Pens to Ploughshares

Lillian woke in the middle of the night and made an unpleasant face. The cool evening's air raised goosebumps on her bare skin, and she took the starchy white hotel sheet and wrapped it around her, partly for warmth, partly in a way that suggested a concern for modesty, although the thin fabric did little to conceal the form of her slender breasts or the contrasting color of her aureoles. She glanced at the man who lay next to her, Daniel, handsome in the face and shoulders but in possession of a large belly that rose and fell heavily with his breathing, and swollen breasts that were etched with stretch marks and lined with fur that collected in the center of his torso and ran all the way down to his tangled pubic hair.

She gathered the sheet up and stepped lightly to look out the sliding glass door that was streaked with rainwater that blurred her view of the sparse lights and the occasional car that spend by. On the balcony, water had pooled onto the white, plastic deck chairs and had drenched two beach towels, a pair of men's trunks, a rose colored sunhat, and a blue and white skirt that was to be worn over top a woman’s bathing suit. The woman sat in a chair to watch the rain, picking at the polish on her fingernails, but finally she stood and walked to the pine wood dresser, a dresser that didn't belong to her or anyone really, if you thought about it, and withdrew a pack of thin cigarettes typically associated with women, and a silver lighter, and walked back to the sliding door. She opened it slowly but the pattering of falling rain instantly filled the room, causing Daniel to stir. She lit up a cigarette.

“Can't sleep?” Daniel asked and coughed as he rolled towards her. Lillian said nothing. He struggled to sit up, covering his lower half with the quilt. “What's wrong, babe?”

“Nothing is wrong. Sorry I woke you, you were sleeping pretty soundly.”

“Well, don't sweat it.” Daniel watched as she took a drag from her long and slender cigarette, and then breathed out the gray smoke in a cloud that mixed with the rain outside the door and dispersed.

“Go back to sleep, I'll be done in a moment,” she said, but he continued watching her smoke. She turned around and met his gaze. “What?”

“I don't know… Are you sure you're alright?”

“Of course. Why wouldn't I be?” She turned her head and gazed into the rain again.

“Lily?”

“What?”

“Did you have a good time today?”

“Daniel...”

“Do you know what you want to do tomorrow?”

“No, not really. Look, I’m fine, Daniel. Really.” She looked back at him and smiled.

“Okay.”

Lillian stood and then tossed what was left of her cigarette into the air and it sailed away and down and out of sight, falling somewhere on the sidewalk seven stories down. In the process her sheet was hit by a handful of wayward droplets. She leaned against the door until it slid closed, leaving the small hotel room in relative silence.

“Look at you,” Daniel said, and rose from the bed, comfortable in the nude, his belly leading the way as he walked to where she stood before the glass door. “You've gotten a little wet.”

“Dan—“

“Here,” he said, and in his large hands gripped the edges of the sheet where she held it closed in front of her light bust.

“No, Dan.”

            He said nothing, but continued to pull the sheet from her until it fell in a pile on the floor. The young woman's whiteness shown around the room, bounced off the radio dial, the wall mirror, the gold leaf bedside lamp, the silver doorknob. He tried to kiss her, but she turned head. Incited in some way, the man gripped her arms and started pulling her away from the sliding door, but she put the palms of her hands against his fleshy chest.

            “Stop it,” she said savagely, her eyes flashing.

            The man released her. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

            She bent for the sheet and covered herself again. “Can you please just go back to bed?”

“Fine.” He returned to the bed and, facing away from her, rolled himself up in the quilt. Instead of joining him she sat back down in the chair. After a minute he rolled back over and yelled at her. “Why can't we just have a nice time? Why do you have to be like this? I bring you out here and show you a nice time and I don't ask anything of you. But you just have to be a bitch. You know what? We're leaving tomorrow, so you'd better get some sleep.” He rolled over again and soon he was snoring. Just like she had tried to open the glass door, Lillian wept as silently as she could.