short story. i need feedback, pleaseeeee :)
from dictionary.com:
LICENTIOUS
li·cen·tious
adjective
1. Lacking moral discipline or ignoring legal restraint, especially in sexual conduct.
2. Having no regard for accepted rules or standards.
-Synonyms: abandoned, profligate.
-Antonym: lawful.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Walking on Licentious Glass
Justyn Ashley Hintze
I stretched my bare legs deeper into the mass of blankets cluttered on his luxurious bed. Yes, I say “his,” excluding his name solely because I have no idea what it could be. As my Aunt would say, “I don’t know him from Adam;” though his tongue I could never forget, I thought as my toes grazed his sheets searching for a cool spot.
“LEXXI?” interrupted my interrogative thoughts and made me wonder if this particular “his” was an acquaintance? “Shit.” I scrambled for my silk leopard print dress and black heels on his bedroom floor- thank God I have a supple stash of panties at home, I tend to “lose” quite a few.
Footsteps were just outside the bedroom door as I dropped into the prickly bush just outside of his window, the morning dew damp against my slender thighs.
God, as mortified as I was I could not get his succulent tongue and moist lips off of my mind as I walked down 5th street towards the Buttered Bean where I came routinely to recuperate and collect my thoughts to begin a fresh day. The collection of my thoughts each morning, while bonding with my tall skinny raspberry mocha, was a definite necessity.
Still slightly groggy from the quick exit, I shut my eyes in hopes of refreshing myself before work. Suddenly, I felt a familiar hand on my shoulder as my sister touched me-- the platinum band on her ring finger weighing down on my flushed skin.
“Morning Bri,” I muttered through an unstifled yawn. “God, Lexxi, you have got to stop doing this! It is not normal for someone to be wearing this getup at 7am in a coffee shop- you are not subtle. Who was he?”
I took the bag of clothes she had brought me and hurried into the cramped bathroom to change into my “make me look professional ensemble,” disregarding her lecturing stance.
As I got on the subway, the damp dark smell that had soaked into the dirty, carpeted walls was comfortingly familiar. The repetitive thumping along the tracks made me slip into a daze.
…3, 5, Jeremy, 8, 9 was Ryan-maybe,14 and this no name must be 16 ... That I can recall...
I had been very promiscuous for about seven years now, I lost my virginity at fourteen. I once read somewhere that years after having your cherry popped, though I think they may have worded it more eloquently, you would be sitting at a stop light in rush hour traffic and suddenly you would have a flashback of that moment and it would be that pivotal moment in which you would either smile with longing and happiness or frown with a sense of loss and regret.
I suddenly felt dizzy. It had been 1999 and his name was Lee Lumbar. He was 19 and my mom was asleep, a sleep you could quite possibly consider a coma after 4 vicodin. My daddy in a coma as well; though his eyes were open. They always were and yet he never saw anything--he was too absorbed in his “inventions.” Our house, immaculate as always--generally the cause of mom’s exhaustion. We tiptoed across the just polished tile floors, giggling as if it were our first high. We were clumsy, messy if you will. It was in the park that he had whispered to me, blushing, that he had not yet experienced his first time. He was usually so cocky, a cocky bookworm, Bri’s best friend. I craved the attention, the secrets. He swore me to secrecy. My girlie sheets felt dirty afterwards, but the attention and the exhilaration I had felt overpowered any feeling of guilt that built up and I managed to block out the emptiness I felt as he left me lying there, naked, as he buckled his belt and walked downstairs..
The subway lurched me back to reality as I shuddered, remembering the next day, the day I tried so hard to block out, the day he told me he was gay-- when I had begun to seduce him, of all times-- I was devastated. I blamed myself for being inexperienced and I was determined to never turn another man gay from that day forward.
Work was uneventful, as usual. I spent the majority of my day trying to decode from the drunken text messages to the decor of the room, who’s bed I had awoken in that morning. Answering phones is what I’ve always been best at so my concentration goes elsewhere anytime I am at work.
I revisit the Buttered Bean for lunch each day, never faltering in consistency; though the recent pb and j craving would be a problem if I continued my business at a coffee shop. A lot of people consider my daily routine boring, though I am confident that my spontaneous nights make up for my monotonous days.
I cannot figure out why I want to make myself throw up after I’m done eating most of the time, well actually it’s any time I get really full. I know I shouldn’t throw up, so I don’t--usually. But, I do burp constantly--I guess to compensate for not really throwing up. Sometimes, when I burp enough, it makes me throw up puke-like vile. Generally nothing really comes up though, so what’s even the point?
The first post-lunch phone call interrupts my flowing thoughts. “Thanks for calling Somno and Lent, Can I transfer your call?” My professional tone turned lazy at this point. I hardly disguised my yawn as I transferred the phone call.
Out of no where I felt a hot something rising in my throat, the involuntary flow of vomit forced it’s way into my mouth, forcing my pursed lips to part ways. This was not a cause and effect of burping. Thank God no one is in the lobby!
Over the next week, the upchucking became part of my routine. “You need to go get checked out,” Bri demanded one morning over a cup of very bittersweet coffee. The aroma ridiculously strong. “You could have, like, appendicitis or something!” “Could you be any more dramatic? I probably just have a prolonged flu.” “I am pretty sure such thing does not even exist,” my sister said so matter-of-factly, her blonde hair falling so perfectly into place despite that she had climbed out of bed only moments earlier.
Worry over the unintentional vomiting hit me all at once one evening on my way home from work, in between combing through the possible activities of the night. I disregarded the worry once more, promising myself I’d make a doctors appointment--sometime soon.
Halfway down the greasy stairs leading me to the subway, my overwhelming desire for a peppermint patty compelled me to walk back up to fresh air. The nearest market was foreign. The smell was nothing I could trust. As I scanned the aisles, I finally found the candy; though it had to be some sort of health code violation to sell food and tampons side by side--which may have been excusable if it hadn’t been for the squirming roach at my feet.
I grabbed the patties and tampons, just because it seemed like a good idea. Maybe it was a trap, all women crave chocolate when they’re pms’ing. These Muslims were tricky. That’s when it hit me, I should’ve been buying tampons 2 weeks ago. Where did time go? A much better question: where did my period go? A hiatus is not an option in these sorts of situations. I froze.
This test was similar to no other test I have ever taken--at this point I have no control of the outcome. The room felt hot, almost sticky. The smell of urine was overwhelming--almost nauseating.
I woke up to a loud pounding noise, probably coming from the other side of the bathroom door. I was sprawled out on the floor. I was dizzy, curious as to how I had ended up on the floor. Maybe Bri’s appendicitis suggestions weren’t as far out and dramatic as I had called them out to be.
As I pulled myself up, the plastic cup came into view--the pink line vivid--as if glowing.
My body felt numb, like this girl wasn’t me. Everything was fuzzy; everything except that thin pink line.
I pushed my way out of the bathroom into the dimly lit market, my cheeks flushed. The daylight had turned to dusk, the skies purple with black wispy clouds.
I was very out of routine. I walked the 46 blocks to my loft above Bri’s apartment. The roads different and unfamiliar, as if I hadn’t walked down them millions of times. The street signs were just words, words with no meaning. Sort of similar to how I felt as a child when I would repeat the word “boy” over and over until it was just a word with no meaning--just a funny sound that didn’t make sense.
I felt funny existing, as though nothing made sense. Suddenly it didn’t even matter that nothing made sense, it felt like nothing mattered. I had no questions, nor did I have any answers, but that didn’t matter either.
The next couple of weeks remained routine. I was not worried, though I must’ve been the only one. I continued to go to work, take the subway, eat at the Buttered Bean, and go out at night--my life just as glamorous as always. The martinis were just as dirty, the cigarettes just as calming to my nerves, the sex just as fantastic, and the men just about as nameless. A sharp stomach pain changed all of this in the blink of an eye. Suddenly the daiquiris became virgin, chewing gum became a tradeoff for smoking cigarettes, and the sex was becoming non-existent.
The phone felt heavy, the numbers unordinarily cold to the touch. The receiver was damp against my ear, probably from the cool beads of sweat forming across my body, causing goose bumps and making me shake. “Do you have an opening around lunchtime on Thursday?” I wondered aloud to the nurse. “I think, well, um…I’m pregnant,” I whispered, actually acknowledging the idea for the first time since I went to sleep the night I craved peppermint patties.
Doctor’s offices have always freaked me out. The white walls are deceiving; they aren’t pure, not like white should be. I begun daydreaming trying to keep my mind off of what was about to happen.
I can only imagine the secrets walls would be able to tell if given the chance. Every wall has two sides, but one story. One story with no blanks to be filled in. I wondered if walls would have unanswered questions. It seems so, they would only get a piece of the story. Does anyone ever get the whole story?
The procedures were customary, I’m sure; yet somehow I felt they were personal attacks. Bri squeezed my hand, explaining to me that this was all procedure, I was not being singled out, let alone attacked. No one could say anything that would comfort me, I was alone. The doctor’s hand cold and foreign, the gloves tough- the putrid smell of rubber was congesting the room.
“I will be right back,” the gloved doctor said.
Anticipation never felt this way. Every feeling I had was new and unfamiliar. It was as though I had to decode myself and learn who I was all over again--even if it was just for that moment.
I never knew a person was capable of holding their breath as long as I did. I may have been better off just passing out from lack of oxygen than listening to my two worst nightmares.
“You are pregnant.”
And then, “However, the fetus has suffered from chromosomal abnormalities…”
The rest was static, I heard nothing. I knew Bri would be listening, she always was. She was my link to reality; though I had no need to hear the rest of the sentence, I could feel it. Everything was in slow motion and I felt unreal.
I woke up in my bed, at least it was my own. It must have been 2am. I felt different, energized. The bright colors of my room, standing out in the dead of the night seemed overly childish. Instead of disregarding my realization, I was suddenly alert and pulling myself out of bed, the full moon gave off enough light for me to see. I walked steadily to the supply closet at the bottom of the stairs to retrieve the deep red paint. The paintbrush felt powerful and sturdy in my soft, pale fingers.
A few hours later, I fell back asleep with a strange new satisfaction. The fuzzy lines had finally disappeared. There was no baby, but there had been and it felt more real now than ever.
Everyone was worried; people talked around me like they were walking on thin slivered shards of broken glass. I understood, but I was not broken. There was absolutely nothing to step on.
LICENTIOUS
li·cen·tious
adjective
1. Lacking moral discipline or ignoring legal restraint, especially in sexual conduct.
2. Having no regard for accepted rules or standards.
-Synonyms: abandoned, profligate.
-Antonym: lawful.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Walking on Licentious Glass
Justyn Ashley Hintze
I stretched my bare legs deeper into the mass of blankets cluttered on his luxurious bed. Yes, I say “his,” excluding his name solely because I have no idea what it could be. As my Aunt would say, “I don’t know him from Adam;” though his tongue I could never forget, I thought as my toes grazed his sheets searching for a cool spot.
“LEXXI?” interrupted my interrogative thoughts and made me wonder if this particular “his” was an acquaintance? “Shit.” I scrambled for my silk leopard print dress and black heels on his bedroom floor- thank God I have a supple stash of panties at home, I tend to “lose” quite a few.
Footsteps were just outside the bedroom door as I dropped into the prickly bush just outside of his window, the morning dew damp against my slender thighs.
God, as mortified as I was I could not get his succulent tongue and moist lips off of my mind as I walked down 5th street towards the Buttered Bean where I came routinely to recuperate and collect my thoughts to begin a fresh day. The collection of my thoughts each morning, while bonding with my tall skinny raspberry mocha, was a definite necessity.
Still slightly groggy from the quick exit, I shut my eyes in hopes of refreshing myself before work. Suddenly, I felt a familiar hand on my shoulder as my sister touched me-- the platinum band on her ring finger weighing down on my flushed skin.
“Morning Bri,” I muttered through an unstifled yawn. “God, Lexxi, you have got to stop doing this! It is not normal for someone to be wearing this getup at 7am in a coffee shop- you are not subtle. Who was he?”
I took the bag of clothes she had brought me and hurried into the cramped bathroom to change into my “make me look professional ensemble,” disregarding her lecturing stance.
As I got on the subway, the damp dark smell that had soaked into the dirty, carpeted walls was comfortingly familiar. The repetitive thumping along the tracks made me slip into a daze.
…3, 5, Jeremy, 8, 9 was Ryan-maybe,14 and this no name must be 16 ... That I can recall...
I had been very promiscuous for about seven years now, I lost my virginity at fourteen. I once read somewhere that years after having your cherry popped, though I think they may have worded it more eloquently, you would be sitting at a stop light in rush hour traffic and suddenly you would have a flashback of that moment and it would be that pivotal moment in which you would either smile with longing and happiness or frown with a sense of loss and regret.
I suddenly felt dizzy. It had been 1999 and his name was Lee Lumbar. He was 19 and my mom was asleep, a sleep you could quite possibly consider a coma after 4 vicodin. My daddy in a coma as well; though his eyes were open. They always were and yet he never saw anything--he was too absorbed in his “inventions.” Our house, immaculate as always--generally the cause of mom’s exhaustion. We tiptoed across the just polished tile floors, giggling as if it were our first high. We were clumsy, messy if you will. It was in the park that he had whispered to me, blushing, that he had not yet experienced his first time. He was usually so cocky, a cocky bookworm, Bri’s best friend. I craved the attention, the secrets. He swore me to secrecy. My girlie sheets felt dirty afterwards, but the attention and the exhilaration I had felt overpowered any feeling of guilt that built up and I managed to block out the emptiness I felt as he left me lying there, naked, as he buckled his belt and walked downstairs..
The subway lurched me back to reality as I shuddered, remembering the next day, the day I tried so hard to block out, the day he told me he was gay-- when I had begun to seduce him, of all times-- I was devastated. I blamed myself for being inexperienced and I was determined to never turn another man gay from that day forward.
Work was uneventful, as usual. I spent the majority of my day trying to decode from the drunken text messages to the decor of the room, who’s bed I had awoken in that morning. Answering phones is what I’ve always been best at so my concentration goes elsewhere anytime I am at work.
I revisit the Buttered Bean for lunch each day, never faltering in consistency; though the recent pb and j craving would be a problem if I continued my business at a coffee shop. A lot of people consider my daily routine boring, though I am confident that my spontaneous nights make up for my monotonous days.
I cannot figure out why I want to make myself throw up after I’m done eating most of the time, well actually it’s any time I get really full. I know I shouldn’t throw up, so I don’t--usually. But, I do burp constantly--I guess to compensate for not really throwing up. Sometimes, when I burp enough, it makes me throw up puke-like vile. Generally nothing really comes up though, so what’s even the point?
The first post-lunch phone call interrupts my flowing thoughts. “Thanks for calling Somno and Lent, Can I transfer your call?” My professional tone turned lazy at this point. I hardly disguised my yawn as I transferred the phone call.
Out of no where I felt a hot something rising in my throat, the involuntary flow of vomit forced it’s way into my mouth, forcing my pursed lips to part ways. This was not a cause and effect of burping. Thank God no one is in the lobby!
Over the next week, the upchucking became part of my routine. “You need to go get checked out,” Bri demanded one morning over a cup of very bittersweet coffee. The aroma ridiculously strong. “You could have, like, appendicitis or something!” “Could you be any more dramatic? I probably just have a prolonged flu.” “I am pretty sure such thing does not even exist,” my sister said so matter-of-factly, her blonde hair falling so perfectly into place despite that she had climbed out of bed only moments earlier.
Worry over the unintentional vomiting hit me all at once one evening on my way home from work, in between combing through the possible activities of the night. I disregarded the worry once more, promising myself I’d make a doctors appointment--sometime soon.
Halfway down the greasy stairs leading me to the subway, my overwhelming desire for a peppermint patty compelled me to walk back up to fresh air. The nearest market was foreign. The smell was nothing I could trust. As I scanned the aisles, I finally found the candy; though it had to be some sort of health code violation to sell food and tampons side by side--which may have been excusable if it hadn’t been for the squirming roach at my feet.
I grabbed the patties and tampons, just because it seemed like a good idea. Maybe it was a trap, all women crave chocolate when they’re pms’ing. These Muslims were tricky. That’s when it hit me, I should’ve been buying tampons 2 weeks ago. Where did time go? A much better question: where did my period go? A hiatus is not an option in these sorts of situations. I froze.
This test was similar to no other test I have ever taken--at this point I have no control of the outcome. The room felt hot, almost sticky. The smell of urine was overwhelming--almost nauseating.
I woke up to a loud pounding noise, probably coming from the other side of the bathroom door. I was sprawled out on the floor. I was dizzy, curious as to how I had ended up on the floor. Maybe Bri’s appendicitis suggestions weren’t as far out and dramatic as I had called them out to be.
As I pulled myself up, the plastic cup came into view--the pink line vivid--as if glowing.
My body felt numb, like this girl wasn’t me. Everything was fuzzy; everything except that thin pink line.
I pushed my way out of the bathroom into the dimly lit market, my cheeks flushed. The daylight had turned to dusk, the skies purple with black wispy clouds.
I was very out of routine. I walked the 46 blocks to my loft above Bri’s apartment. The roads different and unfamiliar, as if I hadn’t walked down them millions of times. The street signs were just words, words with no meaning. Sort of similar to how I felt as a child when I would repeat the word “boy” over and over until it was just a word with no meaning--just a funny sound that didn’t make sense.
I felt funny existing, as though nothing made sense. Suddenly it didn’t even matter that nothing made sense, it felt like nothing mattered. I had no questions, nor did I have any answers, but that didn’t matter either.
The next couple of weeks remained routine. I was not worried, though I must’ve been the only one. I continued to go to work, take the subway, eat at the Buttered Bean, and go out at night--my life just as glamorous as always. The martinis were just as dirty, the cigarettes just as calming to my nerves, the sex just as fantastic, and the men just about as nameless. A sharp stomach pain changed all of this in the blink of an eye. Suddenly the daiquiris became virgin, chewing gum became a tradeoff for smoking cigarettes, and the sex was becoming non-existent.
The phone felt heavy, the numbers unordinarily cold to the touch. The receiver was damp against my ear, probably from the cool beads of sweat forming across my body, causing goose bumps and making me shake. “Do you have an opening around lunchtime on Thursday?” I wondered aloud to the nurse. “I think, well, um…I’m pregnant,” I whispered, actually acknowledging the idea for the first time since I went to sleep the night I craved peppermint patties.
Doctor’s offices have always freaked me out. The white walls are deceiving; they aren’t pure, not like white should be. I begun daydreaming trying to keep my mind off of what was about to happen.
I can only imagine the secrets walls would be able to tell if given the chance. Every wall has two sides, but one story. One story with no blanks to be filled in. I wondered if walls would have unanswered questions. It seems so, they would only get a piece of the story. Does anyone ever get the whole story?
The procedures were customary, I’m sure; yet somehow I felt they were personal attacks. Bri squeezed my hand, explaining to me that this was all procedure, I was not being singled out, let alone attacked. No one could say anything that would comfort me, I was alone. The doctor’s hand cold and foreign, the gloves tough- the putrid smell of rubber was congesting the room.
“I will be right back,” the gloved doctor said.
Anticipation never felt this way. Every feeling I had was new and unfamiliar. It was as though I had to decode myself and learn who I was all over again--even if it was just for that moment.
I never knew a person was capable of holding their breath as long as I did. I may have been better off just passing out from lack of oxygen than listening to my two worst nightmares.
“You are pregnant.”
And then, “However, the fetus has suffered from chromosomal abnormalities…”
The rest was static, I heard nothing. I knew Bri would be listening, she always was. She was my link to reality; though I had no need to hear the rest of the sentence, I could feel it. Everything was in slow motion and I felt unreal.
I woke up in my bed, at least it was my own. It must have been 2am. I felt different, energized. The bright colors of my room, standing out in the dead of the night seemed overly childish. Instead of disregarding my realization, I was suddenly alert and pulling myself out of bed, the full moon gave off enough light for me to see. I walked steadily to the supply closet at the bottom of the stairs to retrieve the deep red paint. The paintbrush felt powerful and sturdy in my soft, pale fingers.
A few hours later, I fell back asleep with a strange new satisfaction. The fuzzy lines had finally disappeared. There was no baby, but there had been and it felt more real now than ever.
Everyone was worried; people talked around me like they were walking on thin slivered shards of broken glass. I understood, but I was not broken. There was absolutely nothing to step on.