In a twist I'm sure you'll appreciate, the only time Topless Jan doesn't live up to her name is when she's making love to me in her big, symphonic heirloom bed.
Her hair is wet from a pre-dawn shower and it's splayed out on her pillow like benthic algae. She's laughing hugely—it's deep and sounds burnt around the edges. This isn't our first time; there have been many. But this laugh is like a bitter introduction to someone I've never known. I feel like I'm lording over someone's fat, cackling uncle. It's resounding, like we're being dueling in a tunnel.
She won't stop.
When there are bad smells, I do this thing where I can plug my nose without holding my hands to the nostrils. It's like I push some flaps of internal skin into place and the smell gets stoppered. But my ears—I can't do this with them, so all I'm able to do is listen. I'm whispering "sorrysorrysorry," but she keeps laughing and we keep going as if on auto-pilot, we're disconnected, disembodied, and I know it's not me but I'm not sure what it is or where it came from but it seems primordial like a dinosaur skeleton excavated from the deepest depths and the configuration is insanely bizarre but somehow beautiful so it's pieced together and put it on display, a mosaic of unexplainable truth, at some museum for the world to puzzle over not totally unbelieving but not all that convinced either.
After, Topless Jan takes my foot, crossing her fingers into the toes, palm to sole, and holds it like that, as if it's something precious. The sun's just beginning to drool over the window pane's lip. We don't speak a word.
Topless Jan Xes her arms and lifts off her under top.
It's time to start our day.
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