Pious Penelope.

Loving him wore her thin. Her haggard face, at twenty years old, was proof enough.

People think she is vanity incarnate, the way she preens in the morning. First, the concealer for the darkness under her eyes. Next, the foundation to mask the blotchy paleness. The mascara just on the outer corners of the long eyelashes, the only part of her face untouched by four years of battle. She puts Vaseline on her lips, pursed like an old dowagers'. The drops for her bloodshot eyes are always last. They do not know that this is her way of coping. She needs her war paint on before marching out into the chill of the grand arena.

Thinking back to before, she would have never thought herself to be complicated. Troubled, yes. Alone, yes. Complicated, no. Despite everything, when she was young, she had known that to love was to devote, and everything had been so simple. Then she loved.

He did not love her. That was simple.

She knows she is ruining herself. Age makes itself at home when a life is empty.

Their fights killed her dead. Every so often, a welling up at the injustice of it all would leak over the brim. The circumstances and triggers would always be different, but the motivation would always be the same.

Why the fuck am I, at twenty, living like Penelope, unraveling myself instead of the shroud?

Can't you see that we can't be 'friends'?

Can't you see that we don't work as 'friends'?

Can't you see that I don't need more friends?

Can't you see what the boys that come around see?

Can't you see me?

She never says this.

She will be quiet for a while, at first. She always imagined that the air around her, when she is like this, was thick with black flies.

He would intuit it right away, as he is prone to do. He will make some remark.

She'll say something back, clipped. He'll turn away. She wants him to see.

There will be a pouring out of words from her, and short bursts from him that will make her feel and look ridiculous.

She will get upset. He will be dispassionate. She hates that he is so disgracefully absent. He will use the word 'basketcase'.

She will think of leaving. He relents enough that she will want to stay.

For a few moments, there is something sparked between them. There will a tenderness in their separate touches, she will curl herself around him and kiss his neck. He will run his fingers through her hair and hold her. It is always temporary.

Some friendship, she thinks.

In her contradictory fashion, she thinks of how she is a burden to him. She wishes she did not love him, if only to give him the peace and quiet he deserves. She wishes she did not love him first.

She was got too easily, which is strange, for how hard her shell is around other men.

Three Day Wait

Going to see my parents. Three days will pass and then there will be three more stories.

Seven and Half Hours.

I am in my 'his' disguise. I do what I can to get through the crowds. There is a certain way of doing this. You can't walk like you have a secret. Head forward, lips slack, eyes relaxed, a walk measured by a count of short but steady lopes; the key to achieving anonymity.

One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four.

So on.

I want out. Of these clothes, I mean. The baggier, the better. I can't stand it when the inside of the shirt brushes against my flat chest. So close, yet so far, or something like that. I don't have that problem with pants, provided they're big enough to be worn by two of me. I can take care of what's 'there' at home, cutting down 'prep' time.

I wish we were allowed to wear hats. It'd be so much easier than wearing this cheap Goodwill wig. The thing looks, at best, like a shag cut on a 1970's weatherman. At worst, a decapitated and tailless muskrat.

At this time, the locker room is always empty. It's the only reason I can manage to get in at all. The crowds outside won't notice. The people I know and know of are not really the types to pause and actually consider something, such as 'what does that guy think he's doing". The only thing worth noticing are acts of deception or illusion. That is the one thing that this side of me can pull off. It's pathetic.

I slide the lock on the door. It's a one person bathroom, meant for only one person. It makes me laugh to say that I am lucky, but I truly am in this very small way. There is room for splayed out elbows, wrestling with bras, and feet planted on the lid of the toilet to roll pantyhose neatly up my leg. There is a single mirror, neatly hung over the sink, just right for makeup application but not for checking to see if there is anything sticking out that shouldn't be. For that, I still rely on a thorough smoothing with my palms.

Today is a day for contrast. My sister's dark red A-line skirt, emphasizing the narrow shapeliness of my hips and thighs, is paired with her frilled white blouse with the puffed cap sleeves. I check my toes for hair before slipping on the red platform sandals. I wish I could paint my nails, but I don't want to have to go around wearing socks all the time in my house. The wood floors are slippery.

Today is a day for contrast. I apply the black eyeshadow heavily on the very corners of my eyes. I apply the black mascara thick on my lashes.

Ever heard a girl say to a guy that he has eyelashes only a girl should have?

It's funny.

I leave my lips nude, but I do use my cherry lip balm.

I check to see if my dick is still in it's proper position. No one knows, but I wear boy shorts. Thongs are too thin for the 'upkeep', even if I use more tape than usual. Today is black lace. I must be in mourning.

I am me now, and will stay that way for seven and a half hours. When the last bell rings, I will stop being me and become 'him' for the rest of the day. I will be 'him' at home, where 'he' will come home to a quiet house and go upstairs to 'his' room, alone. 'He' won't emerge until dinnertime, and 'he' will sit there, pushing his food around on 'his' plate. 'He' will only listen to 'his' father when 'his' father says something along the lines of 'pass the potatoes, Miss Nancy'. 'He' can't take the nickname, but 'he' has to be constantly on the uptake when it comes to orders.

'He' will go to bed, and 'he' will dream about the next seven and half hours.

I fold the discarded clothing neatly and put it into my backpack. The wig is ripped off without care; it is a disgusting thing. I brush my blond hair, giving it a definite 'pretty' swing around my chin. I rip off swatches of toilet paper, rolling them up into two 'boobs'. I make sure to give them equal heft and size. In the early days, it wasn't unusual for one to be sharp and pointy and the other to be fat and round. Thankfully, the boys then were all too young to realize that isn't how boobs work, most of the time.

I've had better days.

Stepping out of the bathroom, I need only to take a few steps before being surrounded by everyone who counts.

Peanut Butter Cup

She spread the peanut butter thin on the slice of wheat bread, topped it with a lacy smattering of honey, then rolled it into a messy tube. The honey oozed out the ends, dotting the countertop. Cupping her hand underneath it, she took a slow bite out of the tube sandwich. Her eyes rolled up to the ceiling.

It was so much better ever since she switched from white bread.

She stared guiltily down at the peanut butter jar. He wouldn't want her eating it. It was always stuck in the back of the cabinet, despite the fact that everything else of his was up front and center. He never commented whenever she nipped corners off of his other treats. A few semi-sweet chocolate chips rolled into her hand out of the bag, a few baked chips poured into a bowl, one of those individual-sized bags of buttered popcorn every so often.These small acts of theft had to have been noticed by him. He is a a very particular sort of folk. He is the sort of man who counted his chocolate chips.

They had been living together a month now. Even if the sex had them probing every orifice on each other, she couldn't help but feel guilty whenever she dipped into his snack cache. It was the same guilt that flickered to life whenever she used his face cloth to squeegee out her ears in the shower or his razor whenever she shaved her legs. It still didn't stop her from doing these things. She just always made sure not to leave any residue of her doings, figuratively or literally.

She looked at the microwave clock and gasped. He was due to come home any second. Shoving the rest of the tube sandwich in her mouth, she grabbed the peanut butter jar with the other. It was then she realized that the peanut butter jar didn't have a lid, and that the peanut butter jar's lid was nowhere to be found.

She must have put in somewhere near. It would have made sense to put the damn thing down on the counter right next to the jar, but she had been so hasty in getting a sandwich made. Slamming the jar of peanut butter down, she began to search.She threw open her own cabinet, wondering if she had laid it down in there when she had reached for the honey. All that greeted her eyes was the multitude of SlimQuick powdered shakes and SlimQuick bars that she hated but bought anyway.

No lid to be found.

That is when she had the idea that it may have rolled off, finding a dark and unseen place. This line of thought had her on hands and knees, looking under the kitchen table, behind the garbage can, the neglected landscape that was under the stove. She got a fair amount of smudge on the knees of her jeans.

No lid to be found.

By the time he came in the door, she had just opened the fridge.

She found the lid.

They always kept the bread cold. It slowed a possible outbreak of mold. Looking up over the door of the fridge, she watched his eyes flick over to the still-open jar of peanut butter on the counter. By the time she stood up, lid in hand, he was looking at her with what she took as a look of recrimination.

How dare you, she thought he was thinking, opening up what is mine and not yours.

The truth was, he was actually hoping that he had plucked out all of his pubic hairs out of the jar from the last time he fucked the peanut butter.

Hentai. A Love Story.

Perfection is what she is, captured in paint.

I saw her at Best Buy. Unlike her garishly dolled-up colleagues, amongst those separate DVD covers I knew even then was not her place, she was rich with the presence of untarnished nobility. It was not the azure eyes, larger than dinner plates, the cotton candy pink of her glossy mane, or the waist that looked vulnerable to snapping in the softest of breezes; these were mere candies that studded the beauty that was her character.

That fine figure! Standing before a beast that boasted many tentacles, an abomination of a wretched tryst between a squid and a bear, with some shark thrown in for good measure. Even I, a man with a great strength of arms with his quality collection of ten swords, would have quaked before such a beast, but she! How she stood her ground, even in her skimp of a pleated skirt and leather bra.

I took her away, with the most elaborate of dowries.

I spent an entire 19.99 for

her DVD.

I was not yet aware of her many riches when I initially brought her down to my mother's basement. At the time, I was simply consumed by superficiality. My robust finger traced the schoolgirl thinness of her legs, which stood in stark contrast to the ample bust that threatened to runneth over. Though my sweatpants grew tight with lust, I knew Mommy would soon call me to dinner. I could not risk consummation, at least not then. I was so nervous. Fumbling with the DVD player on my laptop with one hand, I held my cherry blossom warrior in the other. When she slid with great unearthly grace into the player, thus began the viewing experience that would shape my love life into what it is today.

The poorly translated English subtitles could not conceal the intricate patterns of her Japanese, dappling like sunlight on the currents of the ocean. She dominated every scene she was in, despite the supporting roles of her equally sumptous fellow demon hunters. That posture never swayed, even when she went to war with the Demon King, the aforementioned atrocity. That posture never swayed, even when the Demon King had her in his grasp. How my eyes filled with tears in admiration of her bravery, as the Demon King filled each of her orifices with his sopping tentacles. She would not betray her pain or pleasure, only letting out the tiniest of gasps. No amount of degradation could break her. Only then did I know that I had found my soul mate.

I try to find her, still. Scouring the Internet, for it is vast and wide, and contains anything and anyone. Sometimes, I think I find her in some of the women I find on Adult Friend Finder. With many a plane ticket paid for comes many a disappointment, though. They look nothing like the pictures they have on their profiles, even sometimes being a good hundred pounds heavier than I originally perceived. Alas. I still sigh and plunk the pink wig I bought on Ebay on them. It is not infidelity, as long as I keep my eyes closed and the DVD playing in the background.

She understands.



Oh, God, she has to.