The Answer I Won't Give (Fiction) by Roberta Lawson

The Answer I Won't Give
by Robert Lawson

Take me back to that place where are you still seduced, languid and utter, all 3am whispers, smoking, where we trade in notions and the dreams of one another that aren't quite tainted yet.

Lull me back there and I'll dress fitting, wrap the entrails of an antique bird, slithery languour around my white throat. A trail of deep black feathers like an answer scattered. My neck, like fox-furred, sensuous iridescent shimmer of smoothest blood organs. I'll wear my best silk gloves only for matching so the colours non-colours catch in the low light. So we can play opiate not quite nauseous yet. And tug the intestines so I choke just a little, blue-purple, not deathly but ever so dreamy. And tell me my fortune from the prettiest strewn guts. And no jobs/divorce/boredom for us to stay there. And tell me your secrets, over and over, relearning. So I can fill spaces in my head and my stomach with the spill of your ether and your best dark delicious. And twist me and turn me but keep me just right there, blood bloodless a little enthralled with your strange face, the caress of entrails and your breath on my eyelid.

Creased white sheets. She's dishevelled, not quite naked, smudged trance eyes. He has that look in his eyes: intense and fixed. That 'you don't get to stop' look. She can't bring herself to speak above a whisper. He's heavyheavy over her, man-scent. She's reduced to her tremble-breath. He's made her candle wax. Meltaway.

Harder, oh Christ, please, harder.

Tossing on the sheets. No: he's tossing her. Puppet-time.

You. Don't. Get. A. Say. His tongue on her ear, his touch on her throat.

The knife comes down like her lover. She nuzzles ecstatic. He bangs inside of her like a scream.

Please. Don't. Stop. She gives him her breath.


Editor's note: The Answer I Won't Give appeared at at Counterexample Poetics in March 2009.


Author bio:

Roberta Lawson lives in Brighton on the coast of England. Her writing has appeared in publications such as Sein Und Werden, Ditch, Prick of The Spindle, Calliope Nerve, and Zygote in my Coffee. She blogs at Mermaids Singing