The jacket belongs to Winter/Spring 2010. She takes it out of the cedar closet because it’s autumn now and she needs to go outside. It’s still too big, the arms dangle over her hands, the bottom brushes the space below her knees. It desperately needs a wash, and she clucks her tongue, disappointed at herself for not having done so before putting it away for the summer. She sighs at the salt stains, the black gash marks from absently leaning against countless surfaces, swiped by car doors. Shrugging the jacket over her shoulders, she feels the weight of its synthesized warmth and instinctively ensconces her hands in the pockets. In the right pocket there’s nothing, only emptiness, smooth fabric, cold to the touch. She presses her right palm flat against the inside of it, closing her eyes, trying to remember what happened the last time she wore the jacket. In the left pocket, her hand brushes something small, crinkled, wrapped around something hard and oddly shaped. She opens her eyes, left-handed fingers closing around the item, drawing it out of its cave for a better look. The smile appears as a reflex, inspired by the maple leaf shaped candy she now holds in her hand. The wrapper is still sealed. She thinks she knows where it’s from, who it’s from, ripping the clear plastic enough to pop the candy out. She holds the translucent, amber candy between thumb and index finger, staring at the small air bubbles paralyzed within. All this, and then she puts it in her mouth, closes the closet, bounds up the stairs, three at a time.
Old Habits Die Hard
Evan’s never seen what it looks like for a car to wrap itself around a tree. Both fortunately and unfortunately for him, he never will. It’s hard to see anyway, when it’s your own car. Easy enough to know it’s going to happen, though. His foot, anchored on the gas pedal, eyes aloft, one hand loose around the wheel, the other busy exploring elsewhere. The recipe might be printed in variation, dependant on cooking styles and ingredients on hand, but Disaster always comes out the same. For Evan, the concoction uses a splash of the afternoon’s freezing rain, a dollop of bad habit, a pinch of bad luck for extra flavour. The wheels cruise over slick black, GoodYear’s rubber cure-all isn’t a hundred percent effective, there’s slippage into chaos and the innocent bystander of a tree trunk’s thick waist. Evan’s final thought is flung through the windshield, flying too fast to see. He wouldn’t want to admit that it was the finger in his nose, the one less hand on the wheel, that zested his fate. Lucky for him, nobody will ever know.
Charming V
They’re queuing up outside, for him. He’s not even tempted to peer through the curtains and out the window. He already has an idea what he’ll see there.
Women. Beautiful women. Tall, short, blonde, brunette, curvaceous, androgenous, plump lipped, doe-eyed, pin-up, classic; all kinds.
He’s interested in them, but not why they’re there, because all those women want something from him. They want what’s in the velvet lining in the silver box with the antique mirror on top. The one resting on a small table in the banquet hall. They want what’s in the box to fit them and they want what comes with that. Him, for instance, and ownership of everything else.
He wouldn’t mind being owned by a beautiful woman, it’s just…
The feet.
So many feet. So many different feet. All sizes, shapes, levels of moisture, texture of skin, length and number of toes, smell. The bile burns the back of his throat as he swallows it down. The gathering is going to start soon and he’s going to have to face his disgust and discomfort in the worst up-close-and-personal way possible.
He marvels, for the umpteenth time, how he could possibly be the end of the line for four generations worth of fetishists. And at least, this makes him laugh.


