Jowita Bydlowska - Guy

I collapse on top of her. In the semi-darkness I see Bride’s eyes flicker, something behind them coming apart, loose, some kind of sadness, though maybe I just imagine it. We lie there, next to each other, cooling off, not talking.

I fall asleep with my arm draped over her flat stomach; in my dreams, the furry animal that is and isn’t me is digging up a burrow somewhere in the forest with the moon shining on.

THE PHONE RINGS AND I REACH FOR IT, CLOUDY WITH SLEEP. The morning light is sharp, knives in my eyes.

“Hello,” Bride says. In the phone, not beside me, which is strange, but then again, she’s a strange girl, so I just say, “Hello.”

“Sleep well?”

“Yes. I had the weirdest dream,” I say, looking at where her body left a whisper of an imprint on the sheet.

“I’m wondering if you could meet me on the beach,” she says in an oddly businesslike tone.

I don’t mind that she doesn’t want to be flirtatious on the phone, so I don’t push my dream chat – I just ask what time, and she says as soon as possible.

Then I remember the condom. “Is this about the condom?” I say.

“How about you meet me in an hour?”

There’s a pill a young girl can take within the first forty-eight hours. I have no clue if a pill like that is available over the counter or if we’ll have to find a hospital where they can administer it. I don’t know if she’s old enough or if she’s too old for it. I already dread the wait in the clinic and whatever else, a possible lecture from a gynecologist, some mustachioed local doctor with a degree from a university in Nassau or Zagreb.

I should maybe call Dr. Babe. It would be good to bring an actual woman that I fuck to her; maybe it would finally intrigue her the way my asking for tests never seems to. An actual woman might make things real. I feel like Dr. Babe is the type who likes a challenge – after all, she finished medical school, and that is a very challenging thing for a girl.

Bride says, “By the smoothies. I’m picking up a couple of things from there.”

I say yes and hang up. It’s going to be a nice day today according to the Internet, twenty-seven degrees and a breeze. A fantastic day to spend on the beach, and even though I find it impossible to sit on the sand for long stretches of time, I imagine going with Bride and lying side by side, discussing the girls that walk nearby, unaware of our predatory eyes.

I don’t have time for a long workout so I do a super-thirty, multi-interval: jump rope, diamond push-ups, Hindu squats, leg thrusts, kick lunges. I go fast and hard to quell the anxiety that for some reason has reared its head again.

I take a cold shower, so cold that my head feels numb and there’s pain in my ankles as the water cascades down my body. After drying myself off and putting on skin lotion, I put on a clean white linen shirt and linen pants. I skip shaving since it’s day three. I’ve been told a thousand times how great I look with my near-beard. It’s my summer look.

I let Dog out in the backyard to do his business. I make a mental note to scoop the business later to keep the raccoons away. You don’t want dog shit in your yard ever, or you’ll end up with all the shit-eating animals taking over.

I grab a bottle of vanilla-protein smoothie, the last bottle left in the fridge, and I gulp the entire thing. Then I lock the door and walk toward the beach, the liquid sloshing uncomfortably in my belly.

The sun is pale. It’s not even eight a.m. In the distance, the closed shack looks haunted, like a place that’s been abandoned for decades because of a deadly virus. They should repaint it.

I see Bride sitting on one of the picnic tables out front. She is facing the water. I get hard as soon as I notice a flimsy yellow scarf around her thin neck.

She turns and shades her face with her palm. “Hey you,” she says.

“Hey.”

“Sorry to get you up so early. I thought of letting you sleep in, but then I thought it would make more sense if we got this out of the way.”

“Got what out of the way?” I bend to kiss her, but she moves her face away. She coughs. Then she looks at me and smiles a sad little smile.

Perhaps it’s how fond I’ve grown of her over the past couple of days, perhaps I failed to see this all along, but now I can tell that her charm truly comes out when she smiles. Despite the facial asymmetry, her mismatched nose and lips, she’s one of those women who blinds you with beauty as soon as you tell her a joke she likes. She’s the kind of woman for whom you will long madly, possessively, as soon as she stops laughing, and then all you’ll ever want to do in life is make her laugh again.

I want to tell her this. I also want to tell her to never get a stupid nose job, never let some idiot tell her that she would be more perfect if she inflates her lovely breasts with silicone, but I keep quiet, waiting for her to talk, something uneasy slithering its way down my back as I stand waiting.

“Thanks for coming. Though I guess in a minute you’ll wish you’d stayed home,” she says.

“What do you mean? I’m glad I came. I’m always happy to see you.”

“Okay,” she says and shrugs. “Have you ever really punched anybody? Like when you got angry at them?” she says, and I immediately think of our bedroom games. Will I have to punch her next to prove myself to her? The chill on my back doesn’t let up.

I count backwards from ten before answering. “The choking was your idea.”

She nods, her eyes still, unblinking.

I have a sudden image of crows, a field of crows. Like in that painting by that lunatic.

She says, “Yeah. But would you do it on your own? If I said something that really pissed you off? If I told you something horrible? Or not horrible, just, um, something that could potentially cause a violent response?”

I don’t know what she’s talking about, but my body seems to. The thing slithering down my back grows colder, expands. I think how the scarf wrapped around her neck is not one solid colour; there are thin red lines popping out of the yellow – it looks like a splash of egg yolk with bloody threads dissecting it. Her hand flies to the scarf as if my eyes made it burn.

“What’s going on, Bride?”

“Guy. It’s not Bride, actually. Why would you even think that’s a real name? Seriously. Come on.” She bites on a cuticle and spits it out. She kicks a small pile of dirt with the tip of her pointy flat.

“What is your name?” I ask, my back too stiff, hardened with ice.

Her eyes on me. “In a moment. But it’s not Bride. First, I need to tell you about why we’re here. I’m about to tell you something that will make you want to hit me, which would be okay since it could only help me further, or rather further my cause, but I don’t want that. Contrary to your impression of me, I don’t like violence. Can you have a look?” she asks, and sticks out her throat so I can open the scarf.

As soon as I graze the flimsy texture with my fingers, she thrashes her head and screams. She screams and then she stops. Then she laughs. The laughter right after the scream. It doesn’t fit.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I say, but my voice breaks and it comes out in a squeak. I’m shaking. I’m suddenly unable to stop shaking.

“ Bride . It’s the name of a character from Quentin Tarantino’s movie Kill Bill . Look it up.”

I lean against the picnic table. She turns her face toward the water again. We probably look like a nice couple, up so early, so healthily, out for a nice walk, taking a break.