My Body is a Cage and Other Stories

nestled beside the driveway, extending acres behind the house. There was a light on downstairs,
so I turned into the driveway.
She answered the door in a tank top and pajama shorts.The television somewhere inside
the door played the intro music to a romantic assassin/specialagent drama series. She let me in,
made me tea, and put me up in one of the spare bedrooms.She bent over to show me how to
work the old bathtub in the adjacent restroom, andI saw the smooth tan of her shoulders and the
baby hairs at the nape of her neck that didn’t makeit into the bun. I wondered if I looked that
pretty bent over, sexual or not.
I slept soundly underneath one of her aunt’s heavyquilts. Soft sunlight filtered in through
the lace curtains on the window and I swear to God,I heard a rooster crow. She made me a
breakfast of eggs and french toast and strawberriesand thoroughly shot me down when I told her
I would clean up. I dreaded going back home. BeforeI got up to put my plate in the sink, she
hooked the ankle of her boot around my ankle, pullingmy leg towards hers under the table.
Maybe she also didn’t want me to go home yet, becauseshe asked me if I wanted to go to Mick’s
bar that night. I most certainly did.
She let me borrow one of her old dresses and she puton a blazer and an actual,
honest-to-god black cowboy hat. On the way to thebar she held her hand out of the driver’s side
window of her truck, letting it coast on the wind.It was stupid but she did it without a hint of
self-consciousness. I stuck mine out of the passenger’sside window.
We drank. We danced. We drank. We danced. At one pointshe had her hands on my waist
and pulled away to get another drink, but I placedher hands back where she had them and would
not let her let go of me. She acquiesced, saying “Yesma’am.” And I wrapped my arms around
her neck and she smelled amazing so I told her that.That made her laugh, and seeing her laugh