{"id":7861,"date":"2018-03-18T01:49:17","date_gmt":"2018-03-18T07:49:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/?page_id=7861"},"modified":"2018-03-18T15:20:55","modified_gmt":"2018-03-18T21:20:55","slug":"puffer","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/?page_id=7861","title":{"rendered":"Puffer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bruce Shields<\/strong><\/p>\n

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He stands and paces the room, a strut, she thinks, before slipping on his boxers and plopping himself back onto the mattress. It makes a sudden rust-iron squeak, as if surprised by his weight. Even in the afternoon, he smells like morning, stale and yeasty.<\/p>\n

He stands and walks over to the dresser and for the first time since she\u2019s sat, she looks up to regard him. She\u2019s curious more than anything. He curls his back, hunches, pressing his face closer to the puffer. She can only see him from behind, his spine curled, his buttocks flaccid and relaxed beneath the thin fabric of his shorts, but she knows he\u2019s face-to-face and the puffer is looking at him. It, too, is curious.<\/p>\n

Where did it come from? he asks, but his voice is so thin and filled with static she doesn\u2019t think he\u2019s talking to her, only to himself.<\/p>\n

If she were to answer, she\u2019d tell him it didn\u2019t come from anywhere. It\u2019s always been a part of her. It wasn\u2019t a thing born but a thing released like a plug of mucus her body was ready to dislodge. Before she\u2019d expelled it, the puffer slinked up through her esophagus like a mat of hair, choking and suffocating, until it spilled out like a slosh of vomit. Before then, she\u2019d felt it in her gut. For years, it sat there, painful as a needle\u2019s prick if a needle\u2019s prick could be a permanent sensation and not fleeting and temporary.<\/p>\n

She wants to tell him he doesn\u2019t understand it because he doesn\u2019t understand her body. Last night and then again this afternoon, she\u2019d let him press his body atop hers and fidget with his prick until he slipped it inside, all the while wearing a mask of dumb-teenager befuddlement and awe across his face. She\u2019d be willing to bet he has that same stupid expression on his face now.<\/p>\n

You can touch it, she hears herself say even though she doesn\u2019t remember willing the words from her mouth.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t want to . . .<\/p>\n

Go on. It\u2019s okay. I don\u2019t mind.<\/p>\n

For a moment, he just stands there and she knows he\u2019s thinking about it. In a way it\u2019s beautiful, the color so deep and black it looks like an endless void, space without stars. It puffs, fills the edges of the jar and he reaches toward it, tapping the tips of his fingers against the glass\u2019s edge.<\/p>\n

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BRUCE SHIELDS<\/strong> writes and lives along the Colorado Front Range where he received his MFA from Colorado State University. Previous work has appeared or is forthcoming in Occulum, Coffin Bell, <\/em>and Kansas City Voices. <\/em>You can find and follow him on Twitter @ 321ReadySetGo<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bruce Shields     He stands and paces the room, a strut, she thinks, before slipping on his boxers and plopping himself back onto the mattress. It makes a sudden rust-iron squeak, as if surprised by his weight. Even in … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"parent":7858,"menu_order":2,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-7861","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P15duy-22N","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7861"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7861\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7867,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7861\/revisions\/7867"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}