by Christine Baerbock

I had a man and he was good. I liked the way he peeled dollars from his money clip for my whiskey thirst. His jaw clenched as I rattled ice cubes in my empty glass. More, more.

He couldn’t say no. Until the end of the night. Then he carried me to bed, pulled off my boots. I tugged at his tee shirt, fumbled with his belt. He shook his head. Not like this, he whispered and turned off the light.

I’m not comfortable with love. Do-si-do past my heart. The pain whiskey can’t touch is in a deep gash between my randy thighs.

I snuck out in the halo of the morning sun. He would be a good man for someone else.

---

Christine Baerbock resides in Wisconsin. Her work has appeared in Boston Literary Magazine, Peninsula Pulse, Page & Spine, Weird Darkness, (b)oink, DASH, Bending Genres, placed in the Hal Grutzmacher Writer Contest, and included in several anthologies.