting High: A Fairy Love Story

Getting High

He always woke up before the alarm went off. It was never necessary to set it. It was a waste of energy. His brain was squishy with the contents of only a few hours earlier. His cranium overflowed with images of her face, trapped in the back of his head. Her blue eyes and sometimes natural brown hair settled into a picture that seemed to float around the hotel room. The image of this middle aged woman with chestnut brown hair burned into the eggshell white color of the walls. He was also middle aged but a little older. She said she wasn't feminine. She said she was raised by brothers and a father and auto mechanics and werewolves and fur trappers and cigar makers and body building vampires and other masculine shit.

She was feminine to him.

She cursed and drank like Oliver Reed on the set of The Assassination Bureau. She dressed in jeans, fake pleather shoes and a black top. She ate dead cow sliders and fries.

She was feminine to him.

She talked to women without raising her voice like girls do when they feign to be so elated to see each other. Sometimes she talked to guys without flirting with them. Other times she talked to guys and flirted with them in minute ways that would scream out that she was flirting with them. She talked about how a younger guy in a suit in the middle of the desert had tried to pick up on her by being aggressive. She talked about how another guy in a suit in the middle of the desert had tried to pick up on her by being laid back, like he didn't care but was still trying to get to touch the other side of her blue jeans. He smiled when he overheard this even though she wasn't talking to him.

She was feminine to him.

She talked about cheating and a little bit, but not much about love. She talked about how she used to be. What she used to be. He also talked about what he used to be like. She talked about how she was now.

She was feminine to him.

She poked around the world with a face that seemed to prey open his mouth and heart. She talked about literature and Shakespeare and orgasims that didn't happen until she was twenty-two. She talked about how she loved Macadamia nut cookies right before would sit down and write. She told him that she wanted to be a journalist, a political journalist. She talked about how she felt old and worn out. She talked about why she didn't have children because it would ruin the vacations that she had with her husband to the mountains. The only place they every went on vacation was the mountains. She wanted to see the rest of the planet. She had the means to do so, but her wings were clipped, her spirit was grounded. She said that she couldn't talk like this around her husband.

She was feminine to him.

She told him her last name. It was a Polish last name. He said he was one quarter Polish. She asked if he was saying that to make a connection to her. She thought that he might be trying to get laid for a moment, but then pulled back a bit on that idea. He was telling the truth. She didn't really care that much because there are so many goddamn Polish people in the world and that didn't mean that two Polish people should go to bed together or anything. It was just a coincident. She thought about her non-Polish husband for just a moment and then continued to stand under the heat lamp, close to him, but not close enough to touch him. In a weird way she wanted him to touch her, but not in a romantic sort of manner, just an acknowledgment sort of way that said, "Hey, we're cool." He liked standing with her under the heat lamp that emitted very little heat.

She was feminine to him.

She talked about how she was in a transition point in her life.

She talked about cleaning pools and how she didn't clean the goddamn pools but was an administrator who helped manage the fucking guys who cleaned the pools, but also said that she had at some point actually cleaned the pools when she needed dough. She was feminine to him. She talked about where she lived and how she thought it was tragic in a first world problem sort of way. That same night she came to see readings of some new literary work in the school program that they were a part of and she said she liked it. He asked her what she liked about it. She said that she couldn't remember. He gave her a little shit for the vague answer. Then she remembered or quickly made up something about how she liked it. He wasn't sure if she sincere since she couldn't remember any details. He cared because he wanted to respect her opinions, but then again he didn't care because she was cool and vivacious. She was an open person to talk with. She was thirty-nine but looked twenty-five. He could deal with that. He asked her to plank with him in his hotel room. She took off her jacket. She had an enhancing torso. If she was a fucking wasp her torso would have been called a thorax. She stung him a little bit with her verbal jabs throughout the evening. She asked if she thought she was the kind of person who led guys on by becoming invested in them, not physically, just mentally. He said that he didn't think that she was. He glanced at her middle section.