“You wanna dream about cowboys?” I said, and they yeehawed at Mary while I grabbed handkerchiefs from our room, one red, one blue. When I tied them over their noses, the boys held so still they barely breathed. Then their hands turned hard and they shot up the room, rodeoed ‘til the bedsprings whined under their bucking. Last thing we saw before I switched out the light was the lipless shadow in each of their mouths as they sucked their bandanas in and out, in and out.
A few weeks back, I bought myself a prosthetic penis just to see what it was like to have one. I didn’t have a plan at first—I wouldn’t use it on myself, you know, like that, even if the thing hadn’t come with a lengthy safety disclaimer written in eight languages with an inflammatory illustration […]