First Draft; Story for 408: A Yellow Submarine

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"A Yellow Submarine"

His jeans are crispy. He doesn’t use fabric softener. He lifts my favorite powder blue cami over my head. Did I shave my pits? I hope they don’t smell. He doesn’t look repulsed, so maybe I’m okay. I don’t know why he thinks I like it when he kisses my neck. It is a snail slithering its slimy, snot-covered body on my skin, leaving a sticky trail behind it. It is marking its path and its territory, wondering which flower in the garden it can terrorize next.

He has amazing hands, though. He knows how to use them; he knows how to flutter his fingers just the right way that sets the bumps on my skin rising to the height of a skyscraper. If I could only have his hands, the two faceless, lifeless servants then I’d be eternally satisfied. I like it when he leaves the TV on in his bedroom whenever we fool around. I always get so bored with his incessant tonguing, but at least I’m caught up on episodes of Lost.

He’s fiddling with my bra; he’s clumsy. I reach around behind me and unhook the clasps for him, then throw the white lace cups at his face. He thinks it’s playful and endearing, but I roll my eyes with indifference. I lie on my back, on top of the sheets of his double bed, with my breasts bare and all he can do is stare at them. It always seems to be a sub zero temperature in his room and now I’m shivering. I try pulling his arms towards me, but he’s too stiff and won’t budge. Maybe he doesn’t want to get too close for fear that I’ll gouge out his chestnut eyes with the shriveled and taut raisins on my chest. I wish he would just man up, grab a hold of them, and conquer me like a Viking brute, but he’s more like a Victorian gentleman steeped with brandy after a cocktail party.


On our first date, he suggested that we play an icebreaker game. I was mousy and so quiet that he might have been losing his patience trying to strike up a conversation with me. The game was to tell one another a vulnerable secret or experience from our past. I scanned my brain and examined all the events of my youth, which raced through in microsecond flashes of images. When I didn’t say anything right away, he cleared his throat and began to talk.

There was an insecure girl and she began with occasional slaps to the face. He couldn’t always physically be there for her, and she resented that. Then she became violent. She swung right hooks to his jaw. Her elbows dug into his ribs. He was too ashamed to call the police and believed all dignity and manhood relied on his ability to handle her, but she overpowered him. So he walked away beaten and broken-hearted, reluctant to touch and to love, and she quickly found someone else to happily drown with her fears.

When he was through, he was red in the face and stared blankly into space. I didn’t know him that well, yet, and I wasn’t sure how to console him. So I blurted out my icebreaker.

“I first masturbated to orgasm when I was 13,” I said, darting my eyes to him. “I felt so ashamed of myself that I actually prayed to God, asking for forgiveness after I did it.”

I was expecting an eruption of laughter, but his beautiful browns only looked into mine with an amused smile. He patted my arm tenderly and said, “That’s very cute.”

We had planned for the simple dinner and a movie date that evening, but we sat in his jalopy canary yellow Volkswagen. We went nowhere. We remained huddled close together, unveiling confessions and submersed under the protection of our solitude.


Now as I lay topless on his bed and he loosens the buttons on his crispy jeans, I start to have jitters coupled with nervous girlish giggles. He pulls off the blue jeans, followed by his heather gray boxer briefs. Oh Jesus—it’s like a rifle. I cover my mouth, hoping he doesn’t see the abject horror splayed upon my face. I feel like I’m about to meet my impending doom, like the crew aboard U-47. He starts to work on my jeans and successfully pulls them off, along with my bikini panties.

I reach to my right to his bed stand and reluctantly grab a box of condoms. I hand him one from the package and as he is rolling the slippery latex on himself, I fight the urge to laugh in his face. It is utterly ridiculous. It’s a submarine, gearing up to plunge into the deep caverns of uncharted waters. His body looms over me and he supports himself on his knees and arms. When our eyes connect, there is a moment of clarity, like a sip of red wine paired to accent a meaty meal. I see his face, an old soul marred by a lifetime of feeling inadequate. I can’t laugh at him; I shouldn’t. He smiles and lays a kiss on my lips so powerful that dozens of colors dance behind my closed eyelids. I brace my hands on the top of his broad shoulders and right before we take the plunge, I ask him to turn the television off. He returns to me and his hips meet mine. I am no longer laughing or afraid. Down, down we go.