Quality Snacks

Pelvis

Pelvis In his house, there are beautiful things. In the Jungle Room, there are statues of monkeys and a waterfall. In the Pool Room, there is a twist of tapestry for a ceiling. There is red and gold everywhere. Hehimself isaworkof beauty—sideburn,lip,pelvis. What’sknown as a human god. Above men, though with them. Born among us, however different. He brings the heavens down to earth, down to his satin sheets. And I am a bit of the heavens to him. The King wants me, and in his desire is my chance. But for what? Maybe the one-in-a-hundred chance the Pill will fail. (They made me prove I was taking the Pill; I have signed forms giving up rights against the King, which seems right for them, but as for me, I recognize no right offered or kept under any but the condition of true loving and the going down in feeling, where both get at it and make with it.) And I might have his child. His only beloved son. To be in this world, from my womb, through my loins. But what should I want? I have not opened my legs for any man. I am twenty-one years quality snacks / 24 of age and I have had my chances. Very few women save themselves anymore. I do not blame them—there are too many reasons. I also had my reasons. But now, when I measure out my reasons, they do not touch my yearnings: I am complete and untouched for him and ready to be by him. That is all I need to know. In the upstairs hallway, there are six women on seven metal folding chairs. And I would like to know, what is the right ratio between King and person? And what is the degree of virginity he truly wants and needs? Because I can tell that some of these women do not have enough. I can hear them saying, “It doesn’t count,” but we know. I can almost see the hinges in their hips, in the corners of their sarcastic smiles. Still, I like to think that we seven are all virgins. People say he likes virgins. Seven per night when he is not out of town. All seven in some way, though it may take fourteen to sixteen hours. That’s what we talk about, if we talk. How he has treated other women. But we have no sure way of knowing, now do we? But all of us, and feeling it, we can still tell ourselves stories of how it’s been for other women with him, even as, and I know this, we all think of ourselves as the one for him, the one he’ll remember and want to marry. “Iheardhe’s...Iheardit’snotsobig,”saysoneof them,blonde. “You can say ‘cock,’” says another, a redhead. “Shush.” “Don’t say it,” a second blonde says. “You women are weird to be squeamish.” “It’s dignity.” “This is dignity?” “You’re not a virgin.” “Oh yes I am.” “Your attitude—” “Is why I’m here.” Pelvis / 25 “If he finds out you’re not a virgin . . .” “He’ll do something,” says the second blonde. “He’ll send us all home,” the first blonde says, eyeing her friend and nodding, but now it seems like a routine the blondes are doing for each other. And suddenly I know: they will go in together. “Don’t worry, girls,” the redhead says. “I’ll bleed. Believe me.” “He won’t know the difference,” I say spitefully. They all look daggers at me. I cannot please the King, I worry, but in my failure to please him I will know that he and I are not the same person and I am bringing myself to him from a separate world and he cannot completely have me. We seven, counting the one in there now, we seven represent the continents. I am the continent of America and I recognize no other. I have come by bus though I have the money to fly. I have the money to fly because I work for a living in the United States. Billy Zip is a boy I used to love and now undate every Saturday night when we don’t go out. Billy Zip is a zero. Is a nothing. In the city of Milwaukee, on Forty-Third Street, against a...