Date

Robin Romm

You've never met anyone like this before. When he speaks, which is not often, the letters come out of his mouth on a thin gold chain. He's embarrassed by this, but you find it charming. Sheepishly, he gathers the chains of letters and hooks the ends together, links them around your neck or your wrists. You've begun to look like a belly dancer, covered in ornaments; you glitter like a sunken treasure, a chest of gold coins.

You like the way you look, ensconsed in his letters. Each time he leans across the table to bejewel you, you feel like a Christmas tree. You are Jewish and this is not a familiar feeling. You smile coyly.

All the other men you've met this year talk too much. Their words demand. They speak of ex-girlfriends and hikes they've enjoyed and movies with blond actresses and short, winning men and every sentence they speak feels like a staircase you're being asked to climb.

Not so this time. Now you sit in a dim bar with lacquered wooden tables and you can relax. You don't ask questions. You communicate through the muscles of your face. You sip gin through small stirring straws. And every once in a while, he looks like he is struggling to rise to the surface of a body of water and he heaves out a sentence. You look pretty in that color, he says. The words pain him; it looks like they must be sharp in his tubes, scraping him on their way up and out. You wear that sentence around your wrist. When you lift your hand to wipe your brow, you can see it sparkle though the bar is dark. It's cold in here you wear around your left ankle. Would you like to see my apartment you wear with pride around your neck.

His apartment is spare and clean. It's a studio with exposed brick and dark wood floors and a fireplace in which he has placed potted plants. There are no photographs or tennis shoes or books. Just a bed with white blankets and two red oil paintings on the wall. He pours you a glass of wine. You sit on the white sofa and stare out the giant windows that overlook a narrow street. You are high up above the small trees. The lights in neighboring buildings shine yellow and sad. The room smells empty, like eastern woods in winter.

He is a beautiful man. His eyebrows are thick and his cheekbones are high and there is a stoop to his stance. He makes you want to touch him.

He doesn't say things like you are so beautiful or you really turn me on, baby, or how do I unhook this? You put an arm around his neck and he kisses you. It feels like you are climbing into a hot bath--your entire body gives. His hands are at your blouse, his hands are at the zipper of your pants, he seems to have ten hands and soon you are on the white bed in nothing but gold chains, your hair dark against the white pillows, his eyes whirling and twirling.

You could be sleeping with a marble statue or a dream. You could be sleeping with a king or a famous painter or a god. You could be sleeping with anyone; his body is perfect and hairless and copper all over.

He is strong and desperate in bed and you pull at his hair and he arches his neck and his teeth bite at your jaw and your collarbone and then they bite at the necklaces and he yanks his head and one of them breaks. You feel breathless; you feel like the air is making you drunk. He smells like soil when you dig deep enough.

He picks you up and pins you to the wall above the bed. You feel as light as a bundle of twigs. His hands are traveling the length of your torso, he is pressing you up against the white walls as if he is going to hammer you up with the paintings.

You grab back at him. Your hands are warm and limber and there is a melted butter feeling in your legs that, with the drunken air, is making you feel reckless, is making you feel like you might do anything. You expect him to rise up between your legs and take you violently, but this is not what happens.

As his hands move over your body, you bury your face between his neck and shoulder. And when you finally pull back-- because his hands have stopped around your throat--you are shocked to see his face. His eyes have lost the whirling. His mouth is agape. He looks trapped, terrified, unable to cry for help. You feel him grip the necklaces and yank. Pain bites your neck as the chains cut into your skin and the necklaces snap off. He holds them in his hands and then tosses them to the floor. They don't make a sound when they hit.

Then he goes for your wrists. He tears the bracelets off and you feel weight in all the spots in your body that are usually air. You want these bracelets; you want these necklaces. He tears off the anklets too and now you are just your skin and your hair and your bones and you realize how cold you are.