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Jacinthe lives on Bleecker & Christopher, in a fifth-floor walkup with philodendrons, tapestries, a wicker chair swing. At the workday's end, she slips off her pumps, puts on socks & sneakers over her pantyhose & walks home. The walk does her good, through bustlin' Midtown and then into the Village. It's hot tonight, the sun not going anywhere for hours.
Her pay isn't huge, but it's enough to buy Chianti & the makings for lamb Souvlaki. It's been two years, almost, since Jacinthe's been with a guy. And tonight she's having over — of all people — Sergio DeLuca, from the Block. Mr. Palios is sick, & Jacinthe takes the train on Saturdays to see him. Last weekend, Sergio was there, mowing his folks' lawn. She hadn't seen him in so long, it seem'd, & he look'd older & strong in his snug blue jeans and mustache.
When Sergio makes it to her flat, she opens the door in a turquoise caftan. Her hair is coil'd in a bun, the curls at the neck tight from the shower. He hands her red roses with baby's-breath, & she smells the bouquet, smiles.
"Thank you, Sergio, you're such a gentleman," she says.
He feels suddenly nervous, even shy. He shrugs. "You're welcome, Jacinthe."
Sergio's been walking though his life these past few years like a mime — white & silent. He practices moves that should by now be true. He was born blind in one eye, an eye that's murky blue while the good one is brown. He's a 4-F
Jacinthe was never beautiful, he tells himself. What happened?
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cyclops; he tried a family doc for a favor, but no go. So Sergio rides scrawled-on trains in the dark tunnels, working at his uncle's carpet store, going to night school, smoking dope & watching Lawrence Welk while his best buddies in the world march through Asian twilights, through fire & nightmare, becoming men like his father did in his own war. Sergio can't believe there's any reason to find his fate here & not there. He can't imagine his fate is anywhere near.
"Sit down," Jacinthe says.
They eat at the tiny kitchen table, one candle burning between their plates. They talk & drink but from the moment Jacinthe kiss'd him hello on his cheek, the room has been suffus'd with hot, urgent tenderness & need. They don't even know what they're discussing. They're only thinking about each other.
"This is good," he says, with the last bite.
Jacinthe was never beautiful, he tells himself. What happened? Right now she's like a dark pool & the ripples move out, dispelling the reflection of a child. Between her gold hoops & her round hips, she's a miracle of circles, a simple & peaceful woman.
She's standing at the sink, rinsing plates with tremblin' hands. "I have ice cream — "
This is all she gets to say. He's behind her, pressed against her. His big cock impossible to ignore on her back. His hands feel down her thighs & come together in the center, gathering fabric to her cunt, she groans, puts the plates down, reaches back & grasps his own thighs with her wet hands.
He sits on the couch & watches her lush mouth take him again and again, he can barely see straight but he watches. White teeth. Her eyes are brimming. She twists her hand on him, licks the hard knob like she's hungry. She's kneeling sideways, dress pooled like a goddess's robe.
A cat jingles into the room, laps milk from a saucer & looks sideways at them & seems offended. They both smile as the cat jumps into the bedroom. Sergio wants to come so bad but also wants to be inside her. He pulls out of her hot mouth, touches her under the chin, gently urging her to come up. His pulse is like liquid fire now, he tries to move slowly. Her cheeks are red, though, & he thinks she feels the same way.
She does. She stands in front of him. Pulls the dress over her head. Her underpants are soak'd, & she takes them off. She's open like a flower, & it hurts. He drags his fingers through there, & his breath catches. He looks at her, that oval face he knows from Halloween parties & foot races & snowball fights, those glistening eyes that have gazed out from the same window into his window his whole life.
"Oh, god, Jacinthe," he says in a desperate & low way, as she gets on top.
She takes the wet head & kneels high enough to rub it back & forth in her, swiveling herself, before she slowly sits down, hard, & tilts forward to feel it. Her breasts hang, her hair comes out of the bun as she works away two years of loneliness.
Meanwhile, inside her body, sperms fly like angel fish a million miles to her ovum.
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She fucks him there, on this second-hand blue velvet couch, with Greenwich Village honking & hawking & whistling outside the open window. She knows this boy she's known all her life. Sergio, who walk'd from church with his mother's hand in his hand, who lit a match for her first Merit, who played Cowboys & Indians as if the Block was a grand prairie.
"Hold up," he says, because he has to have a break or it's over.
They change positions, she kneels on the couch facing the Chinese calendar on the wall. He stands behind her, rubs his fingers again through that honey, he feels dizzy. He moves his hard cock back in & she squirms, her belly hanging low, her spine curving. He touches her by reaching around her hip. He feels it now, she going to come with him.
"Oh come on," she whines, "come on," & he's sure.
He's red faced, & pumping like an animal & neither can last. When he starts to pull out, she wrenches him fast. "Come inside me," she pants.
And he does.
The candle sputters out, the cat stays hidden in the closet of trench coats & polyester skirtsuits & white heels. Jacinthe & Sergio lie on the couch, & listen to someone down the hall playing Miles Davis.
Meanwhile, inside her body, sperms fly like angel fish a million miles to her ovum. They pass the cervix, & race through the uterus. In the ampulla of the fallopian tube, they press the membrane of the egg, a thousand questions at the dome of one answer. The first sperm penetrates the corona radiata, sinks into the oocyte, in a blast of light. While these two lovers sleep through a humid summer midnight, their genetic material fuses, & the sperm sheds its matter like snakeskin.
Hours pass, they curl like kittens on the couch. Below the sidewalk, kids jump turnstiles & cops sigh. The sun bleeds through dark alleys, spilling light into dumpsters & onto bodies in cardboard boxes. An old man in an undershirt looks out his window, scratches his tit & farts. A sunflower trembles in a backyard on MacDougal Street. And a chihuahua leads its owner over cobblestones whose seams hold the dark juice of street water, past a broken car window that glitters like a brilliant eye. And into the apartment comes a slash of light: the first ray.
The zygote divides, its cells splitting, like a chandelier of sparks on Independence Day. n°
| ABOUT
THE AUTHOR: |
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Jardine
Libaire holds an MFA from the University of Michigan. Her stories have been published on Nerve and in Fiction and Chick Lit , an anthology. She lives in Brooklyn. Here Kitty Kitty is her first novel.
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©2007 Jardine Libaire and Nerve.com.
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