Somewhere After The War
The perfume burned his eyes
Holding tightly to her thighs
And something flickered for a minute
And then it vanished and was gone
- Lou Reed
The loading docks were no place for a woman but that was okay cause with my sock in my panties and my hair cropped to my scalp I fit in just fine. My muscles were bigger than Jorge's. Years of fighting, years of prison, and he was the only one willing to give an ex-con a chance. He was the only one who knew what was in my pants, too, but he called me Ryan like everyone else.
I snap my gum loudly and spit it into the murky water, thinking of Texas again. Thinking of how it all began and how it's all her fault. But I'm not bitter. She helped me find myself in a way, but I can still hear her voice echoing in my ears.
"Are you hard for me, Faith?"
Yeha, baby. I'm always hard for you.
I only fuck girls now, girls who are too dumb or too smart to notice that I'm packing plastic. Bound breasts, no makeup, and one fake diamond cross earring in my left ear. RyanRyanRyan. That's what they call out when I make them come.
I never come unless I'm alone in my dingy apartment over the garage, rubbing my clit with a toothbrush and biting into my arm to keep from screaming out BuffyBuffyBuffy because she's gone now. She's gone now.
The irony is she never made me come, either. She loved to rub me through my pants.. feel the hardness underneath.. played those mindgames with me, made me feel guilty that it wasn't a real dick, and she even gave me a blowjob once. I don't think it ever occured to her that I couldn't feel it.
Someday I'll be a real boy.. only I won't.
I can't grow hair on my face without pills and I'll always have a slit between my legs that tells me that everything else is a lie.
I wonder how she's doing now, if she's still in Texas or if she still remembers Texas. I wonder how Dawn swallowed it all, and I wonder if I'll ever really know myself.
Gotta have Faith.. like I haven't heard that joke a million times. Everyone's gotta have Faith, everyone wants a little piece, only the boys aren't so interested anymore and that hurts. There's a guy next door named Owen who lets me suck him off every now and then when I need a little. I don't think he knows what I am or cares.
Maybe I can get him to fuck me tonight.
I adjust my baseball cap and lift a box that weighs twice as much as I do, all ninety-seven pounds of me, and put it on the dolly.
I think I'll be moving on soon. Maybe I'll look B up again someday. Maybe, baby. All I know is this town is too small for me and I should be out saving the world, not moving televisions.
I lean against the building and light a cigarette right under the no smoking sign and sigh. This town, this state.. too small. Not like Texas, where everything right down to the belt buckles is big. But even Texas seemed tiny when I left it.
Maybe the world's even too small for me now..