I keep my secrets to myself

"We're getting married!" My mother tells me this while we're eating dinner. I looked down at her left hand, yup right there, ring finger. Fuck. Fuck Fuck. I had a hard time keeping my shrimp-scampi settled. There's a garlic taste in my mouth for years whenever "the marriage" is brought up. For my palates sake we only speak of "the marriage" on days when my mother is out shopping, or cutting her toenails in the bathroom over the tub.


pour être sexy
pour être sexy
pour être sexy
pour être sexy
pour être sexy



I can hear the hiss of her opening a warm beer, one of the six she keeps hidden under her bathroom sink. She doesn't mind drinking warm beer, she's used to hiding it. A bumpy rash develops on my wrist whenever I speak to my therapist about my mother's drinking. "It's all subconscious Evelyn," he tells me. He also says my love of ginger ale and beef jerky is not becoming. "Who is going to marry you?" he asked me one session. I fidgeted with my hands absentmindedly, a nervous habit I could never quit. "A man with expensive taste?" I scrounged out a little laugh. My therapist sighed, stone faced as usual, his name is Lynn Toler. I asked him why he has a woman's name but he reassured me that many men are named Lynn. "The definition of manhood has shifted, Evie (he sometimes refers to me by my nickname, he speaks in a purr,) many men have names that are slightly feminine. It makes me more secure in my sexuality." He purrs.

My bottom warms at the mention of "sex-" and I pretend that there was not a "-uality" added at the end. Instead, I pretend Lynn is finally asking me to have sex on his couch and break the psychological doctor patient sexual boundaries. I theorize that every therapist probably has sex with one of his or her patients in their lifetime. I theorize that Lynn (who is 20 years my senior,) has been waiting for me. I imagine him laying at home in bed with his wife, who has a wrinkly bum and wears smelly creams on her face. I imagine Lynn fantasizing about me, Evelyn "Evie" a vulnerable 20 year old with an almost perfect body, long blazing hair and a grubby interior.

I had been with a few men before, they all told me I was nice. My body was warm up against their bodies. I told Lynn about these experiences. "Did you like it?" He asked, I could swear he was salivating. I wanted badly to reach across and wipe his spit away with my ring finger. "It was nice," I blinked and could have sworn he was watching me readjust my bra strap. "Did they treat you nice?" "One man asked if he could choke me and I told him that he could not. I told him that we should probably stop." Lynn looked alarmed and was now writing a significant amount of material down in his notebook. That fucking notebook, I wish he'd let me creep inside, maybe once we were done making love and he was washing up in the sink I would sneak a peek.

"So you were raped!" Lynn shoots the accusation out of his blubbery lips like a spitball. It smacks me right dab between the eyes. "No.. what? What are you talking about?" Suddenly Lynn to me looks like an old fuddy duddy. A description my mother taught me. She too liked older men but would sigh and reassure me that "They're all old fuddy duddy's, baby don't bother." He asks me if "I liked being choked?" and I respond with a lackluster "I don't know. He was my age, kids my age they do strange things, I didn't let him! I told you that already! He was weird he had his nipples pierced," I cringe at the visual. Lynn lets out a little "Mmm, Hmmph. I see," I fantasize about reaching over to pat his lap. But the session ends abruptly and I can see the change glazing over Lynn's eyes, he looks at me with a hunger I have recognized before.

I leave the brownstone building and steal a magazine on my way out. My walk is uneven and my mind feels heavy, my eyes are tired. I find myself sitting at the train station rubbing almond lotion into elbows stuck in a daze, wondering what I had done. I fell asleep on the train and woke up to find Lynn's notebook had been tucked neatly inside my bag. Pins and needles crept throughout my body. I could feel my interior organs melting. There was a post-it note on the front page that read: "I would never do that to you." I cringe.