A Certain Hunger

by Chelsea G. Summers

Indeed, I can think of only three lovers who have seen where I live; my home is mine, and I don’t like to share.

It’s such an intimate thing, to witness another’s death. Orgasms are a dime a dozen. Any old human woman can see a man orgasm. We so rarely get to see them die; it has been my greatest gift and my most divine privilege.

You can’t be a woman without protection. Condoms fail. Pepper spray can be turned against you. Information almost never does.

Information is like a feral cat: what it wants most is to be free and to bite someone. Who am I to stand in the way of the call of the wild.

sounding like a Filene’s Basement Patti Smith

The bridges hang like jewels around the throat of the night,

One of the wonderful things about true Italian men is that their default setting is about a cunt hair away from physical violence where their heterosexual bonds are concerned.

I do enjoy men with a whiff of menace.

Children make me turn on the oven and reach for the rosemary.

He was jovial and gluttonous, two qualities

… I love in a man

Rome wants to lie back and let you stroke it, lick it, and devour it whole. Rome makes my head swim with its beauty, the sheer weight of its history, its crazy quilt of architectural movements, and its breathtaking men. The men in Rome saunter like they have great towering monuments between their legs. I find it difficult not to go entirely bent-kneed and supplicant, mouth open and teeth delicately bared, so great is the power of Rome.

I like successful men. They smell like money, confidence, and expensive hand lotion.

I like a man who can keep his commitments. Let me rephrase that: I like a man who can keep his commitments to me.

It was all up to him, you see, whether he lived or died. It was his body, his choice.