Hot Flush

Count-downs and new releases on t.v. Home food, and the old lady's reading 'the curious incident of the dog in the night time', waiting for her husband to drive home.

In a kaftan from a lifetime ago, her fingers scented with the pickle gravy that no soap made by man can ever wash off completely. Languid, like can only happen if one has recovered from a high fever, or has just fought and won an argument with a teacher.

Her thighs are as white solid and warm as they have always been. the fan's off because her nose is blocked, and she needs to breathe. Vh1 and all that is pop on television. Bad punk rock. Kylie has breast cancer, and everyone's still wishing for Jolie's eyes. Languid. So Languid. Like an old man who is tired after jiving with a younger woman and buries himself in his rum to make sure no one can hear his gasping over the loud music.

The old lady reading 'the curious incident of the dog in the night time'. Like tracing a line of wet paint on paper, she reached down between her thighs with her right hand, the remote controlling the number of ads viewed with her left hand.

This was a deep sea exploration; Cousteau seeking the anemones. Languid like one who has recovered from a high fever, or who has masturbated far too often in a day. This much at least, was the truth. What was incredible was the damp, clear warm wetness that lay there, like the moisture in the roots of a desert plant. her finger came up quietly slick, like a finger given to a baby to suck. So tired. Everything is asleep: the curtains, the shirts on hangers in the corner. Her breasts heavy and soft, mildly damp like dimsum steamed and forgotten by some harried waiter. In the folds of her soft, mildly damp body, moisture lay like the last drop of water hanging on the tassle of a cotton sari out on the line.

Languid, and so tired, but to see if one could still... after a long day of... inspite of a blocked nose...

she had never done this seated bolt upright. It was like sucking too fast and too long on a hookah. It was hanging upside down on a ferris wheel while the guy who worked the circles went to get popcorn. Her eyes glazed over, and she thought she might be sick, and then feverish, and then sick, and then...

This wasn't about a man or woman, or even many men or many women. Maybe it was the medication or the lack of oxygen, but the 1,000 invisible hands that hundreds of years and a taj mahal ago had aided Arjumand to her silken lord and hot bed suddenly found her on this languid january night, with Vh1 and Jolie's eyes running across the telelvision screen...

1,000 invisible hands. Some supporting her back, stroking the inner skin of her arms. Others touching, tracing, rubbing all murmuring

you must. You have to. It is better this way. Come.

It was every man's folly to not know the simplest secret about her. And it was this. The flowers and talk and tongue and anger had nothing to do with it. All one had to do was ask.

Please, come. It is better this way.

She gasped during the Madonna interview, clench-unclenching, feeling a single long-stemmed drip of sweat explore the curve of her back. Hot flush. The antibiotics did not help.

She hadn't moved, except to fold her right leg, the bottle green kaftan 4 inches above her solid warm thigh. She laughed aloud thinking of the picture she made-- her legs like two whales beached on some polynesian island. And the tide would come with the rising of the moon, and lift languid, tired fins up and out, back into the lapping ocean.

She relaxed back on the cotton covers, and released the mute button that had been pressed down these past six minutes.

It was not about need. But what a lonely task it is to make sure one remains languid.

She gulped down water, watching madonna while her pulse came back to normal, thrumming in her forehead and palms. Like a prayer.