Ten Tiny Love Stories Page #5

in Greek to the biker,

and the guy gets back

on his bike and drives away.

I still don't move until he disappears

over the top of the hill.

Then the waiter comes over to me,

reaches for my hand,

I take it, and

we walk like that for awhile,

like two lovebirds.

I don't know him from Adam...

but it's comforting.

Then I see this creature

flying across the sky,

and I'm not sure

if it's a bird, or a bat...

but it makes me

feel good again.

It lifts up my heart,

it makes me feel high.

And the waiter turns to me and says,

"You haven't told me your name."

And I'm going to lie,

but I don't.

I say it.

Kim.

He nods and smiles

and doesn't tell me his name,

and I like it like that.

It makes me feel safe

not to know his name.

Now that we're holding hands,

I can tell he is taller than me.

I have to walk twice as fast

to keep up with his gait.

My hand feels tiny

inside of his,

and I hold it in a little fist

and he cups it in his

like it's an egg.

It's getting dark now.

I look up and can't even see his face.

And then I have to pee.

And I don't want...

to ask him...

how much farther it is and I don't want

to talk about where we're going.

So I say,

"Wait here, I have to go pee."

I leave him on the road

and go down into this field.

I'm heading towards

this olive tree,

like it's my own backyard.

The ground's dry

and covered with stones.

And when I get to the tree, I have

to take the stones out of my sandals.

So I'm crouching down

and I'm peeing,

and I look up, and the waiter's

standing on the road, looking at me.

I can't see his face, but his silhouette

reminds me of someone,

and I can't think of whom.

But anyway...

I wave, and he waves.

And I say, "Good boy."

He can't hear me.

Then, just sitting there,

peeing,

and knowing

he's watching me...

makes me horny.

So I laugh and he says,

"What's so funny?"

and I don't answer.

When I get back on the road,

I tell him,

"From now on,

I want you to speak Greek."

No more English.

Greek only.

So he says okay,

in English.

And we keep walking.

Now we're going up a hill,

and I'm following behind him.

And I feel like a man

in the Civil War,

being walked to his place

of execution.

When we reach

the top of the hill,

he pulls me off the road

and we go down into this field

where there's this small

little house, like a hut,

and next to it,

there's another one to the right.

As we're approaching,

I decide to play a game with myself.

I'm going to guess

which hut we're going to.

And I guessed it was

the one on the right.

So I run pass the waiter

and go up to the hut.

I push open the door

and step inside, and it's dark.

I can't see anything.

The waiter comes up behind me,

leads me inside and shuts the door.

As my eyes adjust,

I can see there's a bed

with white sheets and no pillow,

next to a chair.

The room smells

like dried flowers.

"He brings girls here

all the time and he fucks them,"

I say to myself.

Girls like me.

He sits on the edge

of the bed

and he sits me on his lap,

with my feet dangling off

like a ventriloquist's dummy.

And we begin to kiss...

and it's easy.

He kisses patiently.

And now that I'm sitting,

I realize I'm tired

and I really want to take a break

and rest my head on his shoulder.

But I don't want

to stop and look at him.

I don't want to see his face,

even in the dark.

We lie back down on the bed,

and I'm on top of him.

And I feel even tinier.

I feel like I'm shrinking.

He gets out

from underneath me

and he takes off my shorts

and my underwear,

pulls my T-shirt

over my head.

He caresses me with one hand

while he takes off his clothes.

And he takes off

my sandals last...

that makes me feel more naked

than anything else.

I still have little stones

stuck to the soles of my feet.

He makes a move

to try to turn me over,

but I want to stay

lying face down and I say so.

I want him to do

all the work.

He does.

We have a rhythm going.

It's good.

It's his rhythm really.

He's just bouncing off of me.

I'm lying there

with my head buried in the sheets

and my arms

folded underneath me.

And I know in this position

I won't have an orgasm.

But you know what?

I prefer it.

That way, things won't

change their color.

And it goes on

for a long time.

I just try

to make myself feel heavy.

He tries to turn me over,

he gets me...

tries to get me

to change positions,

but I want to make myself

as heavy as I can be.

And then he finishes.

He lies down

in bed next to me,

and I curl up

with my back to him.

I'm cold.

And I think of Nora...

and I hope

that she's okay.

We'll laugh about this later

when we run into each other.

But we won't talk about it...

what it was like

for her or for me.

But that won't be anytime soon.

I still have to walk back.

It'll be shorter this time

because I'll know the way.

We won't be holding hands.

We won't see the guy on the bike

or the purple cloud.

I won't see the creature

flying across the sky.

And I won't stop to pee.

When we get to the stone wall,

I'll say I want to walk on alone.

We won't kiss goodbye.

Just before I can see

the restaurants and bars,

I'll hear the voices.

And I won't like that,

because I'll know I'm just

moments away from the bustle.

As I come around the last bend,

the lights will hit me.

I'll get to a table

and see someone I recognize

and I'll sit down without a word,

while someone else tells a story.

And I'll watch the faces

as they listen...

faces in profile,

far away from home,

with lives a lot like each other's.

Nobody will turn to see me.

And nobody will know

where I've been.

Okay.

A friend of mine, Clarissa,

only dates white men.

Latin men and Asians too,

but not Black men.

She says a Black man

is hard on a Black woman

like a white man

is hard on a white woman,

and Latinos and Asians

are just hell on their own women.

She says that the golden rule

is to marry a man

from another race,

maybe even another culture.

The only exception is for a western

woman to marry a Japanese man.

"That is the very pit of hell,"

she says.

Everybody has

their own rules about men.

When I first met Philip,

he ate with his mouth open

and never covered his mouth

when he yawned,

and he yawns a lot.

His shirts

were always frayed

and the carpet

in his apartment

had this shiny patina on it

that was vile.

His front door

was never locked.

His dog has fleas and

there were ants in his bathtub.

He would listen to Al Stewart sing

"The Year of the Cat"

all day long.

What's up with that?

He was a boy, until I came along

and turned him around.

And with me, he lost weight,

he learned how to keep

his fingernails short and clean,

and how to shave properly

and to use astringent

instead of cologne.

I taught him how to iron

the collar of a dress shirt,

and how much wine

to pour into a glass.

And I reminded him

that in bed,

it's rhythm

that matters to a woman.

Rhythm is

what matters to me.

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