Johnny America

 

Pre­hen­sile

by

If you were to cut off part of your body and wrap it in news­pa­per, leave it on­ly pil­low in place of a choco­late kiss, I would pre­fer it to be a hand. A hand, I think, is fresh and bold and makes a statement.

I can as­sure you that I’d keep your hand care­ful­ly. I’d trim your nails for as long as they kept grow­ing, and I’d glue them back on once they start­ed to rot off. When the smell of the hand be­came over­pow­er­ing, I would­n’t hes­i­tate to get it bronzed.

You would­n’t mind if I used your hand to did­dle my­self now and then, would you? I’d use your hand to touch my­self, and I’d prac­tice my gig­gle. I need to work on my gig­gle. Once sat­is­fied, I’d use your hand to touch my­self deeply, and I’d work on my moan.

Maybe if I were to learn how to use them dis­tinct­ly, so that they did not come out to­geth­er as a gig­gle-moan or (worse) a moan-gig­gle, then things could be dif­fer­ent. Maybe we’d stay in Sat­ur­day nights and watch movies. We’d sit, your hand be­tween us as a play­ful chap­er­one, maybe hold­ing the pop­corn. When we were down to the ker­nels, you’d yawn and stretch and grab your hand, lay it on my shoul­der. With a feint­ed cough you’d knock it, and as the cool bronze slid past my nip­ple I’d shud­der and whis­per, “Oh, Gene.”

But you know, I bet it’s more like­ly that noth­ing would change, that I’d still be pas­sive-ag­gres­sive­ly shrink­ing your box­er shorts and you’d still be cut­ting off pieces of your body, that I’d lie in bed morn­ings and won­der how it was pos­si­ble that I owned your hand, yet still I could­n’t get you to touch me.

Filed under Fiction on September 27th, 2006

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Reader Comments

Jum wrote:

This is the prod­uct of a beau­ti­ful mind. Too rarely we wit­ness the warm­ly sen­ti­men­tal sub­jects of am­putees and sex so del­i­cate­ly woven.
What is the old say­ing, “A hand in bush is worth years of therapy”?

Sylvia wrote:

I like the ti­tle – it’s such a raw, sex­u­al word. But you should nev­er do se­ri­ous work when you’re REALLY drunk, no mat­ter how much you love Kerouac.

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