Lime Green Buddah Part Two

I thought the original version of this was a little long for one HUB, so I've decided to serialize it.Please check the link to the right to make sure you read part one first!

The following story contains some images which may be objectionable to some readers. Reader discretion is advised.

This Has Been Published on Kindle

Lilly likes fish now. She said my trout was amazing and the Brussels sprouts were “pretty okay.” After I steamed them, I cut them in half, poured melted unsalted butter on them, sprinkled them with organic Swiss cheese, which I let melt. I show her around my apartment, which doesn't take long. She likes the art-deco style of decoration we— my girlfriend and I— have. . The posters of Audrey Hepburn, of James Dean, of skinny Elvis. My bookshelf with In Cold Blood, with Oliver Twist, with Fight Club, with The Odyssey, with poetry books by Whitman, poetry books by Plath, poetry books by Poe, poetry books by Shakespeare, with the Kama Sutra.

“Not mine,” I say. “It's my girlfriend’s.”

She nods.

“Have you read it?”

She nods again and says, “No.”

She seems very impressed that I've read all the books. I tell her I'm an English major and I work in a food cart on 4^th and Main that sells sandwiches stuffed with French fries and your choice of meat with a 'secret sauce' that's actually just Thousand Island salad dressing and she says that's “pretty okay.”

We're sitting on my couch now and we've been talking for an hour. She's a first generation American. Both her parents were born in Hanoi. She was born in Baltimore and moved here six years ago. She had two uncles killed by American G.I.'s during the War when they were just children. We talk about how we're both pacifists and how Vietnam and the War in Iraq were both “terrible tragedies.”. She's 24 years old and she goes to Portland State, majoring in music therapy, which she tries to explain to me but is still beyond my realm of understanding.

“It's basically therapy but instead of using a couch and words, you use music,” She explains to me.

“You can go to school for that?”

“Yes. I'm going to open a private practice.”

“Why don't you just major in music?”

“Because I'm a flute player.”

“So?” I say. I know nothing about music.

“So there's not a big market for flute players.”

I think she's beautiful and before I know it, my lips are on hers and then on her neck. My hands are on her small breasts and she is moaning a little. She leans into me. I feel her hips arch into mine. I feel our hearts beating together. Her skin feels soft and healthy.

We don't even move to the bed before we are both naked and making love ferociously on the couch. We are both skilled lovers and she is letting me know that she approves of my performance. By the time we're finished, we're both in the shower and she tells me that this is her first time showering with a man. I don't believe her. I let her wash me and I wash her. We collapse into bed, still a little damp and fall asleep.

I wake up in my bed, alone and still naked. I sigh and get up and take a quick look around the apartment to confirm that Lilly is indeed gone. I shave and make a pot of coffee. There's a note from Lilly on the counter:

Had a lot of fun last night. Let's do it again soon,

and she again leaves her number. I want to fry some eggs. I put some unsalted butter in the pan, crack open two Cage-free eggs and cook them sunny side up. They cook quickly, spitting and popping at me from the pan. I peel and chop an onion and throw a quarter of it into the pan with the eggs and brown them. I wrap the remaining onion in red saran wrap and put it in my crisper in the fridge. I throw some rye bread (which I will add Marion berry jam too) in the toaster and pan fry some ham steak. When it's all done, I put in on my plate and eat it slowly while sipping my coffee. I'm tired of the games we play. Of the lies we tell. I put my plate and coffee mug in the dishwasher and hand wash all the pans I cooked with and head to the shower. I look at the picture on the wall of Lilly and I last summer at Multnomah Falls and feel myself smile. That was back before we had to pretend to be strangers in order to connect with one another; in order to be intimate. Back before we had to pretend to be liars.

It had been the best day of our young relationship. She’d never been to the Falls and we found a rare sunny Saturday in October. She was wearing her PSU Vikings grey and green hoodie and jeans with Nordic tennis shoes. She had on a Nike baseball cap and she’d pulled her long pony tail through the hole in the back. As we climbed to the top of the Falls, we held hands and smiled. When we reached the summit, we kissed and she giggled. We found a tourist to take our picture.

“Cute couple,” I heard the man’s wife say as they walked away.

She was right. We were cute together.

The game was her idea and we've been playing it for six months now. She’d presented it to me just a few short weeks after that trip. She told me she couldn’t feel close to someone she knew. She told me she couldn’t love me unless we pretended not to care about each other. She told me she needed to keep getting to know me in order to be with me.

I stand in the shower and let the hot water cascade down my body. The shower is mine. Her shampoos. Her conditioners. Her razors. All gone. This place is now devoid of her. There's some black mold growing on the celling which I still need to call the apartment manager about.

I get out of the shower and slowly dry myself with the same mildewed towel I've been using all week. When I'm mostly dry I drop it on the floor. I brush my teeth and when I spit I don't clean it up. My mirror has spit stains. I leave the towel on the floor and put on my ratty boxer shorts and non-matching socks. I step out into the main room of our— my— studio and look for some clean pants, which I find underneath some t shirts that I forgot to dry and which are beginning to mildew. The apartment used to be so immaculate.

I walk back to the kitchen table and grab the note from Lilly and reread several times before crumpling it up. I walk to the coffee table, uncrumple it and read it again. I recrumple it and place the piece of paper on the Buddha ash tray and I light it on fire. I watch it burn while I drink the rest of my coffee, which has turned cold.

all rights reserved. Copyright Justin W. Price, July 2011.

Thanks for Reading.

A FREELANCE WRITER, HONORS STUDENT AND GOVER PRIZE FINALIST, JUSTIN W. PRICE (AKA, PDXKARAOKEGUY)IS A POET, SHORT STORY, BIOGRAPHY AND HUMOR WRITER. HIS POETRY COLLECTION, DIGGING TO CHINA, WAS RELEASED FEBRUARY 2ND, 2013 BY SWEATSHOPPE PUBLICATIONS AND IS AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.COM, BARNES AND NOBLE AND THROUGH YOUR LOCAL BOOKSELLER.

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HE WORKS AS A FREELANCE WRITER, EDITOR, AND GHOST WRITER, AND IS WORKING TOWARDS HIS PH.D. HE LIVES IN A SUBURB OF PORTLAND, OREGON WITH HIS WIFE, ANDREA, THEIR LABRADOODLE, BELLA, SCHNOODLE, SAUVEE AND BLACK MOOR GOLDFISH, HOWARD WOLOWITZ.

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