He don't do Red

I make sure that my face is on right and leave the bathroom, stepping into the country kitchen where the man is all legs spread, crotch north-facing, and leaning against the freckled granite countertop. Behind him, hand-painted and spring colored sugar bowls, flour bowls, gingerbread houses, and Christmas dollhouses line the granite walkway — a village in desolation lights.The man doesn't perk up when he sees me, but his eyes get a little wider and his legs spread easier, all butter, as he opens his mouth and tells me that he's ready to begin. Don't be shy, he warns me when my eyes don't contain themselves and sneak past him to the village, in search of a gingerbread man or a Mrs. Claus, in a linger, too early in this month of June.But I soon rework myself, setting my eyes, unclenching. And without breaking another stride I tell the man that I am never shy and saunter up to him — all displayed hips — and expose myself, disclosing the oversized and itchy, white Batman bra that was left hanging from the towel rack in the bathroom like an offering. For me.In a way we match, both of us dark-haired figurines in Batman-wear. But the man's fully clothed in dark sweats and a white T-shirt with a crooked bat logo. I'm also dark down below, black underwear, no bats, the size almost close to right. And we're both barefoot.I avoid a sight of his toes and glimpse at his nipples, which are peeking through the delicacy of his nightshirt. Red food stains have devoured the yellow negative space underneath the bat wing on the bra that I'm wearing, and beneath the wing and inside the red my own nipples itch a twitch.The man stands up straight, full-length. Finally. He's taller than tall with a wiry but titan frame. I don't usually do titan men, but I've got mouths to feed: my face mouth, my car mouth, the gobble-goggle insurances, the loan mouths moaning for their next refill. We're all hungry. And so is he.The man's lips have fallen open, his breath a stutter and a huff, and his hands are already raised for the taking, his fluttering eyes locked on a spot above my head. He grabs my breasts and cups every ounce of fat that he can get in his hands, squeezing and releasing, squeezing, and humming thoughtfully.As he examines, I hold my breath and height.My chest isn't quite right; isn't the same girth as the girl in the picture taped to the bathroom mirror, the girl, the ex-girl whose framed pictures also scale the inches of the walls in the hallway — the ex-girl smiling, pressed into silly kisses with the man in some frames — the ex-girl no-faced in others while the man stares through picture and frame.I wait for the man to speak. He can't get mad at my size. I still fit in the bra. But I know fist knuckles and palm strikes and squeezing hands with stubby fingers, the rough, cracked nails of the fathers and sons, the brothers and uncles I take in their beds. My eyes strain to wander to the path I already acquired in my memory, like with all my first visits — the path toward the front door.So as the man continues my inspection I let my eyes stray out a little, down the village lane again, and this time I see more Batman; two Batman mugs, one black black, the other frost white, both close to the village but just on the outskirts. When the man's fingertips buzz with the beat of my chest and he still won't talk to me, I look away from Batman and say, where's all the ginger? The Claus's? Don't tell me you ate Christmas already, Mr. Grinch.The man doesn't laugh. Doesn't speak, not in words. I suck in a tremble, his thick fingers scoop-digging into every pore and every sore spot, his fingers tracing stretch mark veins and the air whizzing in my chest. I can tell he hungers to pop me like a balloon but knows better. For now. So like him, I zip my lips and don't speak, my silence my sorry.After the fall of my attempt to humor, he lets his eyes drag down real slow from the spot above my head, down from my scalp where baby curls curl my edges. My hair is not as long, not as wavy, but I have hair on my head, and he follows each strand and then deviates.Down my forehead go his eyes, down to my dark eyes, not of hers, to my parted lips, not like hers — down to my taunt chin, my neck meat, and finally down to the Batman bra his hands are venerating. With reluctance visible, he pries his hands off my breasts, dips his head lower to get a look, closer, and tuts, pointing his thick middle finger at the biggest red stain marking the bra.When he looks away in disgust, I move my jaw left to right, keeping my face just right, and observe the uneven painting of walls behind the dead village — the paint mostly school-desk brown with flecks, scrapings of teal paint peeking out, hide and seek, from beneath. A poor repaint by an overcharging professional, or a basic-repaint DYI style. Hardly at notice, but I see the peeping teal, bursting out like a protruded jaw, and I resist a shiver.Keeping up my face, done with the internal maintenance, I look down at the man's finger when he doesn't say or do any more. This still isn't Batman, he finally says with a heavy sigh that I taste but don't swallow: bile and disapproval. He then looks into my eyes, his brown into my brown, and I say that I know, though I don't, and use the right amount of remorseful pout to my lips to keep him from getting mean. Because I don't do mean. Even for double pay.Mean lasts too long, inside and out.The man glares. At me. At everything he can see. He don't do red, he snaps then stops, swallowing it all down, maybe for himself. Maybe for the ex-girl. He tries again, clarifying that he means permanent and visible red on the exterior lining of suit or skin. That's for the inside, he says, tapping away at my aching chest. I avoid retreat, both my eyes and my feet, and say that I understand and that I'm sorry for my transgressions as I try to shift into my new girl skin: ex-girl skin.I've done play before. I've been the anime girls and the Disney girls and the videogame girls, all those fake girls, but I've never played the ex-girl or wore ex-girl worn clothes. I came ready to be a DC girl — a Cat Woman, a Poison Ivy, a Bat girl — maybe the woman — maybe two girls for the double pay the man was offering. My hair, French in braid, pulled back and ready to receive the crown wig of which ever fake girl I would fake.I didn't prepare for my girl-crafting instructions to be, look in the mirror and be, hair need not apply. Just wear the skin — a real girl's skin.My belly aches with a hunger that hangs in skins. My mouth is open. The man looks down and inside me, and I apologize with words again, hoping to get the ex-girl right, at least once to start before the bedroom. But the man looks at me funny when the final word leaves my mouth. He looks like a man out of water, like the guys who finish too fast and hope you didn't see that.Blinking his donut eyes, the man puts his hands back on my breasts but eases up on the pressure, his thumbs running in semicircles. I squirm at the tickle, the polyester itch. I forgive you Pea, he says to me, to her, and I thank him for his generosity, and hold myself down — away from more jokes. Pea! He would be the kind of man to call a woman Pea while he really means pee-pee, elementary insults disguised as terms of love. Pea!You're welcome, the man says as I reconstruct myself. Then a cool dead glazes his eyes, and his mean starts popping out. He lists off foods like he's biting them all dead, a decapitation, spitting stem and seed, spittle of the names of foods that I don't eat but can't eat anymore, talking to her by talking to me — no more red popsicles, pizza with sauce, strawberries, red peppers, every food with red skin. No damn more, you hear?Got it, I say, and he hisses a big fat no in my face. A no, you don't got it, and you never will. See these colors? he asks before he pulls his fingers back only to press his nails into my breasts. See the fades, he asks, and I offer a repentant yes because I don't want those nails to scratch or bite. He grunts and shakes his head again, so disappointed in me/her.I apologize again and feel the pull of retreat, but I don't think he's heard me clearly this time. I try to hold onto the funny in the right amount, the Pea, the little pee-pee — funny I never feel or reveal in costume. But I don't see the connections anymore. My mouths twitch, my eyes flickering.Back at the village I avoid the bat signs and roam through the windows and see the ex-girl in a building mind. I feel the pads of her fingers arrange the houses in an order that makes sense to her. She will live in all times and in every space, here in the foundation of all these village houses — here in every molecule of structure and air in the man's home. She'll persist, alive, gone, or something else. All, I think and then my skin crinkles.When I hear again the man is saying, too many washes to get your stains out and you never, never get them out. You've just drained the color, but the red's still here, see? He don't do red. We don't do red. We don't do red, he lectures repetition, harsh threats in harsh breaths, and I mimic his words because it feels like something the ex-girl would do. No more eating in bed, he continues, and I say, okie dokie, keep out the fucking, and ask if I should buy a new bra, a cleaner one for him, if it will so please him.Know the voice and do the girl, leaving no surprises. That's what I do. All you need to know about anime girls and videogame girls is on Wiki, no hidden history, a quick recheck on my phone before I close myself down, so that's what I do.The man gets that funny look in his eyes again and takes his hands away only to pull me into a strange semblance of an embrace, his arms stacked on top of each other and pressed loosely against the back of my neck, his toes brushing against my feet. He's got me, his height a bear over me. I focus on that. He breathes. So I copy. With my face shielded by his chest, I move my jaw left to right, down a few inches and back up, unclenching that clench while keeping my face on right.My face is not the anime girl grin or shy girl smile with the Disney girl softness or the videogame girl fierce. It's not like the spring-face or marble stitching of the ex-girl from the pictures on the walls. But it's as close to close as I can get.The man tuts at me and says, don't mark him with red. We don't disrespect his history and our legacy, you hear? He sounds so serious, like he's preaching sermon to the veering damned. In my place, I see the ex-girl standing before him, taking the man's lectures while they watch Batman, the man's savoir, sleeping beside him or underneath him, bra-covered breasts itching during Batman intercourse.I feel her.We adopt his seriousness and agree with him, placing the side of our face against his rumbling chest. He drops his arms and pushes us back a bit, raising his hands to grab again. We can't throw this out, he says with a squeeze of our tender breasts. We can't throw him out, he says, and we say, yes, of course, and apologize to apologize. I forgive you Pea, he says and drops his hands before holding his right hand out to us. His smile tells us he's ready.We grab his hand but upon skin contact we splinter apart and I'm me again. I'm wearing the ex-girl's bra, soon to share the residue of her former lover's semen nestling in our wombs. I'm playing the life and body of a real girl — being her womb, her dead or her alive insides, and I'm me again. I feel the pull of retreat. Again.Are you hungry, Pea, the man asks me, and my inside mouths unleash a scream. He doesn't hear the screams, but he hears a part of me. So the mouth on my face smiles into his pleasure. He looks down at me, his smile more a crooked touch of tender, and he says, good, me too. What do you want, he asks, but before I can answer, he shushes me and squeezes my hand. What don't we do, he asks with coffin-eyes, and my stomach answers that we don't do red. The man smiles, his mouth a wide hollow, and I'm flipped over again.The man stares. We force our lips that much wider in a smile of submission. Yes, his breath whispers from inside his hollow, and we mime his praise as he walks us down the hallway and past the pictures of us looking on from the wall. In a polyester webbing, our breasts are raw hanging mounds of fat, but as the man pulls us into his room, our new face holds up real nice.