February, 1987

by A.g. Synclair

She had too many tattoos. Enormous, ugly Rorschach blots on her outer thighs, covering her back, her ass, her paunchy stomach. Sometimes it turned me off, all that ink covering her thick skin, but I fucked her anyway. She called the radio station one night. She told me she was twenty-four and home alone fingering herself to the sound of my voice. I ran the board, reading live commercials and weather forecasts during breaks from six incessant hours of syndicated right wing talk radio. We talked for a while on the studio hot line while I stacked carts for the morning guy. When my shift ended at six I drove crazy mad, high on pussy talk, to her dirty apartment near the skin district. We fucked until ten-thirty. Afterward she made chunky black coffee and smoked brown cigarettes that she'd stolen from the bodega downstairs. Her roommate ignored me, the way she did every Sunday morning after that. Sometimes, when Anna and I were in her tiny bedroom having sex, and those shitty tattoos threatened my erection, I closed my eyes and imagined her roommate walking in and watching us, watching Anna's mouth as she sucked me off, watching me cum on Anna's thick belly while she smiled at me from the doorway with both hands held tight between her legs. When I drove Anna to the hospital with stomach pains one morning, her roommate finally stopped ignoring me long enough to pull me away from the nurse's station and eviscerate me with her fierce, hollow eyes, before informing me that Anna had contracted chlamydia, and that it might be wise to have myself checked out as well, as chlamydia is one of those “gift's that keeps on giving”, and can lead to sterility in men. I never did have myself checked out. Later I found out Anna was only 17. I quit the overnight shift.

Ag Synclair's work has appeared in numerous literary magazines, poetry publications, anthologies, and chapbooks, both online and in print. He drinks way too much coffee, suffers from long bouts of writers block, and greatly admires the work of Billy Collins and Charles Bukowski. He lives and writes in Western Massachusetts.
© 2009 A.g. Synclair