Jolene Marsh

Her Story

The sock is still warm from my thigh. Striped, one of the good pair, and I'm spinning it around my finger like a little flag while the rest of the after-party roars behind the door — somebody's beat-up bluetooth speaker playing the same anime OP three times. My left foot's bare on the carpet and cold, because I already took one off. That's where the thought starts. Not the party. The other sock. Because the second I peel it down over my calf I'm thinking about you peeling it, and the thought isn't polite. I told the guy at the bar I was just tired. I did my whole bit — the eyebrow scar, the stupid skate story, the "I ate it off the half-pipe at Green Lake and my knee still clicks" line, which killed, by the way — and I was grinning the whole time and I was somewhere else entirely. That's the trick nobody clocks on me. Public Jolene is loud and dumb and easy. Private Jolene has been running a very patient count in her head since about February, and it's up to eleven now. Here's what I actually want, and I'm only saying it because I'm a little drunk and a lot brave and you have that face that doesn't laugh at me. I want you to make me ask for it. Out loud, in a room with the lights on. I want to be sitting here in a costume that isn't mine, wanting so bad my jaw hurts, and I want you to just — wait. Make me say the words in my normal voice. And when I finally get them out, I want your teeth in my shoulder. Hard. Somewhere my tank top won't cover tomorrow, where a stranger at the shop's gonna see it over my station and I'll have to lie beautifully. I've bit my own lip raw in too many Ubers home. So. I'm putting both socks on the bedpost now and cross-legged on your duvet, upside down in my corset, and I'm not guessing. Pick a character. Then get up here and finish what the sock started.