Free Death, Sleep & the Traveler by John Hawkes

I said slowly, filling the sentence with the white cadences of my native speech, and extending my hand which for a moment she lightly held, “and I do not enjoy the prospect of open portholes.”
    She was sitting on her heels, her knees were spread, I could see the outline of a label sewn inside her bikini pants as well as a little pubic darkness protruding like natural lace at the edges of the crotch. The sensation of her two hands on my extended hand was light and natural.
    “Very well,” she said, “I don’t wish to cause you anxiety.”
    She smiled, I noted just below her navel a small scarin the nasty shape of a fishhook, for a moment she raised my hand and touched it with her two dry lips. And then she drew back from me, got off the bed, rummaged about in an open drawer from which whole fistfuls of cheap underthings had already been half pulled, as if by some aggressive fetishist, until she found what she wanted and rose from where she had squatted, displaying to best advantage the roundness and symmetry of her little backside, and returned to me with the battered oblong ease clutched to her chest. I rolled up from my slouching position. I sat on the edge of the bed. She sat beside me with the ease on her knees and her shining skin smelling of talcum powder.
    “So,” I said as she opened the ease, “so you play the flute.”
    She nodded, she smiled into the ease at the sections of the silver instrument tarnished, I saw, with the myriad sentimental stains of a poor childhood focused at least in part on music. Then slowly and expertly she began to fit together the sections of the aged instrument which already reminded me of a silver snake suffering paralysis. It could not have been more clear to me that the poverty of her childhood had been forced to make way, finally, for the flute, as if the musical instrument, like a fancy name, would prove to be one of the avenues away from broken fences and a poor home. It was typical, it seemed to me, and the assembled anomalous instrument was proportionately much longer than I had thought.
    “But this is a surprise,” I said. “I did not know you were musical. Did you learn as a child?”
    She nodded, she tapped the little metallic keys, shearranged her arms and elbows in the contorted position all flutists assume when they commence to play. She tested the broad silver lip of the flute against her own small lip that was smooth and dry.
    “I learned as a girl,’ she said, without lowering the old and battered flute from her childish mouth. “I was one of those fortunate schoolgirls to play in the local orchestra.” “And since that time,’ I said, and laughed, “you have continued to play your flute. It’s a surprising accomplishment. It’s quite wonderful.”
    “I think it is. And I want to play for you right now.”
    “By all means,” I exclaimed, filling my words with whitewash and ducks and potato soup, “a little concert. Excellent, excellent.”
    “I know what you’re thinking. But you’ll see that my flute playing is not what you expect.”
    “Come, come, I’m listening,” I said, laughing and attempting to strike the condescension from my heavy voice. “Let me hear what you can do with your flute.”
    “Very well,” she answered then. “But it may not be as easy as you think. You see, I play in the nude.”
    And there in the little pathetic chaotic stateroom she did just that. With the door locked and the porthole wide to the menacing trident of the god of holidays, and standing within easy reach of my two clasped hands, slowly she removed her latex halter, stripped down the little latex bikini bottom, seated herself cross-legged on the end of the bed, picked up the instrument, puckered her lips, stared directly at me with soft eyes, and began to play. The first several notes moved me and surprised me even more thanher nudity, since the notes were deep prolongd contralto notes, sustained with a throaty power and intention that suggested some