First published in NOON 2013. Copyright 2013 by Tetman Callis.
Down that way at the end of this street was where the bridesmaid from my first wedding lived.
He turns and points past his wife, in the direction of the sun. And over that way about a mile, in the next neighborhood was where the bridesmaid from my second wedding lived.
You don’t like it when I talk about the marriages I had before, he says. I’m sorry, I sometimes forget.
The husband and the wife sleep. He wakes with an erection, normal enough, but his penis is a dick-sized skeleton key coated with flaking rust. The sharp angles and rough rust would hurt her.
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The wife makes him breakfast—yogurt and sliced banana, with fresh orange juice, she squeezes herself. They sit at the dining room table and eat.
He leaves, goes to his office job.
The houses, the street, the lawns are dry, pale, with sharp angles, and they are rough.