This Guy I was seeing kept his apartment spick and span. Swiffered every day, never a single dish in the sink. He made his bed, ironed his clothes, took his pills, did his homework, flossed. It was amazing. Everything in his apartment was arranged so meticulously the whole place ended up looking a little plastic. Like a strange wartime museum full of fake, shiny food, poisoned glassware, and propaganda. Like Barbie’s American-Dreamhouse got a makeover by those twins on HGTV commissioned by Richard Nixon.

He had exactly one peeling poster on the wall that was clearly the work of a much-cooler-than-him ex-girlfriend. It had Liz Phair on the front, her nipples gracefully grazing the bottom edge. Exile in Guyville. The cherry on top. 

I loved it. 

The first time I came over, I remember watching This Guy watching his label maker as it printed CAYENNE for his spice drawer. Step Brothers was on in the back. His mouth was parted slightly, his eyes hopeful and soft, projecting a puppy-like pliability. It was an expression I can only describe as reverence. It was the stuff long-haired, vaguely foreign men croon about on the perpetually revolving CDs in coffee shops.

I watched him watch and briefly, but genuinely, hoped a fly would fly into his open mouth. It was refreshing to be jealous of a label maker instead of a human woman, so the thought left me quickly. And he was adorable; short and sinewy, like a beautiful ballerina who would never, ever make it big. I decided then that we would eventually have a couple of small, sensible children in an eccentric, very tidy little house. I could live with the label maker.

But for now, This Guy would accompany me to the grocery store, rubbing out scuffs on the floor with his sneaker. He would hold my hand through the aquarium, sneakily running his nail under mine to remove a speck of dirt as I pointed. He would pull a lint roller out of thin air at the movie theater, removing cat hair I hadn’t even noticed. He would follow me around parties every other weekend, and this was my favorite, darting and weaving between people like a quick, bright cleaner fish. Brave and agile, an acrobat turned storm chaser. My very own, very cute Zamboni. He would pick up drinks I knocked over, push my boob back into my top, plug my phone into the wall, pour me a glass of water, peel my sweaty laptop off my bare, sleeping midriff. Pause the sad music that blared from it.

Once, after one of these parties became just a mess to clean up, This Guy walked me home. A whole almost-mile and I didn’t even sleep with him. I remember thinking it was very kind; I blushed like a schoolgirl the whole way. He skateboarded in circles around me lazily and as we trudged on, somehow getting drunker, he gained confidence with his tricks. We reached the basketball hoop at the end of my street, about to turn into the driveway, and he fell, almost taking me down with him. He scraped both knees and an elbow, ripping a hole in the pocket of his favorite blue coveralls.

The next day, (because they were my favorite too, they made him look honest, like a local mechanic) I sat on the porch and sewed a patch in them while he texted me about my coming birthday.

What are we doing for ur day?

oh no. i don’t know. drugs hopefully.

Radical

We could just get all tarred up and light ourselves on fire

bury each other and...

and?

Rest eternally together

nah. maybe origami?

Ur wish is my command.

we could do that underground or above. i don’t mind.

Subterranean sounds better

like little root vegetables. i agree.

little root vegetables with hands.

For folding paper

and fingering me

LKEFHWEOFIEHFOEWFH

Ur wish is my command.

I smiled, sewing, and had the bright idea to stitch my name into the lining of his coveralls. My smile got bigger and bigger thinking of all the girlfriends he would have after me, how they would have no idea my name was written across his ass. It still makes me smile to think about it. About This Guy living his tiny, tight little life with my name written across his ass.

***

My eventual birthday was void of the romantic joint burial, the pyromania, the paper cranes we discussed. Not that I expected them. It was void of everything, really. A non-day. I only remember being belligerently drunk and vaguely angry in a wedding dress I bought for $35 at a thrift store. It was a beautiful dress.

But then the night came and we threw a party and I begged This Guy to carry me across the threshold like a Real Bride and he said no. I don’t know why. And everything was different between us. I don’t know why. Then I drank with this friend and that one and danced and sang and smoked a joint and did a line. Snorting hard, leaving no trail for This Guy to clean. To cover up, maybe. I turned then, watched him zip around my apartment, moving glassware away from edges and straightening tablecloths.

To curate, I realized with my cold finger in my mouth, pressing the last of the white against my gums, recalling his weird apartment.

Woah. I’m Liz Phair.

I pictured that my apartment, too, was a carefully staged, artfully commodified museum exhibit in his eyes: prehistoric wax women squatting in their loin cloths around a fire. Their hard nipples strategically hidden by outstretched arms and paper-mâché smoke, but the suggestion of their wax sex hanging heavily in the air, as plain and true as the plastic vines that drip from their small sky.

I don’t know. Drugs. 

Everyone at the party was dressed like me, like almost-emo chicks. Like whores. I was mad at This Guy and then I was suspicious of This Guy and then I was kissing This Guy and it was an angry-suspicious kiss, but hot, too. At least I thought so. And then I opened my laptop and started playing Adele too loudly and my eyelids got heavy. The night was over and we would clean it up tomorrow and did I want to go back to his place?

I guess I did, because next thing I knew This Guy was kissing my neck, his stubble a Brillo pad. Scrubbing, soaping, and scouring. He whispered about how hot I was. How hard he was. I stared at my beautiful wedding dress in a pile on his pristine, citrus-smelling floor. Even in the dark, you could see all the stains I had given it. Spilt food and drinks, a ring of dirt and ash and snow around the bottom. It reminded me of a poem I read once about a green couch. I stared and stared, trying to remember the poem about the green couch. I wanted to ask This Guy to quit scratching me, it was distracting me from trying to remember the poem about the green couch. Also, do you know any poems about green couches? But I wanted my promised fingering, too. I had been jipped of everything else.

I shifted my gaze to the popcorn ceiling, trying to move as slowly and as gracefully as I could. I was taking a minor role in the night’s production because I bit him too hard at the party during our angry-suspicious-hot kiss, made him bleed the tiniest bit out of his bottom lip. I pulled away with a huge smile, I thought it was one of our best. He held his hand over his mouth and looked at me as if I was a man-eating wolf dressed in his not-girlfriend’s clothes. My, what big teeth you have.

So, I laid limp as he trail-blazed, confidently pushing off of my neck to land on my chest, chin-carving a ravine between my breasts, mouth-making a stream of my sternum. I allowed myself to relax, to enjoy the whispers and hums he gifted so generously. I feel so lucky, so smiled-upon, when men make noise in bed.

His spongey stubble left a red, angry rut in its wake. It hurt like nothing at all, both painfully, ruggedly inspiring and completely sterile, just fake. His little journey down my torso reminded me of Lewis and Clark for some reason; it was very American. I smiled, then, at all of the uncredited women who must have choreographed this hike, forged this trail he now sorrily scrubbed down my torso. I assured them I knew he wasn't doing it right. They put their hands over their hearts and pushed their eyebrows together into tents of equal-parts pity and yearning. But the noises, girl. I returned the gesture, the pledge. Girl, I know.

This Guy kissed and licked and bit until he reached my hip bones, Manifest Destiny, I supposed, and stopped. And I was just getting into it.

“You didn’t shave.” I moved my eyes from the ceiling to look at him. He peered at me through his eyebrows, peeved. A look he would never give his label maker. The words jolted me out of my thoughts so violently, I had trouble making sense of them for a second. They seemed so small compared to the ones floating around in my head.

He rested his chin over top of my half-on panties, dejected. They were white, printed with blue cornflowers.

“Neither did you.” I pointed out, though I didn’t mind. He rolled off the bed.

Happy Birthday to me.

“It’s gross,” he said, so matter-of-factly, picking up his shirt off the floor. I propped myself up on my elbows to look at him but then just let my neck go limp, face to the ceiling, back with the popcorn. This time, I thought of all the fictional men my friends swear exist, the ones who would machete their limbs off for a taste of me. The ones who would trudge across countries, through forests, over mountains for a single lick. They would brave the bush. They would make so much noise I’d forget to be thankful for it.

“And quit leaving your shit here,” he said, flinging a tote bag at me. It landed limply on my stomach, holding itself up like a broken puppet. I peered over the edge half-heartedly. Inside was simply an array of hair ties, at most seven or eight, all stretched out to fit different days, hairstyles, versions of me. That’s it. They sat there, scattered by the toss, looking up at me like a scared clutter of spiders. I’m sure I returned the frightened look. It was so bizarre, I wondered briefly if he wanted me to be bald there, too.

With that, This Guy shot into the bathroom and shut the door behind him, extinguishing all light in the room. I heard the familiar buzz of his electric toothbrush, my cue to get the fuck out.

So I did. I got up, stole a t-shirt, picked up my dress, and left his room. I stopped in his kitchen before leaving, or it stopped me. The big light was on, lone and very white. It cast an offensive spotlight across the plastic place. There was nowhere to hide. It was like those clips in SpongeBob where they get really up close and personal, right in his face, and we can see all of SpongeBob’s gross and crusty realities. Pores and snot and stubble. Except there were no realities here. Not a speck. The place was spotless as ever.

I turned to leave and found myself eye to eye with the realest thing in that entire apartment: Liz Phair’s nipples. I decided the poster would be in better hands with me and peeled it off the wall. It rolled up on its own, like it had the exact same idea. I tucked her under my arm with the shirt I would never return and walked out of his apartment. Dragging my dress behind me, around the corner, down the stairs. It caught on everything and ripped like tissue. I kept moving. Before I stepped outside, I put his shirt on. In my hasty taking of the thing, I had imagined swimming, maybe even drowning in a big, Axe-smelling sea of a t-shirt. But this was a crop top with Mickey Mouse printed on the front. Its sleeves threatened to boa-constrict my arms clean off. I wanted to cry.

But I didn't, at least not very much as I wrestled the shirt off and prepared to brave the cold in my wedding dress. It was dirty and torn and damp. And just-right. I felt like a pirate, like Elizabeth Swann. I turned to the lobby’s mirror, pursed and parted my lips. Do you like pain? You should try wearing a corset. Spot-on impression. In my head, of course. Then I thought of the word “swashbuckling” and laughed and imagined rolled-up Liz laughing, too. I decided I was in much better company, now.

I half-hovered half-ran home, barefoot; I was much faster without his skateboard circling me like a shark. I had to hug myself the whole way, or the strapless dress threatened to slip off.

When I got home, I stood at the doorway, took a deep breath, and carried myself, my bride, over the threshold. We threw our heads back and laughed, held each other fast and close, and began our tiptoe through the apartment. Our tour of the exhibit. The birthday party still lay there, frozen in time and space. The clothes-carpeted floor was soft and plush under our two, street-shredded feet. The sticky surfaces held our year-older hands so earnestly.

We taped up the poster in the kitchen. Crookedly and too low, but Liz looked so much happier under the warm, ambient light. Exile in Guyville to Sanctuary in Girlville.

I poured my bride a glass of water, plugged her phone into the wall, pushed her boob back into her top, and her wish was my command. We promptly fell asleep, ruddy and drunk.

I laughed the next morning as I sewed my torn dress, at my name written across his ass.

Electra McNeil is a well-adjusted writer and waitress from Albuquerque, New Mexico. She spends most of her time laughing.