MY HUSBAND.

              Hot night, 2 a.m., the Wheel. The middle of the story almost. Her sweat-damp skin looks like I’d leave fingermarks on it, like touching a fogged window. I touch her bare arm.

              “No.”

              I put up wood boards that close the booth. We stretch. She bends to touch effortlessly the ground with the palms of her hands.

              “I run you a race,” she says. She runs. I follow close, watching her ass. We pass stands boarded up, stands still open, hoping for one last Mark. I run faster, panting, pushing her till she has to stop. I grab her arm. I turn her to me, holding her hard.

              “No! I don’t do sex!” She punches, panting, aiming for my chest and arms. I let my hands take most of it and back off. “You don’t say nothing. Yah! American, you make love with chasing feet. The mind! Where is the mind?"

              I’m panting. “I left, it at, school.” She kicks her foot out in a goosestep and does two cartwheels down the Boards, yells back at me. “My husband don’t make love to me.”

              High tide, ocean crashing sounds. Some scammed or scammer voice, shouts, “Fuck him if he won’t fuck!”

              “Is right, the voice of invisible Americans,” she says. “If I don’t have love, why not sex?”

              She walks into my arms. Our first night lasts twentyfive minutes in the backseat of my ten year old Camry. Tight fit, but she’s small. After that, their apartment, 4:30 to 8:30, from when he starts for work till I do.

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