At Moontower’s Crawfish Boil, I’m grooving with this girl from Idaho, the 80s cover band blasting “More Than a Feeling” through our bods. She’s got tortilla-colored freckles, and she looks me in the eyes, sucking a crawfish claw, when we’re dancing. She pulls me close, moaning, “I’d like to be consumed. Like those shellfish.” Asking for it.

We drive to her place fast. Inside, kissing, taste and smell blurring. Green herb shampoo, rose soap skin, saliva. Salt. I peel her silky scarf from her neck. 

“Inhale me,” she says. “Devour me.” 

I slide her finger, blue nail polish flaking, between my lips. I try to swallow, rather than chew—don’t wanna hurt. Her digits go down my throat like fish sticks, tickling, pleading—for more, or for me to stop? Her open mouth, screaming. Then the arms, the rich pits. Creamy breasts and ribs—who doesn’t love ribs, with or without sauce? The exquisite torso—the stuff of sculpture—then the twisted soft neck. The crunch of her teeth, like hard candy. Her gourd head, her high cheekbones collapsing, her face wailing—passion. Soon I can’t hear her. The rest of her, too, the waist, below the waist—what most men want. All pubic bone and soft tissue, immaculate thighs like drumsticks on a country chick. Shapely calves and feet—the toes hurt my mouth. There’s always something about a woman that doesn’t go down easy.

I sit in a food coma, rubbing my ballooned belly. Belching, no one to tell me, “Stop it.” Then the heartburn.

Women always remind me of Mama—her bare neck, silky shoulders. After each night shift, smelling like ketchup, she’d collapse in bed in a white nightie before sunrise. “I’m too tired to play, little boy. Just lie here, watch me sleep.” My hand near Mama’s mouth, her sucking my fingers, me sucking my own thumb. I wanted to crawl all the way inside her mouth. To live in her always. Eventually she’d wake. “Sweaty child!” Pushing me away.

I feel the farm girl clambering around inside my belly, my ribs, like bars on a cell. Confused at first, she cries and rumbles, her bones rattling me from within. Sometimes I still hear them, the women. Rattling, for a while. 

“I can’t help myself,” I say aloud. “I was so hungry.” 

Eventually she settles, lying down, bathing in gastric juices. But she scratches inside me, some sharp part I can’t digest—one insistent, manicured finger, clawing, sticking in my craw.

Now I’m full, breath scented with blood and roses. Flossing her green scarf threads out from my teeth. The heft of her, filling me, grounding me. I’ll be empty again soon. Nothing good lasts.