The Small Black Heart
When I meet Sarah for coffee she looks like someone who takes notes in different colored pens. Pretty, blonde, blue eyes like standing water. She chews her nails between cigarettes and tells me she wants to talk about feminism, womanhood in general, and sex—in that order.
We spend almost an hour philosophizing about her blue jeans and the spiritual implications of egg salad before she arrives at the point. You know,
she says, setting down her cold coffee, we women pretend we’re not filthy. But we’re the biggest pigs.
She holds my gaze. We love threesomes. We love dirty things whispered in our ears. We love rough sex. I. Love. Hard. Sex.
I swallow audibly and grin like Joey.
In my head the machinery of fantasy has already started. This unremarkable girl with the chipped nail polish and the slightly too-large cardigan. The next round of coffee arrives. Every sweet, polite little thing you’ve ever met,
she continues, is secretly a dirty bitch. They’re just boys without dicks. Which makes them considerably less predictable.
She seems to enjoy watching me recalibrate. You don’t believe me?
I croak out a yes and look past her shoulder at the waitress. Last weekend I slept with seven people,
she says. Forty-eight hours. Two of them were my closest friends. We do this regularly. A threesome with Mexican exchange students. My brother’s best friend, in a lift in Marzahn. The Tresor toilets. Our flat.
I needed to leave. Immediately. Right now. Before my brain fully liquefied.
I pay for both of us, spending a long moment genuinely wondering why I’m not just suggesting we resolve this somewhere less public. She kisses me on the cheek, shouts something about writing me later, and disappears onto her bike. I watch her go for longer than is strictly dignified. Images accumulating. Nothing I’ve ever wanted more than girls exactly like this.
At home, without warning or preamble, she sends me a photo of her pussy. On the right side of the mons pubis: a small black heart tattoo. I look at it for a long time. Then I run a hot bath and spend an hour letting the afternoon settle into my body. Dry off. Forward the photo to Sarah’s boyfriend. Smile like a man who has just remembered something useful. Pour a beer. Dirty bitch.