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State Contends

She put her legs on the table and I began to polish them. TV was on, but I had no cable anywhere in the house, she tried watching channel 10 through the snow but she couldn't tell what the weather was. A guy all suited up was trying to tell her something, but it was almost dawn anyway. "Wait for the papers," she said.

I offered her all the fresh food I had, but cottage cheese and ice cubes wasn't enough for her. Maybe that's why I'd always be her slave. Long wisps of black hair curling down from her smooth white head, the kind of hair that makes you say "No, that's not too much," just enough to want to smooth out. Enough there to style, to frame so beautifully around the eyes. And of course I always thought those sunglasses helped. She wore them whether the TV was bright or not, whether the moon burned or not, I think she knew my attraction to them, just the appearance of her, yet we both knew that if she were to take them off, those damn sunglasses on the table'd do nothing for me.

I took my monkey out and spanked it. You wouldn't believe the way it'd tore up the room while we were gone. But over she came, after I'd put the damn thing back in the cage, and began to pet it, and baby talk it and generally get between me and my monkey. But she did that everytime. Why should this time spark any kind of family feud between us? That's what I thought...

The crate, the cage had been made from the woods of a primeval jungle. A place where men are men but trees are just barely wood. The stuff would splinter so easy. However they got planks out of these things, I don't fucking know how, because the monkey could just rip those things apart without even going for the easiest, weakest part which was where nail meets board. Right in the middle of a plank, pow! So I'd taped it up, had given it a good gluing over every chance I could. I even stopped buying Lipton cup-a-soup packages because the monkey broke out for them every time.

She was good about it, though. Helped me put the broken chopsticks back in the drawer and the toaster back together and finger the half-eaten magnets out of the range tops, and it was hard on her I know, but when I held her up I could tell it was magic.

It wasn't the first time she'd begun to kiss me like that. Never led anywhere, but this was the first time it led anywhere; her tongue exploring me, me wanting to go down on her, or at least get down to her hips to return the favor of tongue. It's truly amazing how a woman's hips can take on that much more importance, importance without being fuller mind you, and more sheer sexiness when she's got no legs. She squealed when I picked up the potato peeler.

I don't know what did it, well, I didn't then, but the monkey began screaming like an asshole. My brother has very poor taste in jokes, because he's got the sense of humor of a compact disc, and when he tries to push on through his life with a joke - mid-death crisis or some shit I image - by sending someone a monkey, well you've got to hate him. Thing is, it's great for attracting women, once you can get past the zoning for a "wild" animal. And it was getting too wild. Thing is, Moono wouldn't let me get rid of the stinking thing if I'd tried to throw it out the window. Small price for a woman like that I thought. How quickly we change our minds.

Fucking thing was out once again. Screaming and panting and beating his feet on the floor and if I didn't mention screaming enough, he was fucking Screaming. I don't know, they say a dog can get the sense of things. Like if his master is going to beat him, then the dog'll growl or whatever, even if the man's not showing the weapon or has a goddamn frown on. My damn monkey must've surely known I was going to get some, so he pulls this shit.

A condo with a sound-proof chamber. Unless of course you go out onto the balcony, then you're screwed. But the glass door was locked and shatter proof. So was the TV, I thought. Monkey toppled it and what he couldn't accomplish with beating his thumbless hands on the screen, he certainly shook something so loose that now I didn't even have less than cable. What the hell was he doing?

Moono took the crutches, her glimmering falsies still on the table, and went over to soothe him. I still had some kitchen to do, and I'd promised her enough Noodle-Roni boxes for two, but it's hard getting all the magnets out of your stove, isn't it? Someone should invent a spray. I turned around, and came in, fully prepared to ask if she wanted the tenderthin or corkscrew pasta, but she was bleeding and her legs had opened up again. Couldn't look. Still can't...think about it. I saw the last of her heart beat, and her eyes were open, the monkey standing right there, calm. Maybe thinking of monkey things. I was looking at her, but through her, like I was trying to get past the real, going for the illusion, the dream, the ideal, the ideal that's behind every person, when, what you want it to be, and my ideal of her was living. She was alive. But then the monkey began to flick his lips, and made humming noises, and I hated it. But then. I hadn't seen him do it. But still...

That's what I told them. State contends something else.

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