Month / June 2021

by BiSKITs & Gravy

Forgetting on Purpose

By: IO

What’s his name? It started with a J… or was it G? A hard “guh” sound or the lazy tongued “juh” sound? We dated for a few months, until I started screening his calls, muting the ringer to continue watching some sitcom on Netflix. It doesn’t matter. He was just the longest romantic relationship I’ve ever had. He doesn’t matter. 

What was his name, again? Something generic and biblical. We hung out in college, exchanging “dtf” text messages on nights our roommates were out. Not even small talk was exchanged during our goal-orientated encounters. Outside of the worn out dorm rooms, I don’t know I would have recognized him in daylight. It doesn’t matter. He was just a body I used. He doesn’t matter.

What was he called? A mutual friend introduced us. We met and fucked on the same night. It was planned, a way to control my first sexual encounter, to overwrite the assault from the year before. We went out in a group to an Ethiopian restaurant, another first. By the time we made it to bed, I was full, drunk, and high enough to dissociate. It doesn’t matter. He was just a means to an end. He doesn’t matter. 

But that Ethiopian food. I’ll never forget that pizza-sized injera covered in lamb tibs and red lentils. I’ll remember that always.

by BiSKITs & Gravy

Terra Spirit – Part 3: The Kiss

by K. Osorio-Teamer

Olivia and Elisa sat on Elisa’s bed. Olivia hugged a blue decorative pillow as she leaned on the headboard. Elisa clawed Flamin’ Hot Cheetos out of their bag with two red, crusty fingers.  

“Aja,” she said through crimson bites. “Was it a good kiss? Are we talking a peck or full on make out?” 

“Somewhere in between. Yeah, his silly ass would be a good kisser.”  

“You sound annoyed.” Elisa rolled her eyes. “Can’t you just like him? Or don’t date him.” 

“Ok, damn!” Olivia answered defensively. 

“I’m just saying, you don’t need to pretend to hate him with me. Even if you want to keep pretending when he’s around.” Eli smiled as she munched.  

“True.” Olivia sat thinking, while Eli’s crunches filled the room with enough sound to last a lifetime. “I do like him,” Olivia smiled warmly.  

“I know,” Eli smiled back. “So how’d it happen?” 

The trivia night crowd had Neil’s Bahr packed, and there was only seating room at the bar. Olivia walked towards the L shaped bar and eyes followed. She knew her work on the black and turquoise bird mask was unique and eye catching because Ms. Dario had helped her design it. Once sitting at a stool, Olivia ordered a Paloma, and by the time the bartender came back with the orange beauty, three people had asked where Olivia had gotten her mask and cloak. She gave each person a business card with her shop info, another piece of advice from Ms. Dario. Olivia had shared how cosplayers reacted to the masks she’d designed.  

“That’s amazing! Did anyone purchase a piece? They sell themselves!” 

“Oh no, it was usually happening in passing.” Olivia answered, realizing the missed opportunities.  

“That’s ok! Now you know. Your work is exceptional. Don’t be afraid to show it off and tell them who you are.”  

“Oh jeez, like introduce myself and tell them I have a store?” Olivia shuddered dramatically.  

“Yes, exactly, dramatica! And it can be as easy as handing them a business card.”  

“But it’s just a little Etsy shop. I don’t need all that.”  

“What do you wish to accomplish with this shop, Olivia?” 

“I want to sell my art. I don’t know, maybe do it part time?”  

“Well then it’s a business, and you need business cards. Don’t diminish what you make to ‘just a little Etsy shop’,” Ms. Dario quoted Olivia’s belittling description of her passion. “It’s your work. Your hands bringing an idea to life in the physical world. For that brief moment you are birthing something new. That is the greatest power.” 

Ms. Dario was dramatic as hell, but she made a valid point. Olivia knew her art was meaningful, shop or no shop. Regardless, she ordered business cards shortly after. Like that afternoon.  

Her phone’s vibration called her back to the awkard present, a first date with a stranger. A cue stranger, but a stranger, none the less.  

Arturo: Hey! I’m here. What are you wearing?  

Me: I’m in the same bird mask from yesterday, by the bar.  

Oh god, he’s here. Olivia was tearing the napkin that was once wrapped around her drink.  

“Hey!” He lifted his lion mask to confirm his identity, and Olivia was shocked to see he looked cuter today. Damn.  

“Hey!” She mirrored his energy, still unsure if she should hug him or not. He pulled a stool out to sit and raised his arm towards her. Olivia, thinking this was a hug initiation, leaned towards him and found air as he grabbed the menu beside her.  

“Oh. I…” Arturo started but Olivia unterrupted.  

“No!” She waved her hand as if the moment was a fly she could shoo away.  

“No?” Arturo sat down with the menu.  

“Nope.”  

“Ok,” he nodded his head as if he understood that moment never happened. ”So, what are we drinking?” 

“Tequila.” 

Arturo ordered two shots. “I have a drinking game for tonight. Every time we get an answer right, I’m gonna take a shot.”  

“So is your plan to get drunk or not get drunk?”  

“I’m here to win, baby.” 

“Ok, I still don’t know what winning looks like to you. Well, teams have to be four people minimum. We need to join another duo.” Olivia searched and was unsure who they could choose. Arturo turned to the two people on his other side and asked if they wanted be a team. Olivia was shocked and a little annoyed, but they were friendly enough. Mary and her husband Evan were die-hard Terra Spirit fans and they were out on a date night while their kids were at the grandparent’s house. Evan joined Arturo in his drinking game. This had somehow turned into a double date with three strangers. 

by BiSKITs & Gravy

I swear

By S.L. Jordan

The equally sharp and strong, “FUCK!” I heard exclaimed from the other side of the door startled me causing the bar of soap to slip between my fingers and into the shower floor. I grabbed on the shower curtain and prayed the rod the landlord had installed held. Once I was sure I was not going to meet an early demise, I hurried from the shower grabbing a towel to shield myself.

“Darrin?! Is everything okay?” I cried from the door frantically trying to glide my wet feet into  my flip flops.

In the kitchen, Darrin stood over the sink clutching its edge with so tightly her veins bulged from wrist elbow. 

Approaching cautiously I asked again, “is everything okay?” There was nothing to indicated what caused my fiercely religious roommate to swear for the first time in the five years that I’d known her.

She turned and faced me with eyes brimmed with years, “yes, something wrong. He’s taking me to court! Me?!?” and shoved an envelope in my face.

The name of a well known law firm was embossed across the front. 

I raised a carefully arched eyebrow, “isn’t that-“ before she cut me off with a glance.

I’d never seen this side of Darrin. Sure, her divorce was getting pretty nasty and her ex-husband was a Grade A jerk, but she the most even keeled person I knew. 

“What can I do?” I asked, I could see a gentler approach was needed here. 

“You can tell me why a man that was too busy to be a father when we were married, NOW WANTS FULL CUSTODY?!” She paced the kitchen with the papers clutched in her fists.

I glanced at the clock, it was almost time to leave to pick up the kids.

“I’m going to make you some tea before I leave to get Davina and David, okay?” I still had to get dressed so I placed the kettle on and ran to room. I knew no matter how she felt she didn’t want me to be late picking up the kids. I mean – that’s what I was here for really. The kids. 

It was a good thing I kept a couple pair of sweats cleaned and ready for emergencies, with 7 year old twins I never knew when I had to get up and going. Plus, those kids had busy schedules. I was grateful for their after-school activities today. We wouldn’t have to come back so soon and could give their mother time to compose herself.

Running back downstairs, I saw Darrin had made the cup of tea and was seated at the table. She turned and looked at me, “thank you, please check and sure Davina hasn’t left her homework before leaving?” She said calmly before turning back around to stare off into space.

I stood there for a minute, torn between calling the Collarts’ nanny and asking her to pick the twins up. After all they had DAPCEP together today, but I left. I wasn’t equipped to talk a woman through the dissolution of a 25 year marriage. 

In the car, I told myself that was the right decision. I mean my last relationship was WITH a married man, I didn’t disclose that on the interview because Darrin had made it more than clear why she was in need of a Nanny. She was getting a divorce because her husband was having an affair, and had decided to leave her. 

Driving up into the carpool lane, I rolled down the window and waved to the attendant who kindly walked over to hand me my lane number.  4 – not bad, it was hard to beat the helicopter mom’s who basically arrived two hours in advance for pick up. That used to be Darrin, before the divorce. She now had to use that real estate license she had gotten as a hobby while married.

Due to the efficient dismissal set-up, it wasn’t long before I was Davina and David skipping down the side walk. I pressed the button that allowed the back door to glide open allowing the kids to practically skip from the side wall into their seats. 

Looking in the rear view mirror I asked Davina, “do you have your homework?” 

She sheepishly ducked her head, “no, I forgot it on accident.”

I looked at David, “do you have yours?” 

“Yes,” he said. Then added, “and Davina’s!”

He stuck his tongue out and laughed in her face.

I couldn’t help but chuckle quietly. Davina really did think she was slick “forgetting her homework on accident” EVERYDAY! 

Like, c’mon girl! 

These kids were the reason I stayed when I found out my ex was Darrin’s husband. 

by BiSKITs & Gravy

At 32

By: IO

I think about age, about how we use it to measure time, success, desirability, knowledge, everything. I think about how the measurements are inconsistent. 

I am now the same age as he was at the moment he pressed himself on me, covering my body with his, holding me down with his weight, coercing gravity into an accomplice. That moment divides my life into the before and the after. 

He probably doesn’t even remember the night. 

He carried himself with the easy confidence men display around younger women, girls too new to adulthood to draw bold fonted borders in permanent ink. My borders, drawn with a retractable pencil and an uncertain hand, were easily smudged. 

When I pushed him off my body, off the bed, to the floor, I succeeded in trading my pencil for an extra-bold tipped Sharpie, the kind one might use to mark a package as fragile. 

I wonder if he thought he should be wanted. If he thought he could become desirable by impressing a surrogate for his earlier youth with his success. If, when I told him I would not sleep with him, he heard, “I do not desire you.”

Certainly he heard, “Make me desire you.”

Does he know his mistake now? At 43, does he regret pressing a drink into my hand, persisting after I told him he would not get what he wanted, herding me like cattle to slaughter to his hotel room above the bar, laying his body on mine? If he remembers that night at all, does he cringe at the phantom sense of hands pushing softly, politely, of whispered pleads of “stop?” 

I hope he knows now what he should have known at 32, should have known at 21, should have known. 

I hope he asks permission before taking a kiss. I hope he offers his arm before grabbing her wrist.

I hope he has stopped hearing “try harder,” “shoot your shot,” and “make me” when she says “I’m not interested,” “not tonight,” and “no.” 

I hope for her.