Three Stories by Kona Morris

Receptive

He said he liked to be scientific about it. Stick his finger in and feel around. “What’s that?” “This part is really soft.” “I feel ripples.”

He called her “receptive.” She wanted it to mean he thought she was a great lover, but it didn’t feel like that’s what it meant.

Would he call her “receptive” if she lay still, stiff legged and unbending? It bothered her how unaware he was of her role, less valued than the anemone she followed him over jagged rocks to see. He poked its center and reeled with excitement at how fast it closed.

The Kitten

Five days after the kitten was born, its mother was scared away by asshole kids. They saw the nursing cat under the dumpster and thought it hilarious to throw rocks at her. The kitten had three siblings. The first died within two hours, the next within fourteen, the third made it to the street, but got eaten by a hawk. The kitten felt its whole body twitch with need. Convulsions of hunger and panic. After crawling to a puddle of discarded pudding in the alley, the kitten began to feed itself. Its eyes widened and its tail became a spring.

Confessions #3

I had a boyfriend I didn’t like that much who never had any toilet paper. I imagined he always shat on campus, but I was bitter he wasn’t more thoughtful of me. And I really didn’t like having to drip dry and wear stinking damp panties. So I started using his towel to wipe myself. It was his only towel, hung on the bar across the shower. I used a different section each time, patting urine onto where he wiped his face and dried his hands. Once the towel was thoroughly saturated, I left his apartment and never went back.

Photo credit: Matt Callow