And the curly-headed guy who always smelled so
good would shove him gently,
are you joking, Matt? I pray for dimples
on a woman’s back.
A few women would show up.
Mostly I left early.
Once I got so stoned the hours slipped by and I was
there slumped in a booth, a couple of the guys still
chatting round me, while the manager fucked an escort
at the back
they were by the waiter’s station, her hands
gripped and slipped on the pile of laminated menus.
One time they thought it would be funny if I chose which
women they should get. I scrolled through cleavage,
ribbon, lace, and blurred face after face after face.
What’s your type?
I didn’t stay to see the girls arrive.
That night, I let a nerdy boy I didn’t fancy kiss me in the
halls kitchen. I’m not sure why. He tasted of cheese toasty.
One of those nice guys who’ll try and finger you
immediately and when you gently push his hand away,
he droops his face – a sad dog with crumpled skin – and
says, girls never want me.
There’s a specific touch of the waist one does,
Ava, when working in a busy bar, to pass behind –
a touch that keeps us flowing like a dance –
fridge, to taps, to optics, to the glass washer – oh! The
greasy, boozy steam of the glass washer!
Have you known it?
That rising cloud both sweet and
sour embedded like an anchor in my mind, I feel it,
taste it now…
That waist-touch, Ava,
began to linger.
And then if I was bending
down to get a pint glass from a shelf, I’d feel a crotch
press in behind me.
Or if I was standing at the taps and
someone needed something from that shelf, they’d reach
right through my legs.
