Vicarious Movements

A short story column by P. Eldridge

He arrives with various guitars and a violin. His eyes are different, more beady than I remember them from the cocaine he snorted last night. I wouldn’t have found out had I not left his gig and bumped into his friend.

You’re leaving?

Yeah, I don’t drink.

Oh, I have cocaine if you want? 

I pause. 

No, thank you.

I stumble out onto the street and meet the glee of a friend's eyes. She asks if I’m okay to leave, to be walking away from the tormenting apathy of infatuation, and I say yeah. We take a walk through the park and I think about how he, the object of my current desire, takes shape in abstract forms over the last few weeks in my memory. I see him swaddled around my waist, licking against my breasts; across from me admiring my eyes in bed; placing a firm grip against my neck by my invitation; choking me while he kisses me. I hear him refuse a love for me with contorted sounds of anguish he gurgles out with a smile. Why, when so tender, do we refuse words of love? And, for what?