Marty’s car was a hearse, so that was the first turn on. Then there were his maroon lips, so girlish, so startling against his waxy skin.
Mother was appalled, of course. “He’s three times your age,” she said.
“Get knotted,” I said, and drove around with Marty in that Cadillac with its curtained windows where the dead used to lie.
At night, we parked behind Tesco and, in the coffin space, Marty peeled off my fishnets, restricto-knicks, and double F bra. And with those wine-bright lips he drank me down, plundered from every inch of me, while I lay under him, thinking of soil.
Nuala O’Connor lives in Co. Galway, Ireland. In 2019 she won the James Joyce Quarterly competition to write the missing story from Dubliners, “Ulysses.” Her fourth novel, Becoming Belle, was recently published to critical acclaim. She is currently writing a bio-fictional novel about Nora Barnacle, wife and muse to James Joyce. Nuala is editor at new flash e-zine Splonk. www.nualaoconnor.com
Lost Balloon 