 |
|
| Diane Payne |
 |
| Diane teaches creative writing at University of Arkansas-Monticello,where she is also faculty advisor of Foliate Oak Literary Magazine, http://www.foliateoak.uamont.edu. She is the author of two novels: "Burning Tulips" and "A New Kind of Music". She has been published in hundreds of literary magazines, which most recently include: Fiction International, The Rambler, Tea Party, and Arkansas Literary Forum. http://home.earthlink.net/~dianepayne/ |
| Excuse Number Thirty-Nine Friends say I’m too fussy, expectations are too high. They want me in bed with a lover but they’d be happy if I was in bed with anyone. Think this abstinence, this lingering celibacy is unhealthy, even though I remind them it just isn’t that easy. But it is, they chant. Take the literary man. We met for coffee and I wondered if he really was a bicyclist. I didn’t like imagining him in lycra, but he seemed decent enough. We lived one hundred miles apart, so I wouldn’t have to worry about seeing too much of this fellow. But it was his e-mails that caused me pause. Not once did he phone, which may have been a blessing after getting the e-mail about all the wonders he could perform with his tongue. When I didn’t respond enthusiastically, or at all, he e-mailed back that many women could attest to this skill. As if I was going to check his references. I’d rather be surprised to discover a lover has a powerful tongue than be waiting for this cosmic experience to happen and find myself lying in bed wishing he was wearing lycra, anything but nudity, and that dreadful tongue lapping away like a starved dog, leaving me pondering which women really enjoyed this, certain they were fibbing because he also claimed to be a good cook and they were waiting for the sex to be over so they could finally watch him put his tongue to good use chewing on his delightful meal instead of waiting for him to finish his delirious excavation where he believed his tongue was bringing a woman to joy, while she was just waiting for dinner. You don’t know that my friends groaned. Friends are right. I’ll be sleeping alone for a long time. |