Sex - “Inventory”
The narrator recounts, “One woman. Blond hair, brash voice, friend of a friend. We married. I’m still not sure if I was with her because I wanted to be or because I was afraid of what the world was catching all around us. Within a year, it soured. We screamed more than we had sex, or even talked. One night, we had a fight that left me in tears. Afterward, she asked me if I wanted to fuck, and undressed before I could answer. I wanted to push her out the window. We had sex and I started crying.” The story “Inventory” is an amalgamation of sexual episodes; the motif of sex permeates all the episodes outlined in the story. In this case, the man leaves the woman after intimacy which is an affirmation that intimacy is not synonymous to unconditional love.
Kiss - “The Husband Stitch”
The narrator describes, “On the deck, I kiss him. He kisses me back, gently at first, but then harder, and even pushes open my mouth a little with his tongue. When he pulls away, he seems startled. His eyes dart around for a moment, and then settles on my throat.” The kiss is indicative of the narrator’s desire for the boy. She initiates the kissing because she hankers for pleasure. The boy’s pulling is an affirmation that he had not anticipated the girl to kiss him.
