Sometimes Amarita wonders why she’s not the type of woman who changes her clothes three times a day; why she’s one of those women who are always wearing pajamas.
She falls asleep in whatever she’s wearing. She falls asleep not because she wants to, but because time is like a button that’s either on or off and the sound of it flipping up and down gives her a headache.
Amarita owns an ugly car that won’t break down on her even though she never gives it motor oil and when she does the gauge is dry. Amarita hates to drive it because the clutch makes an ugly sound when she shifts from first to second. The ugly sound reminds her of the feeling she gets when she needs to leave the house but can’t. The ugly sound reminds her of the feeling she gets when someone tells her she isn’t perfect. She loves her ugly car but wishes it would break down so she didn’t have to worry about being stranded between here and there every time she leaves the house.
On Monday morning Amarita wakes up naked and she pulls her legs wide apart and cracks her hips. There’s only one man in the world who knows she does this and he’s laying next to her.
She’s naked but she wants to be alone. If she had to be somewhere, everything would be fine but because the day is open she feels it taunting her. She feels it so empty, so needing to be filled that she wants to be alone so she can make up her mind whether she wants to work or to suffer.
She knows they aren’t the same thing, working and suffering. She knows that it doesn’t have to be on with the one and off with the other, but because the man next to her is warm and makes her happy, she wants him out of the way.
She rubs her legs against him until he’s hard, then she pulls at his hardness with her hand until he’s awake. Then she tells him to leave but the words end up meaning I love you, and he holds her against him and says nice things into her ear. She takes his hand off her breast and tells him to leave but again the words end up meaning something else. Amarita and her lover laugh. She laughs so hard she gets angry. She needs to work. I mean suffer. No, she needs to work. His penis is deep inside her vagina and half of her wants to come but the other half wants to take control of him and she can’t make up her mind so she makes him leave. His penis is hard and beautiful and she’s mad because she can’t control it or make it make her come.
She says “I am so ugly why do you love me?”
He says “You aren’t ugly, Amaretto.”
“My name is Amarita.”
“Nectar of the gods, you’re perfect.”
She says “I stink, how can you stand it?”
He tells her she doesn’t stink. He says he likes her smell except sometimes when he puts his head in her lap. He says that it’s not her smell, but the smell of her clothes that stinks just a bit but not really and when she hears this she can’t believe how much of an asshole he is.
She tells him to leave and the words say exactly what she means. He just lies there. She can suffer now and doesn’t have to worry about coming or making him come or filling up the day because she can suffer now and she’s so thankful that her words come out just as ugly as she feels them.
“Leave my room right now. Leave me leave me leave me.”
He sighs and stands and puts on his clothes. She wants him to leave but also wants him to stick around and suffer with her, help her suffer more. He doesn’t look at her. When he shuts the door she lies beneath her covers and feels fine with falling back asleep. There is no day, only work. I mean anything but work. She falls asleep and forgets the thousands of things she has to do.
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