Yellow Mama E zine

A Story

 

by Bernice Holtzman

 

        She sat in the room, vaguely hearing the speaker drone on and on. She had long ago stopped even pretending to listen. “Goddamn, I have to get out of here,” she thought. “I need some excitement, this is boring beyond belief.”

        Then, magically, the watch on her wrist said 3:00 and she was gone. She left the building and headed downtown, feeling the buzz she always had when she got like this, that feeling that anything could happen and she was ready.

        She passed a guy leaning against a wall and saw him give her a looking over. She looked back. They both smiled.

       “Got a match?” he asked.

        “Yeah,” she said, digging in her bag. She handed him the book.

        “Thanks, baby,” he said. He was her type, finally. Most of the guys who came on to her bored her worse than that speaker.

        “My band’s playing tonight,” he said. “Want to come?”

        “Sure,” she said.

        Great. A musician. That always got to her, probably some primal thing with the music, or maybe it was the quasi-fame and that these guys were usually inaccessible, she wasn’t sure.

        “I’ve got some of our tapes at my place. Want a little preview?”

        “Why not,” she said, and they walked a few blocks to his building and went inside.

 

        His apartment was four flights up. That was okay, hers was five. The minute they were behind his door he grabbed her, not scary but strong, the way she liked it. They were making out, really going at it, and suddenly he stopped, took her hand, and led her into the bedroom. “He’s got a one-bedroom, I’m jealous,” she thought, as he took off her blouse. She took off her bra. He told her she was beautiful. This was great. She took off the rest of her clothes and helped him take off his. He was already hard, she loved that. He sat on the bed and pulled her down with him. He stretched out and pulled her up till she was sitting on him. Whenever she really looked for excitement she found it, and this had been so easy.

        Too easy.

        “Goddamn, I have to get out of here,” she thought.

 

        Bernice Holtzman © 1991.

 

Bernice Holtzman is an author of poems, short fiction, autobiographical pieces, two (so far) children’s stories, and all manner of clever commentary. Her work has appeared in The National Poetry Magazine of the Lower East Side. That was 30 years ago, and she’s still talking about it.