Mouthfeel
Elizabeth Ellen
I awake beside you, repelled by my thirst, which is voluminous. I fill the bathroom sink with cold water and submerge my tongue. I lap at the water like a dog in a toilet bowl: unselfconsciously. I lift my head and the excess runs off my chin and down my neck.
I crawl back to bed on hands and knees, a trail of water droplets documenting my path across your floor, and wedge myself beneath you, nose first, curling the rest of me into a tight ball like you like, like you requested of me the first time we slept together.
"You taste like shit," I told you then, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, dragging my tongue down the seam of your shirtsleeve; which was both a fair statement as well as a boldfaced lie.
I remember something else I told you that first night. I told you I couldn't swim. We'd been out on the lake. The ice around the dock was beginning to crack. You told me you couldn't swim either, which felt like something. If I hadn't found your high school trophies in the back of your closet, it might still.
Sorry EE, I lost the bio you sent, until I email her and get a response, just know that Elizabeth Ellen will kick your ass if you insinuate in any way that she might be a pussy. She is also the author of Before You She Was a Pitbull, and her stories can be found everywhere.