No Animals We Could Name: Stories by Ted Sanders

Author:Ted Sanders [Sanders, Ted]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781555970567
Publisher: Graywolf Press
Published: 2012-07-03T04:00:00+00:00

Opinion of Person

THE CAT WAS INTO THE CURTAINS; HIS GODDAMN CLAWS were pricking and popping. Even from the bed, Julie could see the new little starholes he was making in the cloth. The fabric swung as Rory’s shadow twitched, high up between the sheers and drapes where he was hanging. Julie waited for him to fall. “You’ll die, you dumb animal,” she said.

Julie listened for sounds further out in the apartment. The clock said 9:17, which meant, probably, that Ed would already be gone. The air over the bed was freezing and thin. Julie lifted the hem of the blanket, pressed it against her lip, made it the world’s largest mustache. She held it there, breathed in through her mouth, out through her nose. The cat’s damn claws pricked and snagged.

Water ran in the bathroom. Shad was awake. He belched sonorously, shut the water off, said, to himself, “Shad, you fuck,” and the medicine cabinet opened and closed. Julie listened close through several quiet seconds and then startled at the sudden plunge of piss into the toilet. Rory fell down from the long window, landing heavily on the floor, his feet gathering and mincing, prissy little things. He meowed like answers were owed him.

Julie rolled onto her face beneath the blanket, spread her legs and elbows, opened her eyes into the sheets and listened to the sound of Shad peeing. Right now, she thought, his cock is in his hand. He peed and peed. If only she’d been counting. Shad said, plenty loud enough for her to hear, “Oh my Christ.” Such a heavy sound he made, and why was that true—that a man’s piss always sounded so heavy? Their streams were so thin. When Ed peed it was precise, braided almost, arcing into the water.

“My pee has no arc,” she said into the sheets, and she smelled them and thought of Ed’s long, thin cock, with its own arc, long and thin especially when it was hard, and pale—a strange animal bone. All of him so smooth and nearly hairless, so eager and certain. The toilet flushed. Rory ran from the room.

Julie got up and put on a pair of Ed’s boxers, yesterday’s shirt. Her boobs were freezing. She checked their sag with her hands, hefting and dropping them, feeling the sad little peas of her huddled nipples with her thumbs. She thought briefly of a bra and decided she could go without. She stepped onto the floor vent, but the air coming out was vacantly cold, the product of some strange cycle the furnace here had. Ed’s socks were laid out on the grate, flat and crisp.

She lifted her chin and called out, loud, “Is Ed gone?”

Shad’s big voice barreled back, like he was the walls. “He is.”

“Are you dressed?”

There was a long pause. She could hear the TV talking low. Shad said, “I am.”

Julie went down the hall. Shad stood out there in the living room with his back to her, nearly filling the space between the couch and the wall.

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.