Stories for Stephen

#1

I live in Potomac.

When triggered, the house alarm echoes through the entire neighborhood. The living room’s doors let in light from the yard, and were all hot.  Found the cold one – a ticket to endless night.

Rob parked his sexy sexy motorbike like a Fuck you.

Right by the driveway - Mom could see it after waking from one of her nightmares. In the darkness I whispered, beckoned and he squinted, tracked me. From the television to the cloaked guest room, we duck under the laser beam.  Yes, the basement was hot too. I’m not supposed touch this polish punk warmth cradling me in his blue eyes.

Then there was poetic Dan.

He was in steady pursuit of my thoughts. Cuddling with words and anticipation of an empty night, we filled up with local angled color. The DC punk industrial renaissance: Purple bangs and mohawks jump and stab the curtains at 9:30 Club, at Tracks. Yet home for him was poetry; smells, tastes of Brazil on glass tabletops in a DC townhome. The smell of the elderly. He was the much youngest of 3 sons.

He joined me in Manhattan; his mother bought a studio in midtown. At Columbia we found sex could be thundering chaotic joy and also ebb like poetry to sad and flat. I found him and another Barnard women caressing under stark fluorescent dorm lights. Shocked as an innocent, yet stoic - like Joan of Arc I informed him what I stood for – faith - and that we were done. And, may have hepatitis, thanks to Rob.

As he sobbed with fear and yet begged me to come back, I tested clean.

I don’t remember what happened to Dan. All I know is he dropped out and moved back to Brazil, a schizophrenic spirit-filled mutterer.

I don’t know where Rob is. He visited me at Columbia,

then stopped once I converted to Christianity.