Sister Fat

Sister Fat Jessie Ren Marshall (bio) He told me he was famous. I had never heard the word in English. "Fey. Mess," he said. "A. Moose," I replied. The boy scratched his sandy beard and searched for a synonym in his limited Tokyo-ben. "Chomei. Yūmei. Yubi—ah, ah—Yubikitasu?" "Oh," I said. "You are ubiquitous! I am ubiquitous, too." The boy laughed and switched back to his native English. "C'mon. If you've never left the island, you can't be famous." Well, this was a stupid thing to say. Fuji-san never leaves Honshu, yet Mount Fuji is known worldwide! "A fool's mouth is wasted in speech," I said, and pointed to a distant tree shrouded with mist. "Now let's suck face in the root cave." We walked to the island's eastern edge, where the waves spat mist and the rocks moaned. I squatted, grabbing a limb of heavy pine, and telling the boy to follow. He looked down at the wet cliffs with a longing I'd seen once before. To disrupt his depression I asked, "In America, am I on TV a lot?" "You?" He shook his head three times: No, no, no. "You have to be filmed before you can appear on television." Then in Japanese, he added, "Stupid cow." "Eat shit," I said. "You don't know a thing about a thing." The boy assumed he was my first American, but no. A wrinkled doctor who smelled like the pith of an orange had taken pictures of me. I performed several different poses. He promised to put them on Hollywood TV. Surely the yellow-haired boy had seen them by now? I jammed my fingers between two rocks and followed the crack to the mouth of a cave. The yellow-haired boy came down quick and easy as a waterfall. When he reached the ledge, I pulled him inside. "Neat," he said, touching a slimy root above our heads. "Do you think it will fall?" I offered to lie down if it would make him feel better. "Distribute the weight," I said, rolling onto my back. My bottom enveloped the loose stones and my dress snuck above my knees. "Like an elevator," he said, snuggling next to me. "When it drops." His breath was powerful. Minty. Callused fingers explored my belly rolls. When his hand got to my breasts he whistled through his teeth. Nipples the size [End Page 155] of starfish, that's what Mother says. An ass to rival the moon. The boy squeezed my shoulder and ground against my thigh. "It's like you're all tits," he said. "Tits, tits, tits." The blond boy did not taste like custard as I'd hoped, but he had an oatmeal color to his privates that I found pleasing. His nose cast a profound shadow, but then, that is the American way of doing noses. If I looked at it from the correct angle, I could convince myself this would be an okay nose for my unborn child. The boy climbed on top and rubbed until his bamboo became a jellyfish. I made sure to scoop up all the goodies and stuff them inside my own dark cave. After this transaction was complete, he slid to my side and patted my shoulder fondly, as if it were a well-behaved dog. "I know we just met," he said, "but I think I want you to kill me." I sucked at my lips and considered this. Men had asked me to do bad things to them before. Hitting mostly, but also smothering, choking, and insulting. Murder would not be impossible. In my imagination, I had performed the act on Mother many times. Surely a stranger would be easy! But the snap of his bones—that sound could haunt my dreams just like the whoomp-whoomp. "How would you want it?" I asked. "Here," he said, waving his arm. "Like this." Simple. The rocks would do most of the work, and the ocean would clean up after. "Okay," I said. "We can make a deal. But I need something in return." "Is it money? I have shitloads of money." I...