The fire-eater.

She is exotic - she reminds me of Rome, although the woman has never been there. She is beautiful - as fragile as a geisha, as resourceful as a contortionist, as lovely as a tea-leaf-picker in harvest. She is funny, like a Bavarian with a big mug of beer. Although she has never read Camus, I find that in her, I find all the vestiges of my own domesticity. Sometimes, I feel like making slow, passionate love to her, eat away at the shreds of modesty she manages to stow away with her dry cynicism, sometimes, I feel like fucking her so hard that the whites of her eyes show and that she claws my back, desperate to draw blood. I can see that she is enchanted with my virtual self, so full of the enthusiasm I manage to espouse, she finds herself at ease with my vitality, I with hers. She corrects my bad grammar with a laugh that rings through my ears like somebody dropped me in the middle of the Appalachian Trail and left me to fend for myself. She swears by her love for me, and I find myself hesitant to accept it, to tell myself it's more than just a dream. When I tease her about her insecurities, I can feel her jaw tighten as she sulks, and I want to kiss the corner of her lips, reassure her that my love for her is without remorse. And I want to pick her up in my arms, and carry her to my bed, tell her that it is here, in my arms, that she will find the sanity life cannot give her. I have plans for her. So, I will wait.

How to skin a lamb.

Another swig of whisky,
Another gleam in the collective eye,
Another rumble as the clouds part expectantly like the lips of her vagina,
Another drunkard trying to squint at the streetlight,
Another rodent scrambling for the safety of its home,
Another prostitute wrapping her mink stole tightly around her bruised body,
Another tramp chokes on his ale,
Another bartender wipes his hands on his trousers,
Another starstruck couple exchange work anecdotes,
Another pickpocket eyes his next victim surreptitiously,
Another urchin finds a furry mint in his shirt pocket,
Another general beats his wife in his condominium,
Another philosopher reads a Confucian text,
Another husband makes angry love to his tired wife,
Another thief pockets the opal he stole from a fellow man,
Another star processes the hydrogen,
While you regale me with stories of your incomparable incompetence.

This too, shall pass.

Don't look at me like that, you fool. I slept with an older woman. Does that make me so different from you, you who try to look at the hem of her skirt like you might expect it to burst into flames any moment.

I'm an object of surprise now. Suddenly, everyone is coming to terms with Ayan Ray, the Gargantuan man-slut.