The Silver Fox pulled me aside on my last day of work, ran his tongue over his teeth as he dissected my Shoo-Fly tattoo for the 900th time. “Your not leaving because I scared ya…are ya?”
He sucked his teeth and smiled that smile at me, the one where his teeth are bared and just slightly spread, and I can see his tongue sneaking around in the dark of his mouth. I puffed up and told him I had something better. And I do.
And he doesn’t scare me because of what he’ll do to me. He scares me because I imagine what I might do to him. He makes me so mad that my scalp burns and beads of sweat pop out on my forehead, worse than three-alarm chili. Or Indian food on a hot day. He makes me so mad that I can’t think, and my fingers cur into fists so tight my arms shake.
And goddammit, there are 50 good reasons why I left. And one of those reasons belongs to him. He’s 1 in 50, that old Silver Fox, who surrounds himself with luscious tarts that giggle and fawn like intoxicated mice, with red eyes and soft fur and mouths made for gaping and tearing. His sharpened pencil twitches at the thought of bearing down on little mice, one by one.
And me, too. He imagined me in a million ways as he stood behind my chair singing, “Kelly Kelly Bo Belly…” as my skin crawled all over itself and my sex crumbled to dust in my lap.
He’s a parasite. And he won. And I left my backbone behind me in the wake of one too many uncomfortable phrases.
EatsProse 