Writing Prompt: The Last Words

by Michael Webb

“I’m getting married,” she said, her voice sounding small in the dark,
as casually as she would announce a new pair of shoes or a poem she
had gotten into a magazine. I took a deep breath, then let it out,
because I read somewhere you should do that before reacting to
anything.

There was light coming from somewhere, probably reflected streetlight
coming through my one tiny window, and it made everything look
slightly unreal. Her skin glowed in the dark, the tiny shadows of her
vertebrae climbing away from me as she sat on the edge of my bed. She
was bent from the waist, feeling around on the floor among our
discarded clothes.

“Richard?” I said into the emptiness. She had found her underwear and
was pulling it up her long, trim legs, adjusting it around her hips in
that way women do. I knew the answer.

“Yes,” she said in a singsongy way. The uneven light revealed pieces
of her to me-a curve of breast, a flared hip, a bare shoulder-as she
rummaged across the floor. They had been on and off for 2 years-I was
usually her backup when they were "off". I knew she was his in the
end, but then I saw her, I made her laugh, she followed me home, and
we wound up here.

“But what about .....….this?,” I asked helplessly. She found her bra,
a tiny strip of black fabric and buckles, and began to assemble it,
first fastening it around her small waist, then pulling it up, making
tiny adjustments so it would fit properly. I knew she would grow old
and bitter with him-clinging to him out of obligation, not passion. I
had heard her spit it at him once, mid-fight: “I don’t even LIKE you!”

“A going away present,” she said. She pulled jeans up from the floor,
tugging them and wiggling to get them to conform to her shape. She
bent again, coming up with her loose sleeveless top. She pulled it on,
picking at it and tugging it until it hung the way she wanted. She
gathered her hair, then let it fall loose again. I wanted to stop her,
but my voice seemed to catch on something in my throat. She was gone,
shutting the door firmly behind her.

Fine, I thought. Let her explain why she was wearing my pants.

Michael Webb blogs at innocentsaccidentshints.blogspot.com, and thinks
that the best sneakers ever made were Pony's "City Wings", because who
says man was not born to fly?

SSF Interrogation

 Michael Webb

SSF: What do you think the next party trend will be in in 2011?

Michael: At the rate things seem to be going-poverty parties. See how many people you can feed with $20, then everybody else has to leave.

SSF: What is in your fridge right now?

Michael: I just got some pickles. I never used to like them, but I like them a lot now. I don't think I'm pregnant, though.

SSF: Orgies--yay or nay?

Michael: In principle? Sure.  In practice? Don't think so.

SSF: Thoughts on Fig Newtons:

Michael: Delicious beyond words. Delicious beyond the point they have any right to be. But, like Taco Bell, aftereffects leave a lot to be desired.

SSF: Define 'Douche bag:'

Michael: Well, it kind of defines itself, doesn't it? I think of it, colloquially, as something that just involves deliberate, unnecessary bad behavior. Like telling your friends that someone of your mutual acquaintance isn't any good in the sack, or sleeping with your friend's ex. Stuff that you do because of a lack of character, but with the added flavor that you could have just as easily not done it, and you just did it anyway.

SSF:  What is your least favorite body part and why?

Michael: Depends-on myself, I could lose the belly for sure. On others? I don't think there's a part of a woman's body that is not appealing.

SSF: What E-Zine are you most addicted to, besides SSF?

Michael: That's a good question. I am fond of 3:AM (3ammagazine.com) and various challenges like Monkey Man's Sunday 160 (http://petzoldspracticalprose.blogspot.com)(a 160 character story) and Velvet Verbosity's 100 Word Challenge(vv100words.blogspot.com) (a story in 100 words).

SSF: Why?

Michael: I love the challenge of a small space, packing emotion and intensity into each word. You don't have many, so you have to make them count.

SSF: What city did you live in prior to your current home?

Michael: I say Boston, which is what a lot of Bostonians say when they live in the suburbs. I grew up in the Boston area and moved to the Philadelphia area in 2001.

SSF: If you were in hell and could commit any sin, which would you choose?

Michael: Gluttony, no question. You could argue I'm committing it on Earth, too.

SSF: What have you written that you are most proud of?

Michael: That's a solid uppercut of a question right there. Right at this moment, it's a 100 Word Challenge story called "Unpacked" that you can find here: vv100words.blogspot.com/2010/05/difficult-choice-again.html

Tomorrow, it may be something else.

SSF: Any last words?

Michael: "Only connect." -EM Forster

Courting

 by Michael Webb

I just learned during an interview on “Fresh Air” that the the singer of Green Day, Billie Joe Armstrong, wrote letters to his wife while they were courting. It's a dumb word, courting, but it's the best way to describe what it is-the courtship ritual of two people who will eventually become man and wife. It's not dating-dating is something casual, something when you feel the need to chase or be chased on a Saturday night when there's nothing good on.  

I'm sure plenty of marriages have emerged from dating-certainly more, statistically, than from courting. But courting has rules to it, a formality and distance. It brings out a passion that you don't have if you can just call your beloved, or certainly not if you can email or IM or message them on Facebook. If you haven't seen them in three months, and you're not going to see them for months, there's a depth of need there that constant contact doesn't produce.  

Listening to the Armstrong interview, it struck me that people of his age are probably close to the last people who did any serious amount of pen and paper communication with those whom they desired. (He is about 4 months younger than I am.) My wife and I also courted with pen and paper-9 months of letters and phone calls before we ever met in person. I had written to others-I had written letters to girls ever since I could finally write a decent sentence in high school, but my betrothed was the last.  

For somewhat obvious reasons, my wife and I have always been fond of good pens and fine paper and blank books to fill with neuroses, thoughts, wishes, intentions and desires. But similar to the revolutions in electronic music and newspapers, the time advantages in communicating with someone electronically have become so enormous that we stopped using letters long ago.  

Comic Greg Giraldo, in his act, laments the loss of fluency in modern times brought about by the ease of communication-comparing a modern soldier's email home to a florid letter by a Civil War private to the woman he adored back home. There is something to be said for that. If you're loving someone, and you can feel the miles that separate you from them with every pained breath, it creates a boiling anger-a need to get to them, to bring you together, that makes your life into a crusade. This passion used to produce 12 page letters written between classes, to be followed into her mailbox with another 8 the next day. Torrents of words, blizzards of them, descriptive and funny and lame and crazy and full of dreams and wishes and pornographic details, the weight of the envelope showing her the weight on your heart.  

Emails just don't do that. Sorry.  

Michael Webb believes in better living through biochemistry. His writing can be found at innocentsaccidentshints.blogspot.com. He is proudest of the fact that he chaperoned a trip with 13 8th graders this week and managed not to lose any of them.

Canan

by Michael Webb

She doesn't really work with me-our paths occasionally cross, and once in a great while, we will interact. I will always look away from her-light brown eyes, prominent eyebrows, flawless tan skin, a imperfect, thickening body that I find irresistible. She's not fat, not by a long shot-but she is womanly, comfortable, warm. Not thin or ascetic-she probably enjoys eating, while at the same time worrying about her weight. I can't deal with her face to face, but I stare at her, love struck, whenever she is in my view. I say her name under my breath, like an incantation.

I watch her hips twitch when she walks. I notice the way she wears her long, dark hair-sometimes ponytail, sometimes bun, sometimes a sloppy hybrid of the two. I watch her lean against a wall, and interact with men, and text urgently, head down, as she walks. She seems to wear the same tiny, flat sneakers a lot-they have stripes like Adidas, but they are much thinner than actual running shoes. Sometimes she tucks her shirt in, giving her a clean, defined silhouette, and sometimes she doesn't, giving her fewer angles and more curves.

I Googled her name once. She's Turkish, or at least her name is. I don't know what that means, except every time I see a mention of that country now, I think of her. I don't want to hurt her, or even necessarily to touch her. I'm married. She appears to have a boyfriend-I've never spoken to her enough to know anything about her personally. She's so far out of my league we're not even playing the same sport.

I have fantasies about all sorts of women, but, in some strange way, never about her. It would sully her, the dream woman I can never have, to imagine her, to picture her, in the sweaty world of flesh and misunderstanding and obligation and tampons and body odor. I wish I could know her secrets, understand her thoughts, read her mind-but I'm sure that, if I could, I would be shocked at how little I appear in it. For someone I can't talk to, I think about her all the time.

Michael Webb is not quite sure why he can't stop writing for this site. Other ravings can be found at innocentsaccidentshints.blogspot.com. I'm proudest of the fact that I haven't been unfaithful. The fact that I haven't been propositioned should not diminish the gravity of this feat.

Lisa

by Michael Webb

I never slept with her.

Never.

She haunts my dreams. She inhabits the long, dirty corners of a boring afternoon, sneaking up on me when I don't expect it. She's there, reminding me of what I carelessly threw away. Young? We were both young. I used to think I could have it all.

Oh, did I want her. She let me see her body once, incredibly shyly and reluctantly. I consumed it visually-her teacup breasts, narrow waist, tiny hips, those legs with hypertrophic calf muscles. Her long, straight brown hair, and eyes that would rarely focus on me. I remember being together, my hand under her dress in the backseat. She was right-if she had let me get into bed with her, I couldn't have controlled myself. She said she would lose control, but that wasn't it. It was me. She was too much-it was too much-her beauty, and her vulnerable nature, stirred deep feelings. I wanted to take her, and I wanted to protect her from being taken.

She danced. She taught dance, and performed it, in a little studio near where I worked at the time. I would walk over there and sit in the tiny office, watching her in the tight dance clothes, watching her flex impossibly, staring at her near nakedness. Her muscles bulged, and tendons stood out like cords in her neck from the unforgiving perfection of performance. The office smelled like women, hot and stuffy and hormonal and achingly real in the back of my throat. It was all for her, waiting for the bonus of driving her home, 30 minutes through the darkness, listening to music, talking softly, smelling her sweat. I loved her smell.

I never slept with her. I touched her, I kissed her, I yearned for her physically and mentally. I worshipped her. Her body was a talisman, a precious object of my desires and affections. I threw her away, cowardly and cavalierly, for someone who eventually took my virginity. She has become, the one who got away, the one who never shared the ultimate prize, the great unanswered question that shadows me. Would a sweaty, fumbling awkward encounter on my bed have bonded us forever? Would it have ruined us?

I don't know. Out of all the women I have ever shared a moment with, she stays with me.

Michael Webb works with chemicals, and some would say they have affected his brain. Evidence pro and con available at www.innocentsaccidentshints.blogspot.com His cliche sexual fantasy is doing it with sisters.