The husband walked the dog. A power-walking woman overtook them. She glanced backward and paused.
May I pet your dog? she asked with the breathy voice of a power-walker who has just paused. The husband said yes. The woman knelt before the dog and cooed and petted it. She looked up at the husband and, rising, asked if she might kiss him.
The husband was taken aback. Are you a temptress—or a sprite? he asked. If the woman’s request hadn’t been so sudden, the husband might have come up with something better to say.
Of course not, the woman laughed. It was an impulsive thing. I looked up and thought: I would love to kiss this man.
The husband admitted that it was a flattering request. But really—
Then what’s the harm? the woman laughed. I get tired of living in a world of strangers who never connect with one another. Sometimes it would be so much better, you know, if people connected more … what?
But kissing? Oh, what the hell.
They kissed. It started as a simple kiss on the lips. But it was pleasurable and the husband lingered longer than he had intended. Their tongues met between their lips. The dog sat dutifully and watched. After the woman had given the husband her tongue, he gave her his. The woman clamped shut her jaw and bit off the man’s tongue.
Jevuv! He screamed.
The woman spat out the tongue and continued on her power walk.
Tears had filled the husband’s eyes and he couldn’t see which way the woman went. He thrashed where he stood and grew dizzy with the pain. Blood flowed over his chin and dribbled onto his shoes. The dog danced around the husband’s feet, lapping the blood from his toes. Seagulls fought in the middle of the road. The largest and loudest warned the others away and took off into the morning sun with the husband’s tongue in its beak.
The husband stumbled home but didn’t go inside. His wife was in the kitchen and would wonder how he lost his tongue. The husband needed time to think up a plausible story. Accident at a construction site? Wild dog? Confrontation with a mad seamstress? He didn’t know what to say. Instead, he sat in the car with a wad of Kleenex pressed against the stump of his tongue. On the way to the local emergency ward, he tossed the bloody wad onto the road and stuffed another into his mouth.
At the hospital, the doctor on duty asked awkward questions, but it’s difficult to answer questions, awkward or not, without a tongue. The doctor injected something into the stump of the tongue and the pain vanished. After the stitches, the police arrived with awkward questions of their own. They offered a pen and pad of paper, but the husband only doodled.
Look, said one of the police officers.
The husband looked and saw a hulking man with a puffed-out chest of Kevlar.
Look, said the hulking officer, you’re not the first. And I understand it’s embarrassing. We know how she operates. Targets a dude with a ring. Asks for a kiss. Then a little tongue action. Bam. Chews it off. Dude’s too embarrassed to say anything, so she gets away with it. Does it again. Before you know it, dudes all across the city are registering for signing lessons.
The husband refused to volunteer information. After he filled his prescription for painkillers, he went home to face his wife. Although the husband faced his wife, he admitted nothing. With waves of his arm and scrawls on a pad of paper, he indicated that he didn’t want to talk about it.
Aw he wawa oo ee lie ee beh.
The husband lay on his bed and stared at the ceiling. The dog chewed on the bloody wads the husband had spat into the garbage can before he lay down. A plate shattered against the kitchen wall. Although the husband refused to tell what had happened, the wife wasn’t stupid. There were stories circulating through the neighbourhood. Myrna Mapplethorpe’s husband hadn’t spoken to her in months. And there were others, too. Men who grunted when they used to chat. Men who wandered through the neighbourhood with heads bowed in shame, humming and mumbling but never speaking aloud.
She got you, didn’t she?
Later in the evening, when the dishes stopped crashing against the kitchen wall, the wife came to the bedroom. She lay beside her husband and apologized. It must be a horrible thing, to lose your tongue like that. So painful. So humiliating. She kissed her husband on the cheek. She unbuttoned his shirt and played with the hairs on his chest. She caressed the inside of his thigh.
Would you like me to suck you? she asked.
The husband was taken aback. Are you a temptress—or a sprite? he tried to ask.
Of course not, the woman laughed.