Clown for Hire

A very short story about tapping into desire

There is no conquest when the issue is love and desire. No point in quoting genders, there is just the hunter, a special kind of hunter. And he is in a particular kind of search, inside himself and outside. Inside there is pulse, and heat. Heart beat, blood pumping. An existential rhythm that he can’t control. There is an icy wind in his chest, a storm that doesn’t mind what it wrecks inside of him but won’t just leave. Outside; eyes, breath, a shakiness, stillness. A glimpse of that same pulse... or something like it.

Once there was this woman. Pale skin, unnatural under the Brazilian sun. Red hair, painted. And drawings, words whispered, hard desire thrown to the wind with a promise of nothing and yet, filled with hope. 

One night there was this party. Friends and laughter, a sense that the secret was out. The boyfriend, gone! I made a round of drinks. Mojitos, a delicatessen in this country, learned from a Panamanian barman across the ocean, in Paris. By Crom did I felt special and unique that night.

She asked for another one, I would fulfill the wish, but only with her company. We went to the kitchen, away from prying eyes. Her steps grew timid across the apartment in Lapa. I started to cut the lemons.  As I addressed the elephant in the room, she blushed.

She struggled to answer and left the kitchen. Then, she returned: “You see... I cant...”, she waited. “... you can’t. But do you want it?”, I replyed.

Her eyes got nearly moist, the blushing reached her bust. To this day I haven’t found a woman with a stronger, more revealing breath.

I took her hand and with as little force as a child caresses a flower, she floated towards me like the butterfly tattooed in her back.

We kissed, and for the rest of that night, until the boyfriend’s revival, we were our own.