He Took Her

He wrecks my rhythm.

 

Looking like a sumo wrestler in the off-season.  Slack muscles.  Layers of blubber so deep they carbon-date back to that very first primal layer of baby fat that he never outgrew. 

 

And that smell.  I know it from somewhere.

 

Thinking…thinking.  I’ve got it:  Hawaii.  A childhood memory.  Swimming in the ocean with my mother.  My single mother who had resolved herself never to marry despite a dizzying array of suitors — among them CIA agents, high-ranking government officials, and a handful of taut cabana boys who thought wrongly that they even stood a chance.  She cast them all aside and devoted herself only to me, her daughter, her one true love. 

 

I had been watching underwater while she showed me the correct way to execute the frog kick when a reef shark with a deformed, corkscrew fin slid out behind her.  The ocean dampened my scream when he opened his face and crushed her in two bites.  He turned to flash me a toothy grin that was gushing her blood. 

 

Thrashing made me the perfect next target, but I was yanked from the red foam by an old Hawaiian who had been snacking on roasted poi in banana leaves just before the attack.  That sickening sweet stink was still on his breath when he pulled me up by one arm.

 

And in this moment, dripping milk in this dim apartment, all I can smell is that stench of rancid poi leaking from under this fat man’s arms — arms which I actually cannot see but have to be buried somewhere beneath the touchable chub and smooth skin that is unique to Polynesians.  And with the deftness of a greased ninja, one blubbery wing snakes backward, grabs me by the dental floss and flips me twice in the air.  I land on my knees in front of him with such force, they are definitely shattered. 

 

Fucking fat Hawaiian.  Now I’ll need surgery.

 

“Where did your people take her?”  I hissed.

 

Already, he has my hands wrapped in a tight cat’s cradle made of unwaxed dental floss.  I like the look.  My hands seem slutty in fishnets. 

 

“Where did we take her?  If you knew anything at all, Princess, you’d be way more concerned about where she took us.”