XY XX Jonathan Papernick
XYXX Copyright 2013 by Jonathan Papernick www.jonpapernick.com Facebook: Jonathan Papernick Twitter: @Jonnypapers All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. Printed in Cambridge, MA on The Harvard Bookstore s Espresso Book Machine. First Printing, 2013 Cover Design by Jonathan Papernick and Jenna Greenberg Interior design by Jenna Greenberg ISBN 978-1-939606-07-5 Fonts used: Excelsior, New Caledonia and Orniste Artwork By: We Were One Franz von Bayros What Is It Then, Between Us? Egon Schiele In Flagrante Delicto Aubrey Beardsley The Cinq À Sept Girl Max Ernst Saudade Aubrey Beardsley
Table of contents we were one what is it then, between us? in flagrante delicto the cinq À sept girl saudade /6 /10 /28 /44 /56
The following stories appeared in: What is it Then, Between Us? Nerve.com and There Is No Other. In Flagrante Delicto Hot Street. The Cinq À Sept Girl Exile: The Literary Quarterly. Saudade Frontier Psychiatrist.
I too lived Brooklyn, of ample hills, was mine; I too walk d the streets of Manhattan Island, and bathed in the waters around it; I too felt the curious abrupt questionings stir within me, In the day, among crowds of people, sometimes they came upon me, In my walks home late at night, or as I lay in my bed, they came upon me. I too had been struck from the float forever held in solution; I too had receiv d identity by my Body; That I was, I knew was of my body and what I should be, I knew I should be of my body. from crossing brooklyn ferry Walt Whitman
we were one?
jonathan papernick /7 There is a girl with dyed black hair and ink on her skin. Skulls and keys and hot tongues of flame twine on her soft, thin arms, sad blue wings at her pale back, flat and dead as a lost dream. Two sketched guns ride her slim hips, an old bet lost wild, coked-out days and nights. Her eyes are brown and lined with black, a small speck of a scar the lone flaw; her breasts, pierced at the pink tips, small cups of sweet milk; her lips red as a heart in the heat of new love. She reads books on the train, on the street, at work, at home, she reads. She reads to get lost, to put out of her mind all that she will not speak. In her room with the roar of the train near, dull voices on the hot night air, she drinks wine glass by glass, clothes tossed to the floor, stuffed bear at her side. It is hard to live in her skin, the thoughts she thinks, too strange to dare speak out loud. There is no one else who knows, not her best friend, not her shrink. She was still a child, just twelve years old. Dad far off at war, far off at home, too, mom in bed all day long, checked out. They were all there was and the laws they made were new. Their long hair not cut in years, starved forms pressed close, lean as a pair of deer, young bones meshed like barbed wire. It felt right. It was right. Twinned in the
we were one /8 dark, hands, lips, tongues, they filled each other. No shame, no doubt, just the act of love and all that comes with it. And what was it like to wake and find the bed cold, to learn he froze in the night, snow piled high, not a word said? She feels as if she has been torn in two, cut off from some life force, this other half dead in the ground all these years. There are times in the dark of night when sleep won t fall that he comes to her and says, I will wait for you. And she says, I know. When she spreads her legs, eyes closed, hands bound tight to the bed frame, and a new man who claims to love her more than he can say moves in her, she thinks of him still, speaks his name in her mind and wants to say, wants so much to cry out: If you could have loved as I did, if you could have had what I had, you would know what I have lost!
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what is it then, between us??
jonathan papernick /11 Hightower lay naked in the cold darkness waiting for Jenny to return from the bathroom. The heat was out again and he stroked himself absently beneath the sheets, listening for the radiator to rattle and kick on. Ever since she had taken it from behind on a pile of coats at a Christmas party in Canarsie years back, Hightower knew she was all he would ever want. At one time or another, he had done Jenny upside down and backwards and everywhere in between: he d gone down on her on the F train and flicked his tongue so she d come as the train burst out of the tunnel and shot past distant doll-like Lady Liberty, he d spanked her with the sole of his shoe and she d cried out for more, he d even fucked her in the ass dozens of times and she had bucked against him, saying harder, Vinny, harder. But, now, her ass was off limits and she had scolded him last month when he had come in her mouth. You wanna get me pregnant or not? she d said. Hightower couldn t figure out her cycle and he was forced to find relief in Jenny s perfumed lotions, gels and creams, mixed with his own spit to find the slickest glide. What are you doing? Jenny stood in the doorway wearing the sickly snot-colored bathrobe that Hightower