Silly Sex Rituals
Trevor is thirty-four years old, single, and has been mingling regularly ever since his fiance, Petra, broke things off with him. It’s not something he likes to talk about, even five years after the fact. Former friends of his used to say she must keep his balls preserved in a mason jar. He feels better now without her, freer, and less emasculated.
Trevor has a distance runner’s physique and dark curly hair. He wears a tie during the week but busks on the weekend with an acoustic guitar. His busker’s attire makes him look like a landlocked pirate or Keith Richards’s illegitimate son. He dreams of hanging up the suit to make it on the stage. But he knows that ship has already sailed and didn’t have him on it. He performs some of his own music, but the song everyone always requests is “No Woman, No Cry.”
Still, playing guitar in public has done wonders for his confidence. He’s met several women through the simple allure of a tune, the latest of whom is Ipek. He spots her in the crowd one sultry evening in late August. She hovers with reverential distance and starstruck eyes during the length of his set. Trevor thinks she’s cute, even though there’s something odd and asymmetrical about her face, at least as far as he can tell in the half-light of night.
Ipek approaches him as he’s fishing coins out of the purple felt-lined guitar case. He checks his watch to give…
