Primal
Flash Fiction by Katie Nickas
You want art? Let’s make art. Paint a bowl of fruit. Strawberry, kiwi, watermelon. Too big and juicy. He won’t eat it. Throw yourself against the wall like you are the wall or the fruit. He comes at you like graffiti. Spray of obscenities. Yellow. Green. Turquoise. Red. Twist-and-glide along your curves. Graffiti. Sgraffito. Read the words when he steps back: I want to fuck your pussy. Double take and they’ve changed. Cruder. More honest. I want to fuck your cunt.
Paint your own pictures. Masterpieces. Hang them. Invite him over to see. Watch his jaw hang. So you’re good, he says. Threatens to steal. Your creations. Your life. Primal scene. Inverted scene. That look. Like mood rings. Or coins. Neither heads nor tails. It speaks and coerces. Let him in, it says. It’s the only way.
Try other things. Sit on the couch. Close. Little space between. Maybe none. Outer edge for each. Light bodies. Blue screen. Blue faces sneering. Bodies fragile. Distant. Animal. Foxy, squirrelly, rascal. Talk in a hurry. Lean forward. Let him see. Side-eye his blue pants. Imagine his blue, frosted dick underneath and your future blue-tinted unicorn sex.
Cook dinner. Watch how small he cuts the pieces. You’re going to eat it, he says. You don’t have to like it. You don’t want to like it.
Find a bra on the sidewalk. Black. Lace. Flung. Leave a bra on your living room floor. The same. Watch his jaw hang.
Heteronorms continue. Chaos ensues. Emotional. Street shouting. Wielding of respective weapons. His tenderness. Your sensuality. Crunch of leaves. Moon’s monthly wax. Monthly pussy twitch. Primal scene. Happens so often, you don’t even notice.
Katie Nickas writes literary fiction centered on themes of existentialism, sexuality, and transcendence. Her work is published or forthcoming in journals including Asymmetry, The Furious Gazelle, formercactus, Milk + Beans, Reflex Fiction, Sidereal Magazine, Soft Cartel, and STORGY.
Katie Nickas | @katienickas | www.katienickas.wordpress.com | Instagram: @katienickas