How We Keep It Fresh

You put on the sexy French maid outfit. I put on the denim jacket and the horn-rimmed glasses, then taunt you, saying you look more like a Mexican. We go to a bar where I brawl for your honor.

We have a stripper pole installed in our bedroom. You sit beside it with heavy construction paper and a pair of safety scissors. The slow, steady crunch of the plastic blades through the paper calms me so hard my forehead tingles and I shiver. When I find perfect peace the night is over.

We play doctor. You diagnose me with all types of fantastic illnesses.

Let’s try Craigslist personals, no strings attached. MW for no M or W. Couple wishes to be left alone. We mean to stay inside with the fireplace crackling and the air conditioner blasting. One of us will call the other nasty-sounding but ultimately meaningless names. We will take turns tickling each other’s backs when it’s time for bed. Our picture gets our picture. Your picture gets ignored.

I leave the house then return with a pizza box that I hold at waist-level. I am wearing an apron that reads “kiss the cook.” Beneath my apron I’m wearing a mesh T-shirt and leather shorts. Above my apron, a bowtie. Three of my teeth are missing. I busted them out for you. Don’t worry, they aren’t the important ones. I knock on the front door and try to compose an alluring smile but I’ve blown a gram and a half of cocaine and my mouth won’t stop twitching. I knock again. I knock and knock and knock. You never answer, because you are somewhere else, jumping out of someone’s cake in the bikini you sometimes wear over your clownsuit.

I am the master; you are the slave. I beg you to shut up with all of your “do unto others” and your “equality for alls.” When you see me on the street with my arms around a beat-down horse, we both finally know who has the upper hand.

You are the priest; I am the altar boy. One of us is a librarian, the other a nun. Sometimes we are so fucking full of joy we just have to run through the city swinging the samurai swords we bought at the mall at everyone but the homeless people. We stop to hand the homeless individual-sized servings of bumwine. You are my brother; I am your sister. Your ass is grass and Dad is the lawnmower. My ass is fast and I can outrun fate! You hang yourself; I’ve already plucked out my eyes.

We go to a bar, not the one I brawled in; we’re apparently not welcome there anymore. We stay at the new bar ‘til it closes and bring another woman home with us, a big, boozy girl with wide hips and rosaceous cheeks. The lights out, we lay her on our broken bed and crawl up inside her. When the doctor arrives, he says it will be a breech birth. What the stupid doctor doesn’t understand is that we have no intention of being born again.