Free Headless by Benjamin Weissman Page B

guys say, Flip over girls (okay, so we do fuck the same guys, oh shit, we’re going to hell), we usually kick them in the head with our high heels because they always insist that we keep our shoes on so that we look exactly like our pictures. So the guy is holding his face and moaning ouwee and we’re apologizing, saying sorry sorry how embarrassing, but there’s no recovery. It’s like, who brought in the bad comedians? Their head hurts, they want to go home.
    Our favorite movie is Shoah. A gentleman of the Jewish persuasion took us to it. Eight hours long, one movie, the tickets were $20 each, took us two days to watch. We got a terrible feeling looking at the popcorn machine—very morbid—cooking, confinement, bursting kernels. We bought a large, but out of respect for the dead and our date, whose name will remain a secret, we didn’t eat a single morsel. Maybe we had a few bites in the lobby, but five minutes into the movie our date wouldn’t stop crying. Popcorn used to be our favorite food. Now we throw up when we see a forested landscape. When we see beauty we want to know what’s hidden. When the war ended the clergy removed portraits of Hitler and put up the almighty HIM, but the walls had discolored, the frames were smaller, and no one could forget the previous face. Women can be Nazis too, but it’s men who cut off heads, gloat, and experiment on flesh. A woman’s offensive is economic, nonviolent. We isolate the enemy, boycott businesses, and distribute literature. We fight with our minds. It’s strange what you have to do to a penis, the same thing all the time. Suck and jerk. We want something less abrupt, less pistonlike. Something seamless and unbroken. Maybe we’re lesbians. Maybe we’re not. Our favorite sexual position is 69ing each other while the guy is loving us doggie; that way we can see the guy’s balls going clang-clang like hairy tea bags. And if his iguana comes out we can kiss it before escorting it back in.

ENCHANTED FOREST
    The lumberjack with the leaf-green eyes, cherry-red lips, heavy-duty Master padlock earrings, and two-day stubble bristling on his rosy cheeks like a blooming cactus, strode up to the counter bowlegged, unstrapped his huge, ultrasharp axe, gently slammed it to the floor, and said, “I’ll have the usual,” in a voice softer than feathers.
    The expression on my face worried me: eyes several inches bugged out of their sockets, ears burning well over a hundred degrees Fahrenheit, stomach knotting, drool pooling. I looked down and drew a little question mark on the order pad, and then a whole row of them. Everything in me was stirring. If he saw my pencil moving maybe he’d think I was writing down a specific meal.
    “My apologies for ordering the usual. I’ll spell out my usual so there’s no confusion,” he said. “Steak and eggs, steak well, eggs over hard, six of them, please, with the yokes a tad runny if possible, which I understand might be medium, but medium often translates into a generally softer type of easy egg which I don’t want any part of.” His hair was black, eyes electric, follow-me-to-the-promised-land blue. “Sorry to be so fussy, a small stack of buttermilk pancakes, home fries, also grilled well, tomatoes, bacon, sausage, apple sauce, four slices of sourdough toast, nearly burnt, buttered like a dairy truck crashed into them, if you know what I mean.”
    I did know. At that moment I pictured a Carnation step van on Curly Ridge, careening out of control, up and over the guardrails, plunging down into the gorge 1000 feet below, slamming through the roof of Genoa Bakery. “Buttered beyond reason,” I said. I wanted him to like me.
    He nodded and his padlock earrings jiggled in unison. “I actually like it drippy,” he said. “I need to bulk up. I’m losing weight from all the tree chopping.” He poked at his ribs.
    We shook hands and I instantly felt like a toddler. Big Poppa, take me home.
    “My name’s Zeus Lily. What’s