True Sue

Sometimes when I see Sue in her old-school camouflage, I wonder what it must have been like for her. And I remember how we met, and what that meant. She still wears her uniform sometimes, when she feels like getting into that mode, that old West Point mode, that stiff, commandeering mode, outdated now, like her uniform. And when she's like that, especially when her nose bleeds, because her nose bleeds all the time, and she has to put two tissues in her nostrils like torpedoes -- when she's pacing our bedroom like that, barefoot, it's all I can do from jumping her and entering her from behind, no matter what kind of work she's brewing up in her head, what kind of plans. All I want to do is push her down, not even on the bed, but on the ground, on the dirty carpet, and make her mine. I shouldn't have these feelings, violent feelings, I know. Me, who used to have porcelain fingers, whose mother is a god damn writer of all things -- sensitive boy that I am, the one who can name a Bartok symphony seconds in. But it doesn't matter, not any of it, not when I see her like that. What rises within me is more real and sometimes it wins out, and sometimes Sue really likes it. She likes it when I'm tough with her and tells me: don't be afraid, Mo, be as rough as you wanna be, I'm yours. She says this panting into my ear, and it echoes for days.

I always (always) spend the next day wondering what she means by that: I'm yours. I know she doesn't really think that. So why does she say it.

"Why do you say it, Sue? Why do you tell me, sometimes, when we're fucking, why do you tell me: I'm yours," I asked her once, as I was sitting near the bathroom sink, watching her brush her teeth, her hair let loose from the tight bun it's usually in.

"Because. Because in those few moments it's true," she said.

True. True Sue. I can't wait until my bones and torn tendons heal so I can ride you and you can pant in my ear: I'm yours, Mo, I'm yours. And for those few seconds make you something I can touch, and hold, and keep, and not be afraid of losing.