THE ACHING GENTLEMAN
BY PAUL CUNNINGHAM
Ache was whispering and her bad posture was offending a man disguised as a gentleman. The Gentleman was drinking fine wine and The Gentleman was rubbing himself hard.
Ache lets words crawl away:
Do you want me to—
No.
I’m just trying to make you happy.
I don’t need a slut to be happy.
After dinner, in the middle of the night, Ache burrows deep into the chest of The Gentleman like a skeleton hunting for replacement bones.
The Gentleman feels a tiny sun fall out of his chest-grave. His skin feels loose around his hands and his knees feel like hollow eggs. The Gentleman feels like a dormant volcano. No blood preparing to spray from his vessel. No boiling redness absorbing his human color. His chest-grave is empty and the sun rolls down a street and into a moving city.
Ache is aching. Chafing against the metallic buildings of the moving city. Each window-lined segment of each building is like a glass sore.
The Gentleman walks into a building and stands beneath a segment of sunlight. He pounds against a breast-shaped window.
Ache lingers in each pane of glass and a wide sheath of tissue hugs The Gentleman tightly. The pressure is simply too much. Smooth muscles push him through the glass and he falls onto a traffic-road. Crushed, he writhes around the glass along the asphalt. A gnawed and damaged—
Ache is settled.
