Angel of the Morning

His buddy told him: try Seeking Arrangement. I put that I’m worth two million. I take them to a sushi place. But not one where the chef doesn’t let you order. Middle income place; I tell them I don’t have time for courtship. Too busy. With what they don’t ask. I tell them before we set an allowance I have to sample the goods. Easy pussy.

Yeah but I want someone to like me.

Well what else is there. Tinder’s dead. OKCupid, don’t get me started. No girls at the clubs and I promise you it’s from this shit. They all think they can get paid.

I’d sooner be alone, he thought.

Six months later he was at the ATM. The girl waited in the car. They’d met at the duck pond. He didn’t know where else to take a date. The coots had gone. Buffleheads and wigeons moved on to summer feeding grounds. But there was a kingfisher. Snowy egrets.

Like all dates she pretended to like the birds. Except the geese, which scared her. There was a pack of them around a churro a child had dropped. When you got close they’d hiss with oddly human tongues. A big one swung its neck at her and she jumped back instead of leaning into him. A bad sign. What would I do if it bit her, he thought. Would I still have to defend her. The Canada goose is primarily an herbivore. But its serrated bill is strong enough to crush small crabs and other aquatic arthropods.

They’d talked like normal. He still tried to impress her. Had no other way to speak. Her message had said she wanted revenge on the patriarchy. Then a picture of her tits.

They sat by a jacaranda. When she said white males he could tell it was capitalized. She hated Michel Houellebecq. Liked Slavoj Zizek, which she’d practiced saying. Her purse was open. He saw homeopathic extracts. Yes but Zizek is just a Houellebecq character, he said. An ugly man pretending to be deep for pussy. She said what kind of arrangement are you looking for.

I want you be nice to me, he said. I want you to act like you love me. He’d practiced too.

What does that mean, she said.

We’ll go to my apartment. You take off your clothes but you can leave your panties on. You tickle my back. Maybe whisper in my ear a little. I want intimacy. Like a lover’s touch. I won’t take my cock out. Sixty for the hour.

She had a hairy pussy and it smelled like oregano. She didn’t take her panties off but they were mesh and her grizzly bear muff hung out the sides. Once he’d seen his mother’s cunt hair emerging from dolphin shorts at the pool. It was just like that. White women. He’d put on Daphnis et Chloe by Ravel, remembering it being softer than it was. As she dragged nipples on his back and exhaled in his ear canal there’d be a too-bright horn ostenato, like something out of the Flintstones.

She didn’t talk much. Just how am I doing. Is this OK. It was; she was good at it. In character. He could tell she was getting hot from the oregano smell but when he tried to kiss her she said no.

The next day he didn’t want to hang himself. Thought: if I can get this with money, I won’t have to chase it and lose.

The next girl was black. Fat, 19, her big soft belly rolling over him like a slick wet pillow. Her little girl face made him wish he owned slaves. But she got horny. Suddenly he was working. Pushing his tongue into her salty asshole thinking: does she like this. Same with the next one. Chinese. Fat too; she had a condo from her green card marriage to some Shanghai oligarch. Why do you pay for this, she said. You’re so hot. He couldn’t then not lift up her Hello Kitty dress; climb on top of her with the minimum foreplay allowed by law. Asking can I cum in you. For weeks he’d wake up to texts from both of them. u up. wyd.

But it was the oregano girl he saw again. One night she texted: want me to come tuck you in. She got on top of him. The mesh panties with the soft beard hanging out and she asked: same as last time. One extra thing, he said, and she said I won’t fuck you.

No, can you talk to me. Like what, she asked. Can you say what you’d say if you loved me, he said. She made a face like he’d asked what’s 17 times 23.