Honorary Mentions 2019 Extra Fiction Contest

Extra Extra Fiction!

Of the 2019 contest's two honorary mentions, the judge Ernest Hogan said:

"My Many Faces by Venetia Sjogren provides a snapshot of a Latinx identity crisis, and Nous Somme Dans Une Texte by David Vela presents a Latinx in Paris, a fish out of water, as are we all. The both deserve their honorable mentions."

Check out the rest of the judges thoughts on the contest at La Bloga at Hogan's column Chicanonautica, for all things Latinoid and Science Fiction. 

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My Many Faces
​by Venetia Sjogren

​I have many faces. Some I hide and keep stuffed way, way down. Sometimes, I remove the civilized veneer and let them all hang-out, when I have stopped caring. At times they stage a revolution, hijack my keyboard, and type god-awful crap.
 
Varda Chaya- she is the Jewish apostate who mocks all religions, all belief systems, indeed all tribal affiliations. Descended from Swedish berserkers, African slaves, native American savages, and the conquistadores, she is fatigued by all of the global tribal violence that has been part and parcel, of human history. She wishes that people would just "get over it". She wants the Palestinians to "get over it". The Israelis to "get over it". The Africans to "get over it". Native Americans to "get over it". Whatever people are claiming "it" is that prevents them from moving past their tribal loyalties, Varda Chaya wants them to "get over it". She would like the world to focus instead on preserving the species before humans end up extinct, like the dinosaurs. She would like to prevent the rats, roaches and paramecium from inheriting the world and their future scientist from digging through midden heaps to reconstruct humans past and discover how we fucked up. Varda Chaya wants the world to focus on global warming, health care, education, and non-violence. She wants the world to get their shit together. Varda Chaya wants a better world for all.
 
Vic - he is the eternal rocker. The one who invested mucho dinero on sound equipment, speakers, microphones and Fender Strats. The one who found peace and a slice of heaven in power chords, Carlos Santana and ganja. He was the one who was so laid-back-mellow that his heart beat was barely measurable. He viewed the world through rock and roll and playing elusive, death defying chords. Vic had a "live and let live" kinda attitude. He felt that if everyone lit up a doobie, they would stop wasting their time, trying to kill folks that were different. His main goal in life was seeking that elusive combination of chords that would lift a song from mediocre to the sublime. Too bad that a 9 - 5er was required in order to provide his kids with such mundane things as food, clothing and shelter. After-all, children can survive without such things. Right? Vic now sits in the back of Vee's head, a cheapo Bic lighter eternally lit, nodding off to Bon Jovi, Metallica and Heart, while smoking a little mary-jane. Incidentally, Vic discovered that mary-jane is good for Vee's multiple sclerosis pain. Too bad the drug companies managed to strong-arm the feds into keeping it away, from folks suffering chronic pain. Imagine not having to spend hundreds of dollars on vicodin, fentanyl, other addictive opiates and growing what you need, on your window sill...
 
Venice - is Vic's twin. Like Vic, she found her peace in music, dressing the part in Stevie Nicks-like lacy blouses and maxi skirts, with long flowing tresses. She strummed her lute, acoustic and rhythm guitars, while relocating from one-to-city to another, with Vic. But unlike Vic, who loved Fenders, she had a fondness for Gibson guitars. She wrote sonnets, composed lovey-dovey songs similar to "We are the World" and "Blowin in the Wind', painted beautiful sunsets and bowls of fruit, while dreaming dreamy thoughts while high on Quaaludes and other mood enhancing drugs. Venice never gave up her artistic endeavors as she aged and when multiple sclerosis crippled Vee's fingers, voice and eyes, she switched to writing poetry and blogging. Our Venice is always optimistic. There is always a silver lining in the clouds. Of course, to her, tornado, earthquakes and hurricanes are beautiful also.
 
Victoria - she is the good child, the obedient child, eternally trapped prepubescent girl; at times quiet and withdrawn. Victoria is the face of a bourgeoisie, indulged and beloved child. Ostensibly living and reaping the benefits of the “good life”. She is the recipient of private schools, and epicurean cuisine. She has the "right" kind of friends, the "right" stylish clothes, parrots the "right" conserative, vanilla politics and listens only to the “right” kind music such as opera, classical and religious compositions. Victoria is amused (in a bleak sort of way) that her friends envy her life. They are unaware that she had been abandoned by family and friends to reside in a world, where daddy snuck in her room at night. Where Step-Mommy pounded her body and psyche (for being the other woman when she caught her husband molesting Victoria). She has earned to hate her body and her beauty. She has learned how to temporarily, disassociate herself from pain. She has learned how people can murder, without spilling a drop of blood. And finally, she has learned that love is just another word and an excuse to justify the evil things, one inflicts on a child. Vee built a room around Victoria and threw away the key but Victoria's silent screaming always unlocks the enclosure. This silence is LOUD. It is explosive. It is filled with murderous rage. Frequently, Victoria and Venice collaborate and write poetry but Victoria in her quiet, unassuming manner is too powerful. Her voiceless screams always grasps control of all their endeavors. The resultant poetry ends up being bleak and black, and Venice is left in a corner, wringing her ineffectual hands, while whining that she wanted to write about beauty and flowers, not pain and suffering. Victoria always ends up telling Venice to be quiet and "get real". Politely, of course.
 
Venom - is the bitch. She wishes everyone would just shut the fuck up. Or get the fuck outa her face. What she really want is for everyone to leave her the fuck alone. She loves the "F" word. She finds that it is the best all-around word to describe every situation. Unlike Varda Chaya (who she regards as being a confused mongrel) and Vic and Venice (who she regards as being totally useless) Venom considers human beings to be a blight on Mother Terra. She knows that the world is fucked up and would be a better place sans man. Victoria, at times, agrees with her. Vic, Venice and Varda Chaya are appalled so they keep her sedated. In fact, Venom is suicidal and has almost succeeded in killing herself but for some fucked up reason, doctors have managed to save her life, each time. Vic, Victoria and Venice secretly wish that she had succeeded.
 
Cassandra Rodriguez - likes to be called Cha Cha and is quite frankly rather free with her body. She has sex with anyone. Nubile boys and very attractive women. Old rich men. Anyone. She enjoys thinking that she is a genius and is always trying to create get rich schemes. Cha Cha believes immediately a man desires her if he simply says “hello” and has convinced herself that she is irresistible. She is morbidly obese, dresses in clothes that are both too tight and meant for teenage girls. She has a Marilyn Monroe, fake-like manner of speaking (she think that she sounds sexy and provocative) and has bleached her hair white, wears blue contacts and teeter-totters on four inch high heels. Even to go to the market. The neighbors enjoy talking about her and frequently mock Cha Cha. Even to her face. However, she believes that she is well-liked. She leaves her children at home to get by as best as they can but considers herself a “good and loving mommy”. Her eldest daughter, has been raising the three younger children, since she was 14 years-old.  Cha Cha goes out clubbing and drinking every night, buys clothes for herself, while her children are dressed in clothing from second-hand stores or donated to her by neighbors. Her ex-husband sends child support faithfully, but Cha Cha spends the money foolishly.
 
Vincenzo Miquel de la Cruz - for the sake of brevity, let's call him Vinnie. He is the ultimate Western patriot. The epitome of cultured conservatism.The gentleman warrior.  He was raised to believe in god, country and flag. He was raised to believe in freedom, democracy and bringing these values to the little brown, yellow and red peoples of the world as they labor on concentration camps also known as plantations, factories and warehouses, while manufacturing televisions, computers, radios and other assorted goodies. Vinnie also believes in preserving and protecting the borders of his country, by building walls. Building very big walls. Patrolled by gringo men, with big guns to keep out all the dirty little campesinos. Vinnie however, does not understand why these little brown, yellow and red men do not love and embrace him and his values. Varda Chaya, Venice and Vic despise him but are also frightened by him. Victoria understands him, since she understands hate, very well. Venom hates him, but then again, she hates everyone. Vee has succeeded him subduing him (most of the time). But like a badly tarnished penny, he returns when one least expects him, when issues like illegal immigration and slave reparations are discussed. Vincenzo really does not give a shit what Vee, Vic, Victoria, Venice and Varda Chaya thinks of him. In fact, he would like to stick them on one of his cocoa plantations or sneaker manufacturing plants. Venom amuses him.
 
Vee - then we have Vee. Abuelita, mother, human, poet, musician, artist and former Catholic, and apostate Jew. She says her favorite religion/fable is Judaism. Sick and in constant pain. Life has been kicking her in the ass, for a long damn time. She feels tired and old. Tired of pain. Tired of medicines. Tired of tests and needles. Tired of doctors. Just plain ole tired.
 
                when dreams die a sordid death
            darkness banishes all light
            Orpheus can be heard snickering
            softly stage left
            as Thanatos crooks his fingers and
            beckons
                                                        she lays defeated in Elysium fields
                                                          fields salted by white coated
                                                          stalwart soldiers and their caduceus weaponry
 
            it is an ignoble death by millimeters
            of thinly, sharpened swords
            and measured drops of blood
 
These many faces are all aspects of Vee although the doctors tell her that they are just a figment of her imagination. She always responds, “tell that to Varda Chaya, Venom, Venice, Victoria, Cha Cha and Vinnie, as a written prescription for citalopram with a diagnosis of Dissociative Identity Disorder (formerly known as multiple personality disorder) is handed to her.

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​Nous sommes dans une tête, Sam

I understand now. Yes, I understand. But what is it to understand? Is it to comprehend? Does that come after apprehension? At what point is knowledge apprehended, and when is one responsible for it?
That is my question to you.
 
Faustino walked through the belly of Paris. From the metro station at the top of the stairs, behind the kiosk where the wide surly smelly man in suspenders sells newspapers, down the stairs and passing through the path that bisects the planters of fragrant pink and white roses on the left, the green glass and steel apartments on the right (don’t mind the competing rotting piss-smell), then past the two cafes at the rue Rambuteau, the lesser one on the left — THE JET LAG, on past the better one on the righthandside, (it has no name) for and with views all the better for watching women arrive and descend, up and down that strip of sitting, moving, laughing, drinking, eating, and kissing life.

Out.


We go.


Onto the street of life, la rue Montorgueil, the Barbapapa store on the right, the Italian icecreamery (cream too rich) on the left, and the bobbles boutique aimed at young women on the left.  Further up a few paces, still on the left the store that sells organic bread and pills with whale sperm and spinach and marrow and crushed pumpkin seeds, onward, on the right at the creperie stand where the pretty blonde curlyhaired girl with lovely naked limbs pours chocolate on your waffle, or fills it with sweet cream, that young woman always eye-catching with her tight bright blonde curls, a hawk-like nose such as her mother has, sad brown Phoenician eyes, high cheek bones, broad shoulders, long tan arms, a tapering waist, long thighbones, and long thin ivory calves, most of all, as she turns around, you see a high tight round rump, shapely is she whom I avoid looking at directly because she is flirted with, looked at all day, sniffed at all day . . . Oh then, yes the smell of the food wafting down this street, la rue Montorgueil, lubricating libidos, more smells, the smell of her and her daddy’s and her mother’s waffle crepes, toppings smells, fresh fruit, creams, chocolate. Her smells, yes, and fresh bread smells, and fresh fragrant and pungent cheese scents, and odors of spilled red wine on wood, and burnt sugar smells, cooked poulet, roasted rabbit, lamb and bisteak, the smells of oysters, snails, mussels and farine, sweet smells, womansmells, mensmells –ah, then you go on, past the small restaurant where we ate with Stuart and we met a frecklefaced, polite Scottish girl and a sassy dirtyblonde Londoner and a nutbrownhaired-sweet Northern Irish girl, all of them bright and kind and bubbly and eager to taste Paris; the food mediocre by Paris standards, but cheap; yes, we went onward, on past the righthandside, past the fromagerie Montorgueil, oh, yes the best for fresh savory creamy cheeses, crottin de chevre, picandou frais, creamyness rolled cylindrical de Ayveron, a savage brie and thin slices of ham from Spain— on past that, passing the inscribed Place de la Reine de Hongrie (‘did you notice that,’ asks Ed? Yes, now I do, as well did he notice the curlyblondecheveux girl with the nice calves and the sloe eyes)  onward, past her place, thinking of that other her, in front and below the Morroccan grocer’s orange oranges, yellow bananas, green apples, and hanging decorated, tasseled, punched tin lamps, and almonds, and walnuts — look above to that loft I always wanted to ascend — to make love to her in her bed, stroke her black hair, kiss her beautiful almond-shaped eyes, lick her voice, throaty then girlish, womanly then giggling, yes that voice, mature, yes that one, earnest, that woman, British and English and African and Indian, that girl, a shapely, soft, blackhaired beauty whom I never tired of looking at. I never tired of her voice calling, pulling, beckoning me forward, that voice of a woman, something that goes down to the womb of her, that voice, yes, deep into her womb, past the limbs and the lips and the dark hair above them, deep into the soul of her body.   . . . Walking onward past the Moroccan grocer’s store, and on the right the Italian sandwiches — past la rue Mauconseil  (bad counsel indeed to do that then), past the large golden snail where we had delicious escargots (three kinds, in butter, in white wine and butter, and roasted in rosemary, and you Stewart were so happy that we chose the brass, dark wood and leather appointed, chandeliered eighteenth-century restaurant, after we drank our fruit-smelling white Bordeaux at the Lezard Café), crossing finally rue Etienne Marcel, past the man from the Maghreb who sells newspapers whom I buy from parce qu’il est gentil, et il m’a dit, merci, bonjour, et il a toujours les journals que je cherche, both in English and in French, and in Spanish, no attitude from him, he is just polite.
 
You have come from the metro Chatelet, springing up on your thick, shapely calves, up at the newsstand and the green Guimard awning. You pass past the postcards stand of posters and cards and pictures of Che in various poses, sitting on a steed, standing on a pile of boxes, sweaty, dirty stinky, and he proud of himself - ‘el chancho’ - he smoking his cigar, his brilliant brown Irish eyes lit up and smiling, the everpresent fatigues and white t-shirt, tightly-muscled Che. You pass past the clothing stores, Kookai, because you know this about you, Je ne suis pas jolie, je suis pire: I am not pretty: I am worse, past the banana café with the rainbow flags and the airbrushed palmtrees, and the oversize phallically erect bananas, swaying in the light wind, first bent, then erect, yellow and happy, the smiling boys in muscleshirts outside smiling at you and me, past the shoe stores, Arcus and others, then walking under the arch where right before it a king was killed in his carriage, stabbed well enough to leave him leaving off this life — off then past the bookstore, another one, Mona Lisait, on your left, and on the right a 16th century fountain, elegant and stately, working most of the time, now marred with red graffiti: Israël: Assassins, and the Africans, North, Central and West, and the youth on bicycles, and girls in short plaid skirts — what lovely legs! — and trim blue police on rollerblades, and a fast-food store selling American food not Hallal right on your right.
 
Make a left through Les Halles: originally not a French, but a German word (do you hear that, Sam?) — and so therefore not elided. (The word follows the reality, but what if it were man-made? And what of that Cemetery of Innocents, and why did they move them into the 14th Arrondisement, underground? All those bones, heads, shoulders, femurs, wrists, feet, metacarpals, phalanges, sternums, what? Where was our grandmother Delamain, our cousin Bequet, and our cousins Dulanay?  Have we come so far to move so close to be so far again, Sam?

What of your Irish people in Paris? In France? And what did you bring that others did not? What in common with the prelates, the theologians, the philosophers, the soldiers and the scribblers?


Ah, yes. The back-and-forth across the water. (Who makes that water recede?) Leave that for another day. — For now we are in a tête, seulement.)
 
Les Halles: The green awnings and the arches and the metalworks, the allées, and then you pass the area where the merrygoround goes round and round, and the homeless piss and spit and shit and curse and live and dwell and cry and smile. All of that aboveground, above the metro and the Réseau Express Régional that rumbles below above the stores such as the F.N.A.C., where we bought so many of your books, Samuel, above that labyrinth of hairclip, shoe, compact disc, book, suit, dress, underwear, toy and lamp, fixture, television, radio, blender, plastic-hangar and otherwise other stores that are filled with bee and antlike people burrowing, buying, descending and ascending.
Constantly.


Oh yes, and the theatres, and the swimming pool below the trees and the pink, purple, red and white and yellow-flowered plants off the cross of the allé Louis Aragon above, coming from the West; a pyramidal glass ceiling one can look through or up through from below at the end of the underground rapid express train, below Aragon’s walk, and the eateries, and the snack stores and poster-shops and the foot-traffic eternal below; such as such only hell and purgatory would have us in, and walking, all the walking – people walking at us all the time, crossing, smelling, passing and us seeing or not seeing one another. Yes.
A big green awning above an Irish Pub: McGreevey’s. Right off the rue Coquillière, on to the rue du Jour.


It is there that I wanted to kiss you, outside of the entrance to Saint-Eustache; there I wanted to smell your shoulder-length hair; you came dressed in a jumper, and we waited for you, Carlos and John and I, drinking Beamish. McGreevey’s: I waited for you again and again, waiting in the rain, once, and then at night, waited for your light spring step and your dark almond-shaped eyes, your soft black hair. Waited for that voice I both wanted to kiss and to hear.
 
You, arriving, walking along the area past the Citadines backside, making a right onto the poets’ allées, Saint-John Perse to Federico Garcia Lorca and André Breton together at a nexus, after the water non-potable, and the water one can drink, Saint Eustache looming left, so beautiful and large and majestic, that church, where Mozart’s mother made peace and prayed her rosary, where a bust to Liszt lies, and where Keith Haring’s sculpture sits below a 17th century oil-painting —  that church of incense and prayer and song.


In front of the church, children playing, couples kissing, and the sculpture of the headinthehand smiling at all who take it in, a tilted African forehead with Asian eyes, that head, symbol of the people from French colonies, in front of that majestic, Colonial church, a female beggar at the door, while the workmen make white the ornate stone saints, and rose and starfaced façade, all of that, there all at once.
 
He is now walking toward you, after a day of anticipation, of waiting to meet you, waiting and imagining.
 
(To brush my lips on your lovely neck, to smell that honeysucklesmell in your inkblack hair; to be lost in that pungent scent your body pushes upward from your womb, emanating from your lips; there at the slope of your shoulder is where I should lay my head, and right behind the ear is where I wish to kiss you, bite you . . .)
 
Coming from the Jardin du Palais Royal, where he was reading Proust and Three Dialogues with George Duthuit, walking under the canopy of trees, onto the gravel and sand, out onto the Pavillons, under the arches and up the stairs, past the magazinerie, crossing over to the Galerie Vivienne sidewalk, rue Radziwil on your right, and on your left, LeGrand Filles et Fils wine from Corsica in the window, the oldest bookstore in Paris still selling, I walk, he walks, you walk down through the open space of the Place des Victoires, saluting the Virgin mother in blue and white tunic, her Basilica on the left, a 17th century blandness outside, gorgeous and golden, blue and silver and ornate, dark, and resplendent and reverent on the inside, on down past the Mexican Consulate’s flag on the left, past the peagreen Art nouveau nouille façade of the only other boulangerie you would buy bread at, Au Panetier, the light peagreen corner building of the breadmaker on your right. Around the corner, Louis Quatorze au cheval, gloriously mounted, his head turned left, surveying the scene, a parallel to the Virgin’s building, a counterweight and complement to Her monument and basilica, you choose to walk down the Rue du Mail, a route you often walked, quietly. There are so many carpet shops and laborers, young people walking and talking, book-publishers snotty and sniffy, who won’t make way for you on the sidewalk – you should push her – that one — with your shoulder, get it square under her chin, and up the head, a chucked elbow to the latissimus of the man who nearly runs you over, (a biography of Leopold Sedar Senghor, I remember is in the window as we pass by that couple). On that street, our preferred grocer where we buy the best Dutch cookies, the better blonde Belgian beers, and the richer, darker, sweeter chocolates, fresh meat and cheese, other than what we bought more freshly caught or what was recently made on the rue Montorgueil. (Yes, of course, you can’t buy better than Stohrer’s and Alaïn Brulé!) — I was just in such a hurry to see you, smell you, kiss you, bury my face in your ink-black hair.
 
I walk down the rue d’Aboukir. Down to the rue Montmartre at the first corner brasserie where a socialist met his end – not before he finished his pint! — on the right-hand the traffic is coming, on the lefthandside people are walking, then there is a descent to the rue Montorgueil perpendicular to my destination; again, on the righthandside is a pub and an eatery with metro paraphernalia and bobbleheads, and good beer, light, French, Belgian, blonde, crisp, tasty, savory golden liquid, and meals of beans soup with strips of red meat served with spinach and butter and bread. A grumpy, greyhaired wild-eyed bartender in striped pants on his long lean legs is kind enough to ask you if you want to come in. (He turned his grumpiness off.) Further.

I walk down to the transverse rue Bauchamont, past what was once a ballroom, once North African and Arab, then, a Laundromat; then an arcade and green plants and small trees (arbustes) growing upward in a perpetual shade. You see the carved lion’s head, then the plaque in Arabic, then Alain Mikli’s many eyes looking at you.

Waiting for your thirst on the right are the bottles of waters, sodawater, sparkling water, but no one there to serve or buy them from, et puis, l’Arbres á letters on the left, a red sign hung vertically, a white facade, black lettering on the sign, a bookstore, yes, what you love there, books, and a tall thin sad-eyed blonde, lithe and graceful. She’s a delightfully young woman. The smells of both, books and the young woman, the feel of both, the look and weight and promise of both! There where that blondie (dirty brown streaks down the middle of that fallen angel’s head) oh, a vixen she is, dressed in a red springtime dress with white polka dots dotting all over her. It’s a lovely dress on a lovely woman, emphasizing her tapered waist, revealing enough of her thin white legs to admire them, and so much of her back because the dress scoops to the middle of her back. You see her lovely arms as she steps on the ladder to place books on the higher shelves.

Sadeyed. That’s how I’d describe her face. She with the marred left arm, a scar the shape of a benthandled hammer ready to come down upon something (Upon what, my heart?) She attends to her browsing customers. She feigns indifference with just enough of a sideward look to pull me forward. (What cool and sparkling light green eyes I see when she turns around, her body on tiptoe, reaching for a book; I see white arms and hands and fingers, and long thin shapely nails – her bottom up and up and upturned, back on her heels, head turned in a backward leftside glance to me momentarily: those eyes. Oh.)
I have to leave.
 
You were returning home to visit, to eat with him (with me), to dine at our favorite place: Papa’s, earlier named Julian’s, previously known as La Blondie’s. If you must know its name: the Aux Crus de Bourgogne, where I met the exiled Mexican elites, Bernardo, in particular, (not really his name) in a truth-telling mood, savoring beef Savoyard, tasting burgundy, and beginning and ending with champagne and Beckett, but interrupted by Octavio Paz’s poems – El Amarillo se desliza al rosa, / se insinúa la noche en el violeta — I had no business being there, but there I was.

Bernardo, resident of the Tour Montparnasse told me Tour Montparnasse’s history and how many Mexican exiles – elites – lived there, how many left the country for good after sacking the treasuries. How many worked in administrations that took as much as they could from the humble and the poor and the middle class. Ah, yes, he was in a truthtelling mood, of course, in his 90’s, told me I could find him there every Thursday . . .

Back to you, my dear, back to you. I desired you, pursued you, was on my way to you. So, I walked down the rue Montorgueil past the elongated hanging roasting ducks on a spit, past the browned roasted chicken and tasty seasoned pork, and the darkmeat, dressed dinde (didn’t know they liked that so much; didn’t know dinde would be so savory, but of course they don’t have the same relationship to Indians and to turkeys that we do, do they?), past the celebrated Stohrer’s Patisserie, past the beloved Alain Brulé boulangerie and patisserie on the lefthand side where Nathalie works and the breads are fresh, and smell like your soft warm thighs on a summer night, on, on toward the past, and past the Café Sega and the Centre Ville on the lefthandside still, I am walking, he is walking, in a u-turn now, back then down to the rue Bauchamont where I — he makes a lefthand turn.
 
It was there that I saw her in all of her sad and serious beauty, the sloe-eyed, green-eyed, stately womangirl, a girl in a floral red and white dress, the scar on her left arm, a depression into the skin, the elegance of her limbs, her long, thin, white calves. Yes. Blonde. Handling the books the way I’d like her to handle mine. Mine what? Wouldn’t you like to feel and know what her long thin shapely fingers know when they touch and trace and pull the strap of her bra tighter at the shoulder, see her turn her head toward you, those sad grey-green eyes, that elegant quash-shaped head, the long blonde tresses falling over her back, ah yes women do have backs here, and fronts, and legs.

Never mind.

She’s a distraction.
 
I walk over. — He sniffs, smells, looks, waits, browses, then picks them up, each volume, its heft and smoothness all of a weight, like her, as she is when she sits on his lap and crosses her legs, lacing her arms around the back while nuzzling around his neck, French lips parting and kissing, wet smack wet.  
 
After piling book upon book, then placing them under my arm, and being careful not to confuse her that my book, Nouvelles et Textes Pour Rien, was not for nothing under the other arm to demonstrate what was mine was in fact not hers. I did look, was looking at her jolie jupe rouge, the elegance of her long thin, shapely ivorywhite (now I see, freckled) calves. I know French women are used to taking looking, so I make myself discreet, making my way to the bookshelves in the righthand corner diagonal from the entrance after selecting O.V. de L. Milosz’s Poésies II: Les Éléments, Autres Poèmes, Symphonies, Nihumm, Adramandoni, La Confession de Lemuel, and finally Derniers Poèmes; then Balzac’s, Nouvelles; also, Villiers de l’Isle-Adam’s, Contes Cruels; Voltaire’s, Dictionnaire philosophique; and finally, Corneille’s, La Place Royale.

***

And so we eat; and we eat so well together. Five hours and counting, stuffing our mouths (yours made of perfect lips, a lovely tongue, and straight white teeth) eating, drinking, tasting, first duck paté, our aperitif, un kir, then salad for you and for you and me a kiss of red wine from the Southwest, Auvergne, then thin strips of maigret de canard for me, and for you lamb like your thighs, lamb like your eyes, my Maghrebian Mamasita, then another bottle of red, this one Fitou; next a delicious meatpie slipped in for savoring together, then yes, we have more of the desserts coming, Blondie brings them, a drunk purple, half-pear, whipped cream on the side, yours some dark chocolate (like you, like your bum) cake, sweet, layered, lingering the taste. (Yes. Yes, I want you all of you, you all of you, my dessert.) Then the coffee, small, just right. Finally a spirit to spirit us away, some eau de vie, life-giving, life-taking if you take too much of it, but just enough to make us happy, just enough to make you blush.
 
If I could then have taken you home to make you mine one night, a night I would have made with you, night I would have forgotten not ever.
But, we did not, we did not, we did.
 
From the Vaudeville, past the Bourse, down the rue Réamur to the top of Montorgueil. She comes. Brown. Dark-eyed. Arched-eyebrows. Nice plump arms; rounded, you are, my dear. Yes, and that clipped English accent, those thin sensuous magenta lips. You must have drunk all of the best coffee in the world to have those eyes, shaped like almonds, and what pretty white teeth. Yes, your Arab, Indian, English bloodlines are apparent in those eyes, in those deliciously large plump full hips, in your full, shapely cans. Yes, I shall call them that, cans, long, full, pointed, wanting for all of my mouth to suck them, I know. Call it whatever drive you like. I haven’t any restraint in my mind when I see, smell and sense you dear, so close, my dear, so close to me, my dove.

We did not.

We did.

We did not,

...  

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​Venetia Sjogren is a 61-year-old disabled homo sapien, fem, grandmother, a proud Latina of mixed cultural heritage, a borderline atheist and humanist. Back in 2005, she fled New Jersey, for the gentle mists of Seattle only to return to New Jersey, when her grandson was born. However, she considers herself a Seattle refugee hoping to return there, one day. Some of her publication credits include The Farmhouse Magazine, Jersey Works, and Howard University’s The Amistad, The Cristell Writing Contests - The Book Lovers Haven, and Wordgathering.

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​David Vela is a professor of English at Diablo Valley College, in Pleasant Hill, California, where he is also an advisor to veterans and an instructor and mentor in the Puente Project. ​

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