Panties

by Mark Sutz

The thing I missed most about you wasn't the way you left me in the morning every day - though the woman I am going to marry now, in two weeks, would never dream of waking me up with her mouth as anything but a microphone to make sure I locked the door when I leave for work, later than her, thankfully, so I can have some time alone. I knew you were going to leave me the next morning. Your sister told me the night before, came over and told me, and swore me to secrecy. She said I deserved to not be abandoned with no explanation. I knew I would miss your panties, those yellow cotton ones, the ones that smelled of you in the hamper longer than any of those frilly things you said you bought for me but seemed to wear only on nights you went out dancing with your girlfriends, and the way they peeled off of your ass with a sound, a sound for christ's sake. That's why I kept them, sealed them away in a sandwich baggie and told myself I would never look for that bag and open it and see if I could still smell you until the day I'd get married to someone else, a day when I must have reached a point of getting over you because I'd have said forever, again, to someone else.

6S

Mark Sutz lives in Arizona. He appreciates his alley apartment and the quiet it affords him to write and listen to the rumble of the train.