THE WARDROBE’S BEST DRESSED: EXCERPT FROM SARAH TOURJEE’S GHOST

GHOST

They touch their hands together. I travel from one to the other, keep going and move into the house. The place is empty of dogs of humans—just one human here, and now two, plus a ghost. Where are we? Who is this? Do they speak? Not for long. Their faces press together, then bodies, hands pull, shed layers, and I enter them, let their tongues pass me from one mouth to the other. They fall to the floor.

Their bodies connect in a variety of ways—legs hooked, hands on faces, on torsos, mouths take what can be taken. I move deeper into the body. I watch from within as they enter each other, contain each other and are contained. When one presses inward, the other gives way to the push. This is the effect I long to cause and so I make myself static, imagine myself physical, a part of the act.

Their bodies, and I with them, rock on the floor slowly then faster and their insides vocal chords vibrate muscles tighten relax tighten tighten. One exits the other and I emerge as well into the air of the house. Now they slide over each other, stick to each other, and I am between them filling the microscopic spaces that remain. They quake, bodies harden, fingers clench, torsos curl, then release, fall back again to the floor.

This is not breeding like dogs multiplying, but something else

This excerpt appeared in Sarah Tourjee’s book, Ghost, available from Anomalous Press. Purchase yours today!

Sarah Tourjee lives online at sarahtourjee.wordpress.com and on land in Providence, RI. Her short fiction and prose can be found in Quarterly West, Conjunctions, PANK, The Collagist, Wigleaf, Everyday Genius, Anomalous, and elsewhere. She is currently at work on a manuscript entitled Sam Says, Sam.

This week’s Wardrobe Best Dressed was selected Nicole Oquendo. Nicole Oquendo is an Assistant Editor for Sundress Publications, and the Nonfiction Editor of Best of the Net. Her most recently published essays and poetry can be found in DIAGRAM, fillingStation, Storm Cellar, and Truck.