Best Women's Erotica 2001 by Marcy Sheiner

Author:Marcy Sheiner [MARCY SHEINER]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cleis Press
Published: 2012-03-25T00:00:00+00:00

Rope Burn

Anne Tourney

This place is still raw, the channel between my thigh and pussy. Pink, moist, and rickracked by the hairs of a ghost rope. When I touch the tender strip, the skin stings. The pain calls up a vision of a woman spinning naked on a long cord, her legs spread in a ballerina's arc, fingers grasping the highest knots. I can't reconcile that vision with what I've learned about Mary June. I don't imagine her as a suicidal woman but a sexual one with a fascination for the promises of rope.

A fascination like mine.

I went to Mary June's house to work through a dry spell in my master's thesis. I told myself that I needed silence and distance, but what I really wanted was for time to stop. Two years of graduate school had taught me that I knew almost nothing about my thesis topic, the interwoven coils of rural American family life. Most of those strands in my own past had been torn, either by spite or circumstance. When I thought about my own frayed relationships I wondered where I had found the nerve to write about strangers' bonds.

I chose a town within driving distance of the university, a town known for its orchards of crooked apple trees. The house sat uneasily at the outskirts of the little community, leaning on its foundations as if it expected to be forced to flee. A long scrabbly field separated the house and barn from the main road. As I drove down the rutted path, I could see my landlady standing in the open doorway, her arms crossed over her chest. That stern silhouette sent a wave of guilt rushing through me. It was a guilt I couldn't explain, hot and absurd, like the backwash of someone else's shame. She frowned at my tank top and shorts as I hauled in the books that would keep me company that summer.

"Didn't expect you to bring a whole library," my landlady said. She led me through a parlor-I had an impression of yellowed lace and sepia shadows-and down a narrow hallway to the bedroom that would be mine. I set my box of books down on the floor. Dust rose in a soft exhalation, as if a restless spirit were welcoming me.

"Maybe I could store some of my books in the barn."

She shook her mule-gray head. "The barn is full of rusted machinery. You'd get tetanus just looking at that mess."

But when I glanced out the window I saw light spearing through the cracks in the barn's wallboards, suggesting that there was open space inside.

"Has this always been a guest room?" I asked.

The room's former occupant had left no imprint; all sensuous memory had been stripped from the room. The paint on the windowsills had flaked away and the wallpaper seemed to have been torn off by hand, leaving only a few shreds of yellow fluttering against the plaster. It's only twenty-five dollars a week, I reminded myself. For twenty-five dollars I can tolerate bleak decor.

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.