01 September 2017

. 'scent' of a t r u e story .

"Do you want to learn ?" he queried.

"How to kiss ?   Do I want to learn how to kiss ?" she clarified.

"Yes."

"Aaaah.  Well.  Maybe.  I dunno.
It has been so, so long.  Likely I cannot learn ... ... it has been soooo long," she deadpanned.

"But you were married, Legion.  Three yellow - haired, blue - eyed boy babies !  Surely he ... ... ?"

"NO !" she interrupted him.  "Noooo, that never happened.  Kissing never happened.  In fact, he never one time even --- zero is the number of times --- he said to me, 'I love you, Legion.'  Not even before we were married did he tell me that.  Those four words.  Let alone, afterward.  I just up and came down preggers.  So that was that.  And then ?

I was pregnant again.  And again.  No.  No kissing before or after marriage.  Romance ?  Romance ? !  O no.  No.  I have no idea what that 'd be.  Romance.  And kissing ?  Not even at the formal ceremony.  That 'd 've been, ... ... ah, aaaah, 18 December y1976.  Zane was already by then, ya' know, four months old."

"Yeah, I do know that.  Almost seems unprecedented. 
That.  That much passive aggression.  That much violence.
I can teach you, Legion.  If you would like ?" he offered her his services.
 
"I don't remember kissing ... ... from before him.  From when I was much, much younger.  I did.  Cuz I can remember the men.  Actually, I can remember all of the men.  So I did; I know I was a kisser, but I don't think I can relearn kissing cuz it has been so, so long ago.  That's what I mean."

"I can figure out a way," he more or less promised.

"I don't think I am being quite heard.  I mean there is the touch thing.  I do not touch people any more.  I was never touched, ya' know, with, ah, with a tenderness actually.  I was only touched when I could ... ... except if I could be, ah, to be made ... ... well, to be made impregnated.  Multiple times he was, well, giddy and gleeful ... ... he was gleeful when he inserted a medical penlight into my vagina so that he could see its shine come through my skin.  Up through my pubic hairs.  Only he called it my pussy; that one was his favorite term.  Or another one he liked to call it, twat.  Or my cunt.  I don't think ... ..., no.  No, I know that I never heard him ... ... ever ... ... say the word vagina.  And I was supposed to like that.  To like having that done to me.  Just like the spring we first met.  Our second, well, I would call it, ah I guess, an encounter.  March y1974, it was.  I was supposed to like that, too.  He wanted me to come meet him at what he told me was a bar so I said okay.  It wasn't just a bar.  It was Mr B's Lounge on Main Street, a strip joint.  I'd never heard of it, let alone, ever been inside a strip joint.  Not even when I lived in New York City.  I walked in; and in the noise and the dark, I tried to see him in there somewhere.  I couldn't.  Its spotlights were aimed onto the stage.  Within seconds I'd had to get out.  To get out outside, I mean.  I vomited beside a parking meter right there on the sidewalk.  At the joint's entrance.  Soooo I, ah, I kinda want to not be touched like that again.  Or, ya' know ?  Not at all, actually.  I just cannot be, ah, ... ... handled again.  I do not touch others either.  Cuz I know how that feels now."

"I know what you mean, Legion.  The violence.  But, sometime, if you would like to give it a try,
why, um, ... ... why don't you give it a try, Legion ?  Sometime maybe ?  To try ?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2zTd_YwTvo

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