"Role-playing"

Flash Fiction by Jon Doughboy

The game began on the first day of summer.

She rested her feet in his lap as they watched their respective shows, she on her laptop, he on the tv. Out of his headphoned silo, during a commercial break, he heard her sneeze and saw her ragged thin pajama shorts shift, exposing her vagina. He thought: vagina. He thought: why did I think vagina and not pussy, not cunt? Why am I thinking at all? Where did my instincts go? My lust? Why no erection? What sort of life is this? He thought and thought and thought some more.

She took no notice of his noticing. Giggled quietly about her show. Picked a hard booger out of her nose and flicked it across the room where it landed on the wood floor with an audible thud. They’d been together eighteen years, married for twelve. Things were bound to get old. Familiar. Scrubbed of their sexuality. Bound to.

Or were they?

He felt his back sticking to the couch. Eighty-seven degrees and not even eight a.m. yet. The sun cut through their wooden shutters. Mugginess pressed against the old single-pane windows. He ran his hand along her shin, the black stubbly hair. Ran his hand under her thighs up to the bottom of her ass. She shifted, annoyed, then, curious, finally, accommodating. Put her laptop on the table, the screen facing her still. He ran his thumb along her vagina, the lips of her vaginal area, dispassionately, in examinatory fashion. She shifted slightly, sliding down toward him. He rubbed her clitoris with his thumb. He thought: thumb isn’t a romantic word. The thumb isn’t a romantic finger. Eventually, with languorous inevitability, they fucked. She kept her headphones on. He wasn’t sure if the show was playing. His lower back hurt a little. Tight. He thought: I should start doing planks. He thought: who is she? He thought: who am I?

A routine. A new variation on the old routine. They woke. Urinated. Toasted English muffins. Ate while watching tv. Then either she began to rub his crotch with hand or foot or, once erect, she’d pull his mesh shorts down and take his penis in her mouth. She thought: penis? Penis isn’t a romantic word, an enchanted word. Dick is better. Better still, cock. Something erotic in the way the mouth opened around the word to voice the first syllable. She thought: eighteen years is a long time. Almost half my life. Is this the life I wanted? She thought: who is he? She thought, as she straddled him, fucking him into the soft couch or as he crawled onto her, gripping her shoulders, fucking her: who am I?

Neither could recall who first proposed the role-play. Perhaps he came home with a maid outfit from the sex shop on the highway he took to work or she came home with the fisherman’s sweater and hat she picked up at the thrift store. But they took to their roles right away. Every morning, they became others, dressing for the work of an other. She: a maid, a nurse, a nun, a cheerleader. He: a fisherman, a soldier, a businessman, a mechanic. Gradually, the fucking changed and they with it. As a maid she was docile, welcoming, shy. A nun ashamed yet righteous. His fisherman’s hands were rough from hauling in nets and heavy-duty line. As a businessman, he checked his watch every third thrust. Deals to seal. Always be closing. They became their roles. Each morning, they dressed. Had breakfast. Fucked. They fucked more in the month of June that year than they had in the previous five. Coworkers remarked how young they looked, tired, but vivacious. Her hair had never felt thicker. His back, from the regular exercise, improved. Abs developed, creating a pair of powerful cores.

In the middle of July, he an undertaker, she a corpse, they fucked for forty-two minutes in the missionary position soaking the upholstery with their combined sweat. He, seeing her. She, seeing him. She said: I love your cock. He said: I love the taste of your cunt. Afterwards, they said, for the first time in years with any feeling: I love you.

The next morning, without any spoken understanding or shared plan, they both dressed as the other. He in her shabby yellow pajamas. She in his tank top and mesh shorts. They fucked as they had before the first day of summer, as they had for years. Awkwardly. Distracted. With a certain obligation. He as she looked at her as him and thought: penis. She as he looked at him as her and thought: vagina. Neither came.

The game ended. But when did it begin? Last month? Twelve, eighteen, thirty-five years ago? Or was it never-ending? An eternal cycle of beginnings and ends, roles played, retired, played again, actors donning one costume and discarding another forever and—

She looked for her headphones.

He smelled his thumb.

Jon Doughboy is a buoyant turd in this literary toilet bowl. Watch him refuse to be flushed @doughboywrites