6

 

 

 

 

6

 

 

Susie has a laptop, like the one I want one day. Silver and flat with keys that light up. I want to learn how to type, when I’m older. I want to teach my fingers to move that fast. My eyes fixed on the words in front of me. Those messages I see.

Susie doesn’t have a dog, but I think he’s the type who’d suit one. Something big and burly up on the couch with him, his arm slung around snug shoulders. His fingers rubbing a soft ear in slow circles. I know how it might feel.

I can’t find Susie’s porn collection. I guess it’s on the laptop, but I don’t know the password. I’ve searched everywhere for magazines—I want to know what type he’d buy. Ball gags and whips, wide eyes streaming tears, bulging at the choke. There’s a kind of man who likes this look—tears black with mascara, streaking down soft cheeks. That kind of man: you can’t always tell. Maybe he goes for the blonde types, pink types, the types who giggle a lot and pretend they don’t understand. I guess so, looking at my mother, and the way he looks at her, especially when she’s playing stupid. My mother’s breasts aren’t fake and she says I ruined them, but I’ve never seen a man who wasn’t working hard to get a better view. Even when her hair is platinum. Even when she’s dyed it black.

Susie has a small silver circle at the top of his left ear. Punched right through the cartilage, so you know it had to hurt. My momma hasn’t let me get my ears pierced yet. She says earrings look trashy on little girls.

Even though I’m not little anymore.

Susie doesn’t have a dog, but he says he’ll get one.

I can’t ask him about his porn collection, and I won’t ask him about the laptop. I don’t know what would happen if he offered to buy me one. What he might ask me for in return, I mean.