Odete

September 16, 2003 2:39 p.m.

This is when I stand in a murk-shadowed street corner in San Paolo, drinking vodka from a paper bag with a camellia in my slicked-down hair, breasts taped down into a soft gray suit and brocade tie, not quite making the look of a man--but almost. This is when the sea wind picks up the paper lanterns and swings them like tango partners, luffing their pinks and greens up over the clotheslines.

This is when, in the vodka-haze, she sidles up to me with her terrible black eyes, Dia de los Muertos sockets, hungry and macabre. She hooks her hands into my hips, pressing hot wax-bones into my belly, her breath the sick-sweet of cheap porto and semen. This is how I look I her: through a glaze of alcohol and lust steaming my eyes like filthy windows, through the salt air whining into my skin, through her panting throat, smooth and brown, which bobs like a message-bottle tossed from some unspeakable island.

This is when I feel her press against me, her small breasts--she cannot be more than fifteen--coal-hard against mine, the folds of her cheap linen skirt making obscene noises as they move over my slacks as I imagine she will move over me with those sweat-sweet limbs. I want to put my hands in her hair, thick and engine-oil black, I want to hook a finger into her pink mouth and touch her teeth, her tongue, the roof of her mouth.

This is when she kisses me and I can taste men on her greedy little tongue, I can taste her whole night previous to me. This is when our teeth knock and it is as awkward as this sort of thing always is, her on tiptoes to suck on my lower lip and bite hard enough to draw blood, smiling with feral beauty as she licks the red splash from her lips.

And this is when she points to her chest and whispers throatily, �Odete. Vinte dolares.�

--By Anais, On Hearing June's Voice