how i spent my sunday or this isn't that couch

The bankers-- these guys who work for hedgefunds and in private equity and who do finance things that I don’t quite understand-- they all have the same sofa. It’s cold leather. Black, maybe very dark brown. And it’s huge-- I can stretch all the way out on it, and usually, so can they. It faces the flatscreen on the opposite off-white wall in a sparsely-decorated one-bedroom with granite counter tops in a newish building.

This? This isn’t that couch.

It’s just a little lumpy, but comfortable. Found on the street just in time to replace one that was seriously destroyed, he says, then assures me it’s clean. Burgundy with gold damask. Not in his own apartment, exactly, but upstairs where there’s another kitchen. It’s across from a flatscreen, set against a bright blue wall, cables taped to the ceiling. There’s stuff on every surface, detritus from a Saturday-afternoon barbeque: a bag of hot dog buns, Oreos, empty beer cans, not-empty beer cans, what I think can be described as drug paraphernalia, half a bottle of that wine with the kangaroo, a pile of lighters.

He’s not a banker. He’s a writer. And a writer seems like a good idea.

We bang teeth when a housemate walks in.

He was supposed to be at a Mets game. Reportedly.

It feels like college. But the kissing’s good, so I can’t say I mind. And I don’t mind the way he takes my hand on the way to the park, assuredly, no fumbling with finger placement. Or how he lets me lie on his arm in the grass or moves his cap out of the way to kiss me a little more. I don’t mind that, back at his place, he leads me to his bedroom. I don’t even mind, too much, that I end up spending ten hours with him, most of it touching.


I went home alone. It was still hot like summer at 10 o’clock. And I had the distinct print of a tank top and a locket sunburnt onto my skin.


~beatrix