Free Chicken by David Henry Sterry

you, a nigger lover? Hey, nigger lover!’ Jordan Baylor, the cool kid, turns on me, hissing in that Ku Klux Klan youth way.
    â€˜Hey, nigger lover!’
    Everyone yells—
    â€˜NIGGER LOVER!!! NIGGER LOVER!!!’
    Someone spits on me. Everyone laughs again.
    I’m ashamed that I repeated what my mom told me, embarrassed and exposed as a One-of-Them. But my upper lip is trained British stiff and never quivers.
    The bell rings, and everyone buzzes off into George Wallace Elementary School. I wipe the spit off. It’s cold and slimy.
    The next time someone asks me where I got something, I say, ‘Stoled it awffa dead nigger.’
    And everyone laughs.
    Â Â Â 
    â€˜Wanna crash on the couch … or in here?’ Kristy’s light as meringue.
    What kind of a question is that?
    â€˜I’ll crash here, but I’m warning you, no funny business.’ I get the laugh. One thing about being a chicken, it makes you cool in the fray.
    â€˜That’s too bad.’ She gives me half a smirk. ‘I was gonna break out the scuba gear and the chaps.’
    I don’t volunteer that I was recently in a see-through French maid’s apron situation.
    Kristy wears a flannelly nightie, soft as babies, and smells of soap, lotion, and a woman’s orgasm. No toxic-waste-dump smell here.
    My shoes and socks are off, but my nuthugging elephantbellsand my skintight Malcolm X T are still on. She’s under her yellow lamby comforter and ivory sweet sheets.
    I slip under with her, and oh, it’s good, baking in all that warm essence of Kristy.
    â€˜Spoon?’ I whisper.
    Kristy turns her back and snuggles into me. I put my arm around her middle, fit my nooks into her crannies, and my crannies into her nooks. She puts her hand on my hand on her flat belly, and I dive into the smell of her hair. This is almost better than sex.
    Almost.
    I try not to move. I breathe. Be still. I want to be still, so I can soak it all in, but the gravitational pull of her womb is sucking me like the tide toward her moon.
    Then, through no effort on my part, I feel myself begin to inflate, until I’m stiff as a wooden Indian. Still I don’t move, waiting, enjoying this kid-on-Christmas-morning feeling, separated from Kristy by one thin layer of nuthugging elephantbells and a little nightie.
    Then Kristy wiggles. Not much, mind you, but it’s a clear wiggle, followed by a wrapping and a squeezing.
    Well, that was that, and Katie, bar the door.
    Hands are on skin, T is stripped off, nuthuggers are slid out of, and after many sweet deep kisses, I’m eye to eye with the pungent glory of Kristy.
    I breathe her in. I breathe her out.
    In. Out. In. Out.
    No chemicals here. No cigarettes, no booze, no abuse. Kristy smells like life itself. I’m lovedrunk, the tip of my tongue hardwired into her sweet center.
    This is so different from working sex. That’s dank dark distant and mechanical, and I have to pump myself up into a loverstudguy to do it.
    Here, now, when Kristy finally lets go all over me, I feel at one with the universe. I move up the bed and take her in my arms. Idon’t even care if I have intercourse with her. I want to move in with her.
    And now that she knows just how good I am, I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before I’m having that barbecue with her parents, and throwing a bone to Marty.

8.
HORSE & KING DONG
    You who desired so much— in vain to ask— Yet fed your hunger like an endless task .
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â â€”H ART C RANE

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    â€˜Y OU’RE NOT GONNA BELIEVE the shit that miserable painintheassbastard husband of mine’s trying to pull. He’s trying to hire his little chippy. Executive assistant – ha! Executive cocksucker more like it. If I didn’t have a prenup