Story Time

Someplace

He had the circumference of a tire from an SUV and gray, flat, shallow teeth (even the front ones) as if he'd eschewed food the past decades in favor of grazing on sand. I've no idea why I'd felt the urge to kiss him, but kiss him I did and it was as repulsive as one would imagine, the cow-teeth slobbery with an overproduction of saliva and the taste of vinegar.

Having kissed him, I could not then figure out a diplomatic way to leave him there, at the table in the tea shop, to run from him, block his emails, change my phone number, move if I had to; anything to not have to see that face again, that swollen body.

He appeared not to notice my disgust and resumed his monologue, like a tour-guide, of "George Washington Slept Here" anecdotes of locations in our city, all of which I'd heard before, and more than twice.

The sun shined in from the window, motes of dust dancing and sparkling in the light, settling, I thought, on the selection of tiny, over-priced pastries that were arranged there, uncovered, like jewels on pedestal plates. He was eating one, his fingers sticky with strawberry and a tiny yellow seed from the fruit stuck between two of his bovine teeth. He licked crumbs and imperceptible dust, I imagined, from his lips, as I smiled at him, all the while rendering inside my head the most painful ways of killing him, many involving pulling out those teeth one by one with various tools and devices.

Why had I kissed him? Maybe it was myself I wanted to kill.

He ate another pastry and the jam dripped like blood from his short fingers. He touched the back of my hand and said, "I'm so glad you are here."