thighs—she had an outrageous mane of thick black hair, a pair of mountainous breasts, seismically rising and falling under her clothes, filling me with violent desire. Her legs were effeminately crossed beneath a knee-length orange skirt made of a thin stretchy material, and one of her flip-flops—she was wearing orange flip-flops that matched the skirt—one of her sweaty squishy flip-flops dangled from the big toe of her bare foot, which she held partially aloft, bobbing the flip-flop, slapping it softly against her heel by pushing on the front of it with her toe. Her toenails were painted red. This faint smell, this weird oily briny coppery smell—this smell, I believed, originated from
her
.
I put down the stick or stone or stuffed animal or whatever it was that Lydia had just thrust into my hands and begged me to categorize, and I approached this woman, those legs, those yellow-and-green-stained feet, those blood-red toenails, those sweaty squishy orange flip-flops—that smell—and I crawled across the room to her. My limp leash dragged tinkling on the floor behind me. This girl was gnawing on the end of her pen and slapping her flip-flop against her heel. She realized that I was coming for her. She put down her pen, allowed the leg in question to descend and crossed it with the other, and as she did, that curious odor sharply, briefly spiked in pungency, and I had absolutely no doubt now that it was she whom I sought. I was getting curiouser and curiouser. I came closer, and at first the girl reached out to me with her pretty slender hands—the nail of each of her fingers was likewise painted red to match her toes—and I sniffed at her fingers, and determined that they were not what I was after. My head dove down to herlegs. I sniffed her grass-stained feet, her sweaty squishy orange flip-flops… getting closer, closer…
The girl emitted an involuntary squeak of shock. She recoiled from me in terror. She shoved her hands deep between her legs and bunched up the material of the orange skirt. I was trying to burrow my head beneath her skirt.
This is what I was doing when Lydia, in a fury, snatched at my leash and jerked me back, choking me. She tore me away from her.
I noticed then that all the other students were laughing. Roaring, thunderous with gleeful derisive laughter. All except for the girl herself—my wild-maned red-toed sweaty sticky squishy smelly girl—no, she was not laughing. She was burning. Her face was stained such a brutal shade of crimson that it looked like she was tied to the stake and burning, burning to death for passively committed blasphemies of medieval imagination, burning in order to be purified of some supernatural miasma cleansable only by passionate licks of fire, burning for witchcraft, burning, perhaps, for the visitation of an incubus…
Lydia’s face was equally red. She dismissed her class. I was severely reprimanded. I was ashamed. It would be a very long time before she ever took me to another one of her classes. Soon afterward, after I humiliated and embarrassed Lydia by my inability to perform before her students—well, not long afterward—actually, I have no idea how long afterward it was, but it was definitely afterward and not beforeward, of that I’m sure—I spoke to Lydia for the first time.
Maybe it was October, or at least October-ish, perhaps early November—I certainly wasn’t cognizant of the months of the calendar changing from one to the next, but I do recall that the weather had definitely veered toward the hibernal: the skies were grayer, the days shorter and darker, and the scarves, jackets, jeans, and sensible shoes had evilly chased away the tank tops and shortsand skirts and flip-flops, sins which these articles committed annually in Chicago and for which I never forgave them.
I was sitting with Lydia on my squishy blue mat in the lab. I don’t recall what the other scientists were doing; they were probably busying themselves about the
her
.
I put down the stick or stone or stuffed animal or whatever it was that Lydia had just thrust into my hands and begged me to categorize, and I approached this woman, those legs, those yellow-and-green-stained feet, those blood-red toenails, those sweaty squishy orange flip-flops—that smell—and I crawled across the room to her. My limp leash dragged tinkling on the floor behind me. This girl was gnawing on the end of her pen and slapping her flip-flop against her heel. She realized that I was coming for her. She put down her pen, allowed the leg in question to descend and crossed it with the other, and as she did, that curious odor sharply, briefly spiked in pungency, and I had absolutely no doubt now that it was she whom I sought. I was getting curiouser and curiouser. I came closer, and at first the girl reached out to me with her pretty slender hands—the nail of each of her fingers was likewise painted red to match her toes—and I sniffed at her fingers, and determined that they were not what I was after. My head dove down to herlegs. I sniffed her grass-stained feet, her sweaty squishy orange flip-flops… getting closer, closer…
The girl emitted an involuntary squeak of shock. She recoiled from me in terror. She shoved her hands deep between her legs and bunched up the material of the orange skirt. I was trying to burrow my head beneath her skirt.
This is what I was doing when Lydia, in a fury, snatched at my leash and jerked me back, choking me. She tore me away from her.
I noticed then that all the other students were laughing. Roaring, thunderous with gleeful derisive laughter. All except for the girl herself—my wild-maned red-toed sweaty sticky squishy smelly girl—no, she was not laughing. She was burning. Her face was stained such a brutal shade of crimson that it looked like she was tied to the stake and burning, burning to death for passively committed blasphemies of medieval imagination, burning in order to be purified of some supernatural miasma cleansable only by passionate licks of fire, burning for witchcraft, burning, perhaps, for the visitation of an incubus…
Lydia’s face was equally red. She dismissed her class. I was severely reprimanded. I was ashamed. It would be a very long time before she ever took me to another one of her classes. Soon afterward, after I humiliated and embarrassed Lydia by my inability to perform before her students—well, not long afterward—actually, I have no idea how long afterward it was, but it was definitely afterward and not beforeward, of that I’m sure—I spoke to Lydia for the first time.
Maybe it was October, or at least October-ish, perhaps early November—I certainly wasn’t cognizant of the months of the calendar changing from one to the next, but I do recall that the weather had definitely veered toward the hibernal: the skies were grayer, the days shorter and darker, and the scarves, jackets, jeans, and sensible shoes had evilly chased away the tank tops and shortsand skirts and flip-flops, sins which these articles committed annually in Chicago and for which I never forgave them.
I was sitting with Lydia on my squishy blue mat in the lab. I don’t recall what the other scientists were doing; they were probably busying themselves about the
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