kaolin fire presents :: writing :: fiction

"HeatWave"

words

A tattoo on his left arm. Three squiggly lines, like heat rising off of asphalt in the distance.

Cold thoughts running through his head.

Wouldn't he just rather be in bed.

Wouldn't he just.

His bed.

Three bands on his left ring finger--one for each wife, he liked to joke.

He'd never been married, or that's what he told the girls online--he just liked to play.

Fever was starting to get in his veins.

Time for a change.

His first wife, depending on how you counted--it'd been a commonlaw marriage, he didn't know if it had ever hit the books besides his being the father of her child. Her child. She'd set things in motion-kicked him out in the rain after finding out about Jason, made him feel wrong, made him feel different. Restraining order made sure he never saw her again. Shame about the kid--in hindsight, letting Anna mold another mind was probably the stupidest thing he'd ever done.

After Anna--that's when he'd gotten the tattoo. Fires burning in his skull, there hadn't seemed to be anything else to do. Who needed to be respectable? What was there to stand up for, what was there to stand up to?

He wanted to see what he was made of.

His second wife--she was a wild one. Picked him up in a biker bar, though she was all of five foot two, heels up to there and dainty as Marilyn Monroe--until he got her into bed. Butch all the way, she was. She was also a hard one to count, being as she was still married at the time. But for all intents and purposes, she was his--he thought. Funny thing about that--she and the "hubby" worked out their differences, and the whole "friendship" thing didn't happen because she was afraid something might slip. Another one, completely shut off.

Couch surfing was getting old; his wrinkles were beginning to show. He didn't want to die alone, though forty-seven was hardly knocking on death's door.

His third wife--oh man; his third wife put the others to shame in every way. She knew his passions, his desires, his mistakes; she understood him. And she could be wild or tame, timid or daring--the most inspiring flights of fancy. He'd met her at a theater bash, aftershow. He'd been bartending, and she'd just sat down and stolen his heart.

Her stage name was Josephine Aurelia, but she'd been born Joseph Tibbek.

It was a shame that Josephine re-found herself. He couldn't cope with that. Despite all the flings, he couldn't put himself in the role of a homosexual. It just wasn't him.

But he was on this couch. A not-quite-a-stranger's couch; they'd picked him up from work, after plenty of flirting, plenty of drinking. They'd been flirting for a month or two, at least. Handsome, quiet--well kept, well spoken. Reserved. He could use someone a little slower-paced. Kick it back a notch.

But he couldn't do it.

As soon as he started thinking beyond the fling, he felt ill.

Hot.

Fevered.

Unpleasantly so.

Waves flinging themselves through his body, back and forth--and his mind keeps spinning through his former lives, his former wives.