Red Or Blue?

There are two kinds of sex: Red and Blue.

Red sex grabs my hair and yanks. Pinch. Punch. Please. Slap, one, thank you, slap, two, thank you, slap, three, thank you. Rope burn. Rug burn. Glowing cigarette. Nails carving tracks up my inner thigh. Turn me into meat, screaming meat. Eat me alive.

Blue sex laps at my skin like waves sloshing over a rock, and sliding back, and sloshing over, and sliding back, softly into infinity. Kiss. Kiss. Touch me here. Yes. Like this? Yes. Splash, sink, repeat.

Tell me what to do? Red or Blue? I can’t have both. This choice will literally kill me. Choice is murder, and I’m a pacifist.

Oh, but my hands are dirty. I’ve killed many. Every choice has been a brutal death. And I can’t stop. Like, should I buy this denim calf-length skirt? Am I demure and classic, a blue-jean gal, gotta buy me a Coke to see my knees, buster? I could be, if I bought the skirt. Is that what I want?

I rub the denim between my fingers. The lights in the store are too bright. Pop music whines from hidden speakers, some dude’s ode to his own horniness. His sex is definitely colorless. Plastic sex. Plexiglass sex. I can tell by the rhythm of the bass, too fast, hammering my temples, and the empty excitement plunked on electric keys.

A woman approaches me, wearing a black top, black blazer, black pants, and a name tag that says Sandy. Fuck.

“Hi there! What are you looking for today?”

Nightmare. Why can’t these vultures just let a bitch browse? Sandy’s eyes sparkle with friendliness, a flimsy veneer to hide her hunger for . . . what, a commission, probably, or praise, or someone to laugh at later with the rest of her coiffed and contoured team. I don’t know what gets Sandy off, I only know she wants it from me. And I have so little, nothing to spare. My soul is a pile of crumbs.

“Nothing, I’m fine, thank you,” I squeak. I need to escape Sandy’s hunger, so I hang the skirt back in its row, and thereby kill the blue-jean gal, gut her, cut her throat, no more apple pie for you cunt, she bleeds out in the gutter, forgotten and alone.

These hands . . . what’s done cannot be undone.

Ruby is calling me. Whenever I see her name on my phone, my heart drops into my vulva. Throb, throb. A heat map would paint my pubes like a forest fire.

“Yes,” I whisper.

“Where are you? It’s loud.” She sounds tense. I can hear her face contract, the squint and scrunch. Ruby has a face as changeable as bubbling wax. Only the angles of her nose and cheekbones are fixed, a noble triangle flanked by diamonds, fiercely cut.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I went shopping.”

“Be specific!”

My stomach lurches with embarrassment (and too much coffee, probably) but I can’t hide from Ruby. I tell her the name of the fast-fashion conglomerate into which I’ve stumbled.

“I need you,” she says, no comment on my white-bread taste. “Come pick me up. You can be here in 20 minutes.”

She hangs up. Seconds later, my phone buzzes with a pin of her location. I’m already trotting toward my car.

Ruby! There’s the muddle of office buildings and smog and then there is you, miraculously, exaltedly, you, shining. Ruby! You slice through my brain, the reverses and the ellipses and the maybe-but-wait-but-what-ifs. Ruby. You don’t save me. You create me.

On my own, I’m nothing special. I have no illusions. I’m flimsy, always have been, impossible to take seriously with my floppy little-boy’s haircut and ditzy smile. My spirit animal is a squirrel.

You appear, and I am. I am fire. I am lava. I am gold heated to its bubbling boiling point and transformed into a golden gas and billowing away.

How could I ever have believed there was a choice. Red. Red. Red.

Ruby folds herself into my car and slaps the dashboard twice, one-two.

“Drive.”

She’s chewing a strand of her own hair. Her eyes skitter. I long to comfort her, reach over and caress her neck, run my fingers down her skin and through her thick black hair, but I can’t touch her without permission.

“Where are we going?” I ask.

“You know.”

“I do?” A conspiratorial smile pulls at my lips. I love her games!

“Celeste is waiting. Your anniversary.” Her voice is flat. She looks straight ahead at the road, the dashed white line. “Forgot?”

My smile falls and shatters. My mind halts, unable to move, surrounded by shards. Celeste. If I move, I’ll bleed. Celeste.

“I forgot I told you that,” I say. Ruby exhales sharply, a laugh bitter as almonds. I bite my tongue as hard as I can stand it, which isn’t hard enough. It doesn’t fall off.

Horns honk behind me, drivers shout as they careen past. I’m crawling on the freeway, but Ruby doesn’t have a single scolding word. She keeps chewing her hair, watching the dashed white line stutter stutter its endless threat: Warning! Don’t cross me. Warning! Don’t cross me. Warning! Something twitchy and mean is sitting inside her. A monkey. A stringy banana. A banana with teeth.

Celeste is waiting in a field for me, waiting under the oak tree where she proposed three years ago. Maybe her soft, pale lips are curled in a faint smile, remembering that giddy day. Maybe her soft, pale arms are solemnly crossed. Remembering other days. Maybe her soft, cornflower-blue eyes are worried, scanning the horizon, trying to find my figure among the wandering students and families and lonely artist types who also like our field. I’m late, five minutes late already.

No, she won’t be worried. She knows me.

No matter how slowly I drive, the exit comes, and then there is the park. I pull into a spot by the entrance and try to breathe. I hear Ruby breathing. It’s all I can hear, her breath and mine, a duet. We don’t look at each other. The heat is a beast in the car with us, the sun’s devil pet, a slug on a long leash, crawling up our nostrils and down our throats, thick and heavy with slime.

The sycamores at the edge of the park are still. There is no wind.

“Whatever. Fuck it. Let’s go bowling.” I glance at her and try to smile. She doesn’t meet my eyes.

Ruby’s real name isn’t Ruby. I assume from her accent it’s something Hispanic. She’s cagey about her past. Her family’s in Arizona somewhere, I think. They’re poor. Ruby’s the bird that flew away. Ruby doesn’t have to worry about money. Anyway, I help her out. I have money. I’m an idiot, but I have some money. So does Celeste. We have a joint account.

Celeste. My patient wife. We met at Spangled, the divey gay bar where I used to get blackout drunk and beg girls for kisses in front of the bathroom stalls. Celeste didn’t kiss me. She took me to her place and let me sleep in her guest room. When I woke up, before I even noticed the headache, all I could think about was – who has a fucking guest room? This was some upper echelon shit. Celeste brewed us strong black coffee and brought me along to a Donna Gottschalk exhibit she’d helped curate. It was quietly dazzling, roomfuls of these huge, black-and-white photographs of lesbians in the ‘70s, naked and clothed, alone and coupled, manly and femme and in-between, and all of them fearless as fuck. She said “hi” to people she knew and introduced me, her hand light on the back of my shoulders. Her friends smiled at me, with kind and curious wrinkles around their eyes. Even in my stinking slacks and button-down from the night before, I felt special. I was a find, a mystery. We went to a diner after. She bought me eggs and wiped ketchup off my chin. I was in love with her by sundown and moved into her place within the month.

My phone buzzes. I don’t have to check it. It’s her. I must be 15 or 20 minutes late now. Ruby keeps breathing; I keep breathing. We stare at the motionless sycamores.

“So . . . what happens now?” I ask. “Should I get out?”

“You have to.”

“And . . .” My body revolts from the question, but it insists on pouring out, “And you’ll stay here? In the car?”

“No.”

At last, at last, like a drum roll that crashes into cymbals, like water that bursts through a dam, she turns to look at me. I lift my hands and jerk back toward the window, an involuntary lurch of self-defense. Her face is terrifying. I’m in terror. Her eyes—they are as naked as a kitten’s underbelly. Her lips are pressed together, as if to ward off tears.

“No, I’m coming with you,” she says. Her voice is diluted into a watery memory of itself. “You told me—” Her voice cracks. I scratch my cheeks, agonized. “You told me you were leaving her. You’ve been telling me. Well, you’re a coward, obviously. A coward and a child. So I’m coming with you, to make sure you don’t fuck it up this time.”

Who am I? I am a bloodshot eyeball on wings. I flap above my body and Ruby’s body. God her body, no I can’t help noticing, even now, how her jeans hug her ass, her thighs, her thigh muscles, all her muscles buzzing with the bundled power of electric cords. I want to lick the space where her neck meets her shoulders, to feel that tingle on my tongue.

But she is walking toward the park entrance, toward Celeste, and I am following, one pace behind. She is walking quickly. The confrontation hurtles toward us. The moment I’ll say what I said I’d say. “Celeste, I . . .”

I don’t know why I never asked Ruby her real name. Yes, I do. I’m a coward and a child. Celeste, well, I married a mommy-figure, obviously. Everyone thinks it; they all say it behind my back. Everyone thinks that Ruby is my juvenile rebellion, a Freudian raspberry I’m blowing at mommy. Duh. That’s why I can’t be bothered to wonder about her real name. Other people are never fully real to a child. They appear only as characters in the child’s narrative, as obstacles or saviors.

No. That’s not me. Children are self-obsessed, and I have no self at all. No past, no future, not even a navel to gaze at. That’s why I need Ruby. To breathe existence into me like God whistling into the initial singularity, scattering my atoms like dandelion seeds and singing my bland chaos into form.

So why is she asking me to make a stand? Me? Choose? There’s no one here to do it! It’s a paradox. I can’t! I can’t!

“I can’t.”

Ruby whips back toward me and hisses, “Keep walking.”

I shut my mouth. I feel bad but also good. Ruby’s furious. That I can understand. That I can handle. Let her excoriate me, rain flaming vengeance upon me. Just keep us away from Celeste.

But with every step we’re getting closer. Once we enter the park gate, Ruby pauses, waiting for me to lead the way. I step up to her side and reach for her hand. To my relief, she lets me. Her palm is dry and warm. Her fingers anchor me.

“I’m scared,” I whisper. She squeezes my hand, but I feel her body tense.

“Yeah, I know,” she says. “But I deserve this. It’s time.”

A family steps around us to get out the gate, laughing in the sun, aliens from an unknown planet. The kids’ mouths are smeared with ice cream. One rolls a hula hoop. Take me with you, aliens! Let me board your ship.

I turn to Ruby and draw a wavering breath . . .

There is another world, a better one. One where I tell my mistress I’m sorry, so sorry, drop her hand, and run into the arms of my patient wife. We drink wine and talk until we get hungry. We pick up Indian takeout from our favorite place. Celeste lights a candle, but it’s only for ambience. It melts into its holder, unspilled. We have gentle, familiar sex until the moon shines through all the windows and we are bathed in blue, two silk worms swimming in soft, blue, silent silk. She falls asleep. I stare at the streetlights, watching the moths do their berserk dance of desire and I wish I could cry, but I can’t, so I eat some more garlic Naan and watch TV till I pass out.

There is another world, a better one. One where I tell my mistress I’m sorry, so sorry, drop her hand and run out of the park. I jump in my car and drive away in a fever dream, taking random turns until I find myself in a familiar neighborhood—near Joey’s place, or Daphne’s, or any friend I don’t secretly want to fuck. They boil me tea. I take one sip and dump it out and fill the glass with rum and then I drink. I drink till I am all the colors, me, only me. I vomit flags of rainbows, proud and shining. After a couple weeks of tears and drama, I sign up for a welding class. The teacher is cute, but I don’t flirt. I devote myself to chastity, vegan cooking, welding. When I open my nightly bottle to start my nightly binge, I gaze into my inner emptiness and blink. Everyone says I’m being smart, that I need to learn to be single. Everyone says this is good for me. I pop the cap and chug.

There is another world, a better one. One where Celeste’s face crumples. Celeste, I have to tell you... One where she begs me to reconsider and I say I’m sorry, so sorry, but this is the woman I love. Ruby admires my strength and through her eyes, so do I. I’m proud of you, she whispers, back in the car. Our sex that night opens the gates of the underworld. I see all the angels’ shimmering tails and feel their hot, forked tongues.

There are infinite worlds, and some must be worse, but I know most are better than this.

Celeste didn’t cry. She didn’t even look surprised. She was sitting on a blanket, leaned against the tree like a ragdoll, limp and still and dead-eyed, watching us approach. I hadn’t been sure whether she knew, but by the time we stood in front of her, it was obvious. I’d had no secrets from my patient wife. And then I saw the picnic basket beside her, a wicker basket with a lid. I thought of all the treats inside that she’d prepared, the wine we wouldn’t drink. I was the one who crumpled. I was the one who cried, snot pouring from my nose. Celeste and Ruby waited and glared. Finally, Ruby spoke up. I just sniveled and looked at the grass, a child waiting while the grown-ups sorted out the details.

And now I’m frying eggs for Ruby, whose real name, I learned, is Jane. She couldn’t believe I didn’t know. I tried to make it a joke, a charming quirk, but she was disgusted. Everyone is disgusted with me. I have revealed my true self and now I’m stuck inside it, flapping and clawing from within my skin.

I crack the egg on the pan, and I know. I know that my true self is the slimy egg white with yellow at its core. I know that Ruby is my broken shell. I know that I will find another vessel to pour myself into. It’s only a question of when and who, not whether. I can’t help it. I’m an egg. No salt, no chives, no hot sauce. Only egg.

The lights at Spangled are dim as ever, but even in the eternal twilight, I can see the grime in the cracks of the wooden bar. I pick a stool, any stool and give it a spin.