First, Body: Stories

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TWO NURSES with scissors could make a man naked in eleven seconds. Sid Elliott had been working Emergency eight months and it amazed him every time. Slicing through denim and leather, they peeled men open faster than Sid’s father flayed rabbits.

Roxanne said it would take her longer than eleven seconds to make him naked. “But not that much longer.” It was Sunday. They’d met in the park on Tuesday, and she hadn’t left Sid’s place since Friday night. She was skinny, very dark-skinned. She had fifteen teeth of her own and two bridges to fill the spaces. “Rotted out on smack and sugar. But I don’t do that shit anymore.” It was one of the first things she told him. He looked at her arms. She had scars, hard places where the skin was raised. He traced her veins with his fingertips, feeling for bruises. She was never pretty. She said this too. “So don’t go thinking you missed out on something.”

He took her home that night, to the loft in the warehouse overlooking the canal, one room with a high ceiling, a mattress on the floor beneath the window, a toilet behind a screen, one huge chair, one sink, a hot plate with two burners, and a miniature refrigerator for the beer he couldn’t drink anymore.

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