You picked vampires because they’re sophisticated, she said.
She’d caught him in the parking lot once. He was in his car with the stereo playing Entry of the Gods into Valhalla. It was the Otto Klemperer instrumental. Operas were ruined by the tenor. They sound like retarded men crying.
She was walking down the concrete ramp with a cardboard tray of low calorie bobas for the sales staff. She had on a gray pleated skirt like a Japanese porno. She saw his face in the open window and he got nervous. By the time she asked what is that he’d been thinking for seconds about how to pronounce Richard Wagner. It’s German opera, he said.
Well that’s surprising about you.
I think it would be surprising about anybody, sitting in a parking garage listening to this.
I wouldn’t have thought you were so cultured.
I’m just waiting for the guy to pull up with my Grey Poupon, he said.
It was a mistake. Kraft-Heinz Grey Poupon was a client. The line of mustards had its own branding team. Sales were strong thanks to an iconic 80’s ad campaign. But millennials lacked awareness of the condiment. Now he was thinking about work. Her hair was tied back, perfect black like the girls in the Mel Gibson Mutiny on the Bounty. He wanted to throw Anthony Hopkins overboard and take her to a beach and eat breadfruit. What was breadfruit. Why is she being nice to me. What else do I not know about you, she said.
Jesus Christ, where to begin, he said. He turned the music down. I wish I could say I have nine secret kids and once killed a man. But I pretty much go to work and floss regularly.
I don’t believe that.
On weekends I go to the pond and look at aquatic birds.
She was about to laugh.
Recently a belted kingfisher took up residence. An engaging bird. Lot of personality.
I’m about to turn 41 years old and I pay old prostitutes in Koreatown so someone will touch me, he thought. It got so bad I joined a global terror cell. I just want to die but suddenly I want to bury my face in your jet black cunt hairs and burrow into your hot musk like a weevil. I think that’s amazing, she said. That you like birds and the opera.
I’m glad someone’s amazed.
I was an Audubon Society Junior Birdwatcher. And I play the flute.
He was surprised. He’d heard a song coming from her headphones once in the break room. It was about drinking cough syrup.
Maybe we can go look at birds over lunch some time, she said. There’s that sanctuary.
Oh yeah I know it, he said. I would love to. There’s a breeding pair of pied-billed grebes.
I don’t get to do stuff like that much anymore, she said. Since I moved in with my boyfriend.
What about you, he asked. Which one.
I think vampires have too much to worry about, she said. He heard her snip the tape. She grazed him again as she left his cubicle. Zombie life seems more simple.
How’s Chad doing, he asked.
We broke up.
There was a bright light. For a split second everything looked like an X-ray. And he thought: oh God– they did it.
He saw the boss’s glass wall. Marcy come back here, he said. She didn’t hear. Her eyes just said what the fuck. He grabbed her arm and pulled her under the desk and she started to scream but then there was thunder and the building blew in. When the car alarms woke him she was gone.
Angel of the Morning
His buddy told him: try Seeking Arrangement. I put that I’m worth two million. I take them to a sushi place. But not one where the chef doesn’t let you order. Middle income place; I tell them I don’t have time for courtship. Too busy. With what they don’t ask. I tell them before we set an allowance I have to sample the goods. Easy pussy.
Yeah but I want someone to like me.
Well what else is there. Tinder’s dead. OKCupid, don’t get me started. No girls at the clubs and I promise you it’s from this shit. They all think they can get paid.
I’d sooner be alone, he thought.
Six months later he was at the ATM. The girl waited in the car. They’d met at the duck pond. He didn’t know where else to take a date. The coots had gone. Buffleheads and wigeons moved on to summer feeding grounds. But there was a kingfisher. Snowy egrets.
Like all dates she pretended to like the birds. Except the geese, which scared her. There was a pack of them around a churro a child had dropped. When you got close they’d hiss with oddly human tongues. A big one swung its neck at her and she jumped back instead of leaning into him. A bad sign. What would I do if it bit her, he thought. Would I still have to defend her. The Canada goose is primarily an herbivore. But its serrated bill is strong enough to crush small crabs and other aquatic arthropods.
They’d talked like normal. He still tried to impress her. Had no other way to speak. Her message had said she wanted revenge on the patriarchy. Then a picture of her tits.
They sat by a jacaranda. When she said white males he could tell it was capitalized. She hated Michel Houellebecq. Liked Slavoj Zizek, which she’d practiced saying. Her purse was open. He saw homeopathic extracts. Yes but Zizek is just a Houellebecq character, he said. An ugly man pretending to be deep for pussy. She said what kind of arrangement are you looking for.
I want you to be nice to me, he said. I want you to act like you love me. He’d practiced too.
What does that mean.
We’ll go to my apartment. You take off your clothes but you can leave your panties on. You tickle my back. Maybe whisper in my ear a little. I want intimacy. Like a lover’s touch. I won’t take my cock out. Sixty for the hour.
She had a hairy pussy and it smelled like oregano. She didn’t take her panties off but they were mesh and her grizzly bear muff hung out the sides. Once he’d seen his mother’s cunt hair emerging from dolphin shorts at the pool. It was just like that. White women. He’d put on Daphnis et Chloe by Ravel, remembering it being softer than it was. As she dragged nipples on his back and exhaled in his ear canal there’d be a too-bright horn ostenato, like something out of The Flintstones.
She didn’t talk much. Just how am I doing. Is this OK. It was; she was good at it. In character. He could tell she was getting hot from the oregano smell but when he tried to kiss her she said no.
The next day he didn’t want to hang himself. Thought: if I can get this with money, I won’t have to chase it and lose.
The next girl was black. Fat, 19, her big soft belly rolling over him like a slick wet pillow. Her little girl face made him wish he owned slaves. But she got horny. Suddenly he was working. Pushing his tongue into her salty asshole thinking: does she like this. Same with the next one. Chinese. Fat too; she had a condo from her green card marriage to some Shanghai oligarch. Why do you pay for this, she said. You’re so hot. He couldn’t then not lift up her Hello Kitty dress; climb on top of her with the minimum foreplay allowed by law. Asking can I cum in you. For weeks he’d wake up to texts from both of them. u up. wyd.
But it was the oregano girl he saw again. One night she texted: want me to come tuck you in. She got on top of him. The mesh panties with the soft beard hanging out and she asked: same as last time. One extra thing, he said, and she said I won’t fuck you.
No, can you talk to me. Like what, she asked. Can you say what you’d say if you loved me, he said. She made a face like he’d asked what’s 17 times 23.
Power Achiever