Pretend We Live Here: Short Stories by Genevieve Hudson

Author:Genevieve Hudson [Hudson, Genevieve]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Future Tense Books
Published: 2018-10-13T04:00:00+00:00

Fast,

Fast,

Fast

I do not answer the Wife’s calls. Sorry, babe. I am brushing my tongue, watching an internet Pilates video, getting a hot stone massage. Not really. Really, I am scrolling through Ted’s Instagram feed. Here is a Portrait of Ted before she had children. Here, a Portrait of Ted with her German husband in Barcelona. Here, a Portrait of Ted with a semi-see-through shirt, a kind of fabric she probably knows the name of—tulle? Chiffon? Voile? Thin cotton lawn? Ted is the kind of woman who knows the specific words for things. Ted is the type of girl who blogs about her fashion choices. I pause on the picture, zoom in. I detect Ted’s nipples, a subtle shade of chestnut beneath the sheer fabric. I lie to myself and pretend it’s subversive for a woman to objectify another woman. But an object is an object is an object. And I can’t stop looking.

Here are many versions of Ted in the just-passed years.

Here, a Portrait of Ted sucking a lollipop. Tongue of hard candy. Sugar in the teeth.

I should answer the Wife’s call. Her name overtakes my screen again in sans serif, hoping to FaceTime. It blacks out my Instagram museum. The picture halls of Ted’s life become two words which are the name of the person I love. It says THE WIFE. She is the kind of woman who’s intelligent about all things with one exception: the emotional lives of others. She could care less about that. Her heart is a cold furnace that only I can heat. The Wife wants to tell me she just landed in Boston for her international law conference.

I text: You there all safe & sound? Sorry on phone with curator talking about where to position the meat cage.

The Wife and I are in an open marriage because that is a better arrangement than me cheating on her.

Portrait of Ted getting her first tattoo. Caption: I have tattoos everywhere.

That’s exactly right. Tattoos. Everywhere. Why does that sound so sexual? Cause she meant it to. You know that. Tattoos cover Ted’s arms. They splash color into the crooks of her elbow. A swan opens its wings across her chest as if to fly. A block of cheese sits on her bicep. A chicken roosts on her thigh. Hawk on the fuck-finger. Crossbones on her thumb. The word DADDY on her neck. Each image has that too-fresh patina as if they might still smear. In pictures from a few years ago, Instagram tells me Ted’s body was an empty canvas, her haircut an inoffensive blonde bob. Now, a red rat tail pendulums down her neck. A ring has been pierced through the gum above her two front teeth. Her eyes say: try me, babe.

I answer the door when Ted knocks. A gust of winter brings her in. We hug in my foyer under a photograph of a serpent eating a mouse. It’s the first time we’ve seen each other since last month in my studio

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.