Short fiction by Karen Hertzberg
“I thought I told you to leave,” he says. Slow. Steady.
He sits on the wide sill of his apartment window, watching the afternoon parade of cars, taxis, bikes and pedestrians three stories below. He hears her make a soft noise behind him–that same jagged sigh, almost like crying, almost like the sobbing sound she makes at orgasm. But she doesn’t answer him, of course, and he doesn’t bother to turn around.
Finally, he hears her slow footfalls tick on the hardwood, receding, marking time to the rise and fall of his chest. He inhales the faint contrail of her aroma—not perfume, but some amalgamation of cherry vanilla body lotion, baby shampoo and the kitten scent of her breath. He wants to turn and pull her to the floor, penetrate, fuck to absolution. But he can’t be absolved, and he always hears the cadence of her heels as she goes. She is never gone for long.
~~~~
At breakfast the next morning, he fixes pancakes and eggs. He is reminded of the feelings of disgust and longing that always mingled inside him as he watched her fork food between her dainty lips. She would eat with tiny rabbit bites, miniscule chewing motions that drove him nuts. Today, however, he will toss the morning’s feast down the garbage disposal. Though he doesn’t eat much lately, he always overdoes it.