Creating myself

I put on makeup, lean into the mirror, examine my skin.

I make myself into something you think you can understand. Paint my lips, exaggerate my eyes, pour myself into tight things that you think you can get underneath by peeling them off, but what I've created instead is a shield that you can't quite get past, and underneath it is all my real feelings.

I kiss you and part of me is there, part of me is feeling your lips, your tongue, your hand sliding beneath my skirt and finding, slowly, what you're looking for.

And part of me is above, and watching, and recording.

I do these things for the story to tell later.

Story: A former friend, and more recent enemy, with his face between my legs on a kitchen countertop. It is my birthday. I am twenty-five. He loved me once. Part of him still does. And part of the ritual when we fuck is making each other come harder, better, longer than we ever have before. It's revenge, sort of. It's a point that we have to prove. He kisses me afterward so I can taste myself. And in the morning we wake up and it's not even really awkward so much as we simply know that it only works for those few hours in the night. We barely talk.

Story: Against a wall in the train station, around a corner. It's late. I am drunk. And his kisses are sweet, the sweetest I've tasted for years and thousands of miles. I can feel his cock through his jeans, but he can't have me. It's just a tease. His fingers teasing. We breathe heavy, against each other. What do we want?

Story: Two beds in a dorm room that smells of old sweat. They are so close I could reach out and touch the boy in the other bed, who is asleep, or pretending to be so. I am kissing a boy with skin so tattooed I can barely tell what color it was underneath, and his kisses are delicious, perfect--hard to remember this now--that his touch, so hesitant, and his whispers, slightly shy, kept me shaking on the brink for hours. It was all downhill once we actually had a room to ourselves.

Story: A boy I knew from when we were kids--literally kids, grade school boyfriend that I've found again through the magic of the Internet--kissing me in the back of a cab. I have driven several hours to be there, and I am beyond tired and into delirium. I want this moment to last. He tastes so good. The sparkle in his eyes, the crooked grin that I remember...it's a trip back in time. But it can't last, doesn't last. Just for the night, and not even then.

I can say no to most people easily, but a bit of history, a little weirdness, a taste of magic or the promise of getting caught and there's a story to tell, later. A piece of you I can use. And so I give you the piece of me that you want to see. The taste you want. The person you think I am.