For a few months I went out with a lawyer who used to be obsessed with his body and its shape during college. To stock up on requisite fat macros and vitamin C when in a rush, he’d crush up peaches in olive oil and drink it all down. When his grandmother caught sight of him doing this, she assured him, You’re not a machine, but it took him a while to absorb this. 

I’m much more relaxed about standards for my body and other people’s bodies now, he said as he sipped a Manhattan on our first date. 

Good to know, I said, as I crushed a piece of ice with my molars, sensitive teeth screaming. 

Early on he told me he had this foot thing, and by foot thing he meant me wrapping my feet around his dick while he sandwiched them between his hands and rubbed them up and down. It was tough to understand why this middle layer of foot was so key, but I didn’t have to put in much effort so I didn’t complain. I did feel a deep-burgundy gap between us as I lay with my head at the bottom of the bed, his at the top, meeting at a central point with the extremities of our limbs.  

One night we were trying to have sex without feet, and it wasn’t working for either of us, just lots of skin rubbing and me looking at my eggshell-colored walls and listening to the hum of my well-meaning AC unit, so he gently pushed me aside and grabbed my blue guitar from its seat in the corner of the bedroom. He laid the body against his bare thigh and plucked out a Nick Drake song. I was surprised when he sang some verses unprompted. His voice was raw and earnest, and I had a glimmer that maybe we could understand something about each other given time. 

A lot of people compare Nick Drake to Elliott Smith, he said as he ran his thumb against the Elliott tattoo on my inner arm. 

Yeah but there’s something kind of virginal about Nick, I said. His songs are too clean and perfect. 

Another night in his apartment, he fed The Transfiguration of Vincent through his sound system while he put his head between my thighs, and I gave into a sensory overload that let me feel as if I was drifting through outer space. 

In the morning, without music, he put his head in the same place but rolled away soon after, saying there was a new taste that wasn’t present the night before. 

Weeks stretched between our meetings. I didn’t feel much of a tug in any direction when I thought of him, just a hollow waiting, so I sent him a few lines over text saying there was more I needed. 

He wrote back quickly saying that seemed best. 

Not even a word of pushback made me prickle then relax. I laid out on my couch and sunk into the relief of not having to track a thread, wondering which way it might stretch or how it might snarl.  

+++

Alice Maglio’s writing has appeared in Fugue, DIAGRAM, Black Warrior Review, Wigleaf, Pithead Chapel, and others. Her work has also been included in Best Microfiction 2020. She lives in New York and holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. Say hello on Twitter @AliceMaglio.