A Derivation of Love
A Derivation of Love (9 of 8)
Friday, September 14th, 2001.
Desmond’s cock was limp and wet with spermicidal fluid. He lay on his back, one hand behind his head, and the other across his stomach holding a cigarette. The smoke curled in front of him, up and around. Carmen was asleep, facing the wall.
He was leaving Calgary, tomorrow. Probably forever. At least [...]
A Derivation of Love (8 of 8)
Sunday, September 9th, 2001
Desmond blinked and turned towards Carmen. She smiled at him from across the table, across the newspapers, and across the pint glasses of coffee and the ashtrays. Her tongue pressed against the back of her teeth and her red hair framed her cherub face and bright blue eyes. Desmond’s notebook was between [...]
A Derivation of Love (7 of 8)
Tuesday, August 15th, 2000
The Calgary cityscape is itself a mountain, jutting out of the Alberta flatlands into an almost always blue sky. From here, there is no urban sprawl. Only the sharp and sudden uprising of oil-fed sky scrapers. Behind this, in the distance, the sun reflects a squat row of irregular triangles that are [...]
A Derivation of Love (6 of 8)
Thursday, February 15, 1996
Dana pushed at his head. “Stop. It’s too much. It’s too much. Stop.”
Desmond stopped immediately. He took his face from between her legs and pulled down the blanket. He slid under it and tunnelled up into her embrace.
“Oh my God. That felt really, really good.” She was flush, her hair was [...]
A Derivation of Love (5 of 8)
Sunday, January 17th, 1988
The tap was hot under the ball of Desmond’s left foot. The condensation dripping off of it was cool. Peering over his book at the tap, Desmond carefully forced one of its knobs between his big toe and the one next to it. He pushed the tap but it did not move. He [...]
A Derivation of Love (4 of 8)
Saturday, May 14th, 1994
The commercial ended and the movie came back on. Karen straddled Desmond, holding his face in her hands, kissing him. Part of the TV was visible over her shoulder and it was the scene when Harrison Ford tells the cop he didn’t do it and the cop says, “I don’t care.” Karen [...]
A Derivation of Love (3 of 8)
Wednesday, September 5th, 1984
A short lilt of uneven steps, with peeling paint and exposed wood, fell from a large porch that was awkwardly attached to a massive house. Behind the house, a garden, disorderly and unkempt, encircled a large dilapidated shed. In front of the shed, a stretch of yellow, brittle, and dry grass [...]
A Derivation of Love (2 of 8)
Wednesday, April 30th, 1993
The cool of the air-conditioning touched Desmond’s skin where the tangle of his blanket was absent. He lay still and concentrated on remembering the girl. He tried to remember her not as a dream but as she had been up until the very last instant before waking, as she had been before [...]
A Derivation of Love (1 of 8)
Monday, April 28th, 1980
Across the street from the subdivision in which they lived, the children waited for the school bus. The unfinished subdivision had opened recently and, without roads, sidewalks, or lawns, the almost identical townhouses were marooned in mud and connected by wooden-planks. The clearing, where the children gathered, was uneven and muddy and, like [...]
