Good Boy, Fritos
It’s ten a.m. and I’m eating Fritos. I enjoy the word “Fritos.” I’m not sure why. It sounds like a young Hispanic boy who brings me fish tacos on a blue plate and tropical overpriced drinks in glasses shaped like women. It sounds like he would probably adore me in an almost sexual motherly way that I would see clearly in his eyes and how they drop sometimes when I stare at him too intently. He would be almost chubby and I would pay him with hands in his hair.
I feel I would have the emotional advantage over Fritos in that he would need me more than I would need him. This would be a first for me and I would feel a sick power in this feeling.
I know if I asked Fritos to hurt himself because it would make me smile that he probably would.
But I wouldn’t.
Maybe.
Okay, if I did, I would start off small, like telling Fritos to take the plastic sword out of my pineapple, orange slice, Maraschino cherry garnish and poke his belly 33 times. I think it would be cool to watch. I would lie back in my intoxicated haze, under the Mexican sun and trace my fingertips over my tan belly while he did this. I would be smiling and when his laughing stops at around poke number 24, and when his smile disappears at poke 33, I would ask him to start over please, and this time, do it a little harder.
Sure, he’d hesitate at first, but that’s why I’d say, come here, Fritos and I’d smile, and I’d adjust my bikini top so it was not sitting where it should and when he took enough steps to reach me, which was only two, I’d run my fingers through his hair and smile when I notice him readying his sword.
A Brief History of Masturbation
Ages 5–6
I discovered that rubbing a soft bristle hairbrush in a quick up and down motion over the top of my underwear, tickled. I did not think of anything, I only felt. My mom caught me doing this in the living room one morning while I was watching Popeye. “What in the hell are you doing, little girl!?” I had not broken anything. I was not sneaking a cookie before dinner. I was not hitting my little brother. I didn’t know why she was mad; but then I did and quickly pushed the brush into the crack of the couch cushions and pulled the afghan up to my neck feeling a new kind of bad I’d later recognize as shame. On the black and white box Alice the Goon sang, “I love Popeye, I love Popeye…”
Ages 7–9
My dad gave me an old-fashioned school desk from when he was a little kid. It faced the wall in the corner of my room and I kept books and pens in it. The top of the desk chair was even with my crotch and if I used both hands to hold myself up against it, I could do little push-ups on the chair, creating a heavy friction on my privates. I would think about the pictures from the Joy of Sex book my dad kept in the back of his closet. I knew to close the door now, but the desk was old and squeaky so I had to listen for any heavy footsteps coming down the hall. As I got older and bigger, my pumping weight would tip the desk, making it jump off the floor, rattling the books and pens. I’d learn to lean forward on the chair to even out the axis until I was able to finish. I remember my arms were very strong for a grade schooler.
Ages 10–11
One day the desk broke, and when my dad asked how the chair could snap away from the steel base that connected it to the desk part I said I didn’t know and he looked at me suspiciously and I felt my neck and ears start to burn up to my cheeks. That’s when I discovered how to use my hands to do it; wetting my fingertips and rubbing and rubbing. I would think about the naked girls in the Playboys my older brother kept under his mattress. My dad took the desk out of my room and put a bookshelf there instead.
12
My parents had a New Year’s Eve party and I woke up to fat “Uncle” Steve with his hands under my sleep shirt. He smelled drunk and he told me shhhhh and kissed me on my mouth, his mustache bristly on my face. While he did everything I felt bad and good at the same time. I cried with no noise while thinking I wish I could scream or that I should scream. When he finished, he just left. I heard him walk down the hall, down the stairs, and I heard him shout, “Frances, get me another fuckin’ beer!” and everyone laughing in response. I didn’t know if he meant my mom or my dad, because my mom’s name was Frances and my dad was named Frank but “Uncle” Steve always jokingly called him Francis. I remember thinking that it really didn’t matter, that nothing really mattered.
13–Current Day
I kept using my fingers. Sure, once in a while I’ll use a vibrator — spice things up. I watch porn and do it sometimes. Okay, a lot. But most of the time I do it before I go to bed, in the dark, alone. I’ll start out thinking of me with a man, or with men; people I know, people I don’t. I never let the men be kind to me and what always gets me off the quickest is if I imagine myself an innocent girl being taken by a fat man with a disgusting mustache. It makes me feel bad and good at the same time.
Fireflies
This one time I was doing karaoke in a dive bar in Ohio. It was just after I learned that fireflies were real, which, when that happens to you, feels like anything magical could really exist. I was drunk, which really goes without saying when you first say that you were doing karaoke. It was a Sublime song and I forget which one it was, but I don’t think that really matters. What matters is that afterwards, this pretty good — looking Podunk guy we were hanging out with took me by the hand to the bathroom like we were late for a meeting and he shut and locked the door and started kissing me and he pushed me up against the sink and after about 30 seconds he squatted down and started unbuttoning my jeans. I was like, whoa, nelly! He said, I wanna taste you and the way he was looking up at me… And in my head I was like, you kiss me for 30 seconds and then you go straight to eating my pussy? And then I was like, how the fuck do I get out of this? And then I coaxed him back up to my mouth with something about saving the best for last or something probably lamer or more clever and then I don’t remember but I escaped. My friend who showed me the fireflies drove us home. A deer that ran into the road almost killed us. All the lessons that were learned that night are remembered but not necessarily practiced. What I do remember most though are the fireflies, and how she proved that they were real by squishing one across her palm. It left a fluorescent streak. It made me feel like screaming.
Exactly Raisins
She sprinkles Craisins over the salad authoritatively.
It’s okay, you really only need some sort of dried fruit, really. It doesn’t have to be exactly raisins.
She is a mom and I am not.
Let me see that, and she tips the edge of the glass measuring cup I am holding.
She hums mmm-hmmm while poking her nose. It moves in small figure eights. I try to see her eyes to determine what that might mean, but they aren’t looking at me so I can’t exactly tell.
She releases the rim and I pour the dressing I had just finished whisking on top of the grainy green bubbles of broccoli, the red of the Craisins pokes through the liquid white like they are trying to survive. I feel like saving them. I know they were never meant for this.