words that make other people cry.

My legs hurt and I have a bite mark on my neck, which is swollen, purple and in the shape of a spider. I am not accustomed to this kind of pain. I am not sure if it is love. I have never been in love. I am not accustomed to associating pain with love.

I called him from the airport, just before boarding a 13 hour flight from a hot and dusty continent. My skin was an irritable red from the heat, rising slightly from my bone in the more delicate spots; my ankles, my wrists, around my collar bone. I was wearing a t strap dress in black, slinky and tight. I felt sexy. I felt like a stranger. I dialed the numbers from memory into an old pay phone that was just barely hanging onto the wall. While it rang I imagined all the conversations that were mouthed into the receiver before me- words of endearment, words of betrayal, words that found their way through the invisible wires and implanted themselves into hearts. Words that made other people cry.

He answered after four rings. It took me four seconds to decide not to hang up. He said hello four times. I spoke louder than I wanted to, I sounded more desperate than I was. That is a lie. I was lonely and if I could have I would have climbed in through the broken pay phone and crawled into his lap. He didn’t know who I was at first- I had to remind him of the short blond girl who gave him a ride home to his wife and children on a night that he got too drunk to drive, six months ago. About how I was sitting alone at the bar drinking whiskey and how he told me he liked my legs. I told him that he gave me his phone number, how he told me to call when I got back. Oh, he said. Of course I remember you, he said.

I tried to sound casual. Like someone who has been traveling alone for six months in desolate and dangerous places. Someone who has slept with a makeshift knife under her pillow in third world countries, someone who has walked barefoot through sand so old it was like scraping history itself from her soles, someone who did not think of a married man every night before she went to sleep and every time she woke up. I tried to sound aloof and uninterested but he’s not dumb. He knew he had me.

15 hours later I was sitting in the passenger seat of his black BMW. We were at a stop light, 25 miles away from the airport where he had just picked me up. I was looking at his hand curled around the gear shaft. I wondered if he ever took his wedding ring off. He catches me looking at his fingers and he speaks to break my concentration. He says that he wants to go to a bar, that he wants to get me drunk so that I will say nice things about him. He’s been short on compliments. I tell him that he doesn’t need to get me drunk for me to say nice things about him. I regret it immediately. I am not playing the game.

He takes me to a small place outside of town. The inside is uncomfortably red; red walls, red curtains, red carpet, red light. It is like walking into a womb. We sit in a red booth that swallows us with its mass, we are like toddlers sitting on an oversized couch. Our feet do not touch the floor. He orders wine, I order whiskey. He orders a cheese plate. When it comes I silently attack a soft wedge of gorgonzola with a spoon, carve out all of its marbled green veins and roll them into little balls. He is staring at the moldy igloo balancing itself on the side of my plate and I am ashamed. I want to tell him that this is what I do when I’m nervous. I want to giggle high pitched and absent mindedly sweep the hair from my face. But I do none of those things. Instead I down five whiskeys in a row, show him my tanned thighs and allow him to drive me to a dingy motel.

He lives in a gated community with his wife. He says they never talk, that they have sex once a month on schedule. He says that sex with his wife is robotic and boring and that he feels nothing. He says this as he’s sliding the panties off of my big toe. I watch them drop to the floor, they are black and lacy bought especially for this occasion. They look defeated lying on the stained yellow carpet. I don’t think he even noticed them.

His hands are rough and inexperienced…drunken. They flittingly dance from thigh to stomach back to thigh without lingering long enough for it to feel like anything. I want to tell him to slow down. To take his time. I want to tell him I love him. But he’s moving too quickly, too eagerly. He has his hand clasped tightly over my mouth and his eyes are shut. He is pretending I am someone else.

6 hours later I am laying on my belly in the motel bed, half of the white sheet is wrapped around my leg, the other half curled like a question mark where his body had once been. He is gone. I somehow knew this would happen. I raise myself up with my arms, which are heavy and weak. On the table beside the bed is a 20 dollar bill, for a cab I suppose, and a note: please don’t call me again, I like you too much.