Shingo Brown

28 November 20XX

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RITUAL OF POSSESSION

I like watching her eat. I like watching how those hands hold a cheeseburger, and how her teeth slice into the meat, cheese and bread. I like that peaceful look in her eyes when I watch her and she doesn’t notice. Or maybe she does notice. Maybe she likes it.

I like the way she spits. I like watching her brush her teeth and spew the gunk from her mouth when she’s done. It lands in the sink filled with bright red clouds, and it reminds me of fertility. It reminds me of her scarred womanhood.

I asked about her body awhile ago. She’ll stand there without clothes on, and never say anything about it. From what I can guess, she’s been battered. I wonder if a boyfriend did this to her. I wonder if a family member did. Even still, she gives me a special privilege. Only I get to see it, and she tells me this.

“Hold still. Stop squirming.” Her words feel like her hands. She pushes my flesh back and forth mechanically, and it’s the monotonous, bored action that gets to me. She doesn’t even care.

“You’re great,” I say when we’re finished. And really, I mean it. “What can I do for you?”

“I wanna use your shower,” she says.

“Be my guest, please.”

I sit there without pants and watch her leave me. No “Would you like to join me?” No nothing. I hear the shower turn on, and I think it was this I stayed home for—again. I told my parents I was getting together with friends, that I wouldn’t be able to make it to dinner. I told them that, and here I am, wearing nearly nothing, holding my face in my hands. This is getting expensive.

But I could listen to that shower all night. I can imagine her rough hands sliding up and down her worn, filed limbs. Such a scrawny, beautiful, pulverized frame. When’s it gonna be?