T-Bone Licker
By Match Ryan

 My boyfriend is a meat-eater and I’m past the stage where I challenge his diet. Tonight, when he got up to use the restroom, I watched the grace in which he weaved between the tables, as if he were dancing along with the jazz band who closed their eyes while they blew on horns and banged percussions. He is an athlete, a football player, and the way his muscles contract against my skin stay with me long after he leaves to work-out in the mornings.

I waited till I could see him no longer so I could pick up his T-bone and lick it, for no other reason than I wanted to internalize a piece of his essence. The blade of the bone cut down the center of my tongue. I allowed the blood to collect in my mouth. When he came back, I said, “I did this for us.” What oozed out of my mouth must have disgusted him because he threatened to never French kiss me again.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Match Ryan’s fiction has been published or is forthcoming in Word Riot, elimae, Pequin, Clockwise Cat, Bewildering Stories, Boston Literary Magazine and Writers Notes. He is an editor for Best New Writing and a professor of English at Concordia University St. Paul. He holds the MFA in Writing from Spalding University.