the obelisk implied

Well there was this woman
I liked, we knew
a little about how each
other’s hearts fit into each
other’s mind. It was
an interesting start, but
how to make it go?

And did we want to,
and if so,
where?
How

fast?

Foolishly,
impatient as usual
(although in my usual
defense, not for anything
in particular - just “to find
out”), I was wearing pants.

In fact we both were, and I
- for reasons of my own, which
are none of your business - kind of
wished we weren’t. I wanted to
decrease the general wearing of clothes
in the situation, though at that moment
I could not have said why.

Pants

just seemed gratuitous.
We two don’t need these.
Then I remembered
from the movies,
sometimes a woman
will spill wine, or get
a lot of water

on her blouse
or dress, or in more
modern movies, blood
- and that makes her want
to take it off.

Right.

It’s not entirely clear why.
Or somebody suggests
she take it off - "it’s mussed"
- and she says “great idea! Thanks!”

Sometimes the gent involved, perhaps
the very suggestive one, will (after her
removal of the offended garment), doff
his top and hand it over - but not before we,
(the viewers) get a fascinating glimpse of
implied nudity underneath. Or more likely,

let's be realistic. Underwear!

This is the “payoff.”

Then in a stunning double standard,
it is the topless man who stands revealed
as a hero! More or less cut, but: buff in honor
for sure. Admirable. Concerned.

And now she’s wearing his shirt!
To hide her glorious body shame
in his presence, still untried. It’s
the tell-tale sign:
he hasn’t gotten any.
This revelation implied
or otherwise builds the tension
through the roof, boom, like
a sudden church steeple
jutting to high almighty
in a still-quivering obelisk
penetrating the heavens - only
more obviously profane, in

this case.

Now as you can imagine,
I immediately saw the potential in
a subversive gender-flip of the above
scam. The ol' clean-for-dirty clothes
swap scenario. This would clear away
the offensive and hackneyed stereotype
aspect completely by running it backwards,
against the bias. So

I shit my pants. In a huge, stunning
way - absolutely noiselessly! And
they were dark denim, so, you know

at first

...no one the wiser.

The smell.

She was enjoying herself
enormously, which was why
I did it in the first place. I figured,
dare greatly where you see the chance,
mah man!

But...
her enjoyment
seemed to be dropping
by detectable levels as some
weird change in the air became

oh, too real. “Did you...fart?”

I thought about that. “Possibly.” Rude question!

Her skeptic expression only increased
the desirability in my eyes. The uh,
hoped-for desirability.

It seemed to be doing something
else in her eyes. Her face, too
was distended in a dilating rictus
of dawning horror. Which, hey,

we all know that look.

“OH MY GOD DID YOU”
here her voice dipped low,
but not an insinuating way.
More a please insinuate it
ain’t so way, "...SHIT" (this
was no more than a shhh!
-it hiss whisper) "yourself?”

My face

became as stern as my mind.

It’s the face Superman makes
when he disapproves, I’ve been
told. Anyhow, there was no going
back, at this point it would all have
to come out in the wash eventually:

“Yes.”

I grinned. Heroically, I had once again
owned the truth, humbly as always. How
do I do it? I looked sheepish. WHOOP - no,
that was wolfish. I dialed it back the requisite
number of animal panels to sheepish, on my
inner Mattel Farm Animals See n’ Say,
and pulled the string.

Baaaa. Better.

Her horror was now abject.

Perhaps this was the wrong tactic
after all?! I swooped to the rescue:

“Perhaps you’ll suggest...
...I should take my pants off?”

She didn’t even demur. Too
demure, maybe. She just let
her face widen farther past
horror into a sort of past-aghast,
barely-entertained hilarity.

Progress!

I continued, soberly. Well,
convincingly-soberly. I think.
“And then, seeing my shame
might motivate you to generously,
heroically swap me your pants?
Which, well...” I trailed off
a bit.

I was not her size by a longshot.

“Nah, no, I think I’ll just

go now. Amazing to interact with you
as always!” We shared a look

of unspeakably mutual relief
between us. Her pity
was not admixed
with a certain pleasure.

Neither was mine! But mine was all
self-schadenfreude, which felt pretty awful.
You can imagine. I hadn’t really thought this
through! I didn’t really want to take my pants

off

in the middle of a crowded bar.
That’s a good way to be immodest!
For one thing. In the end, messing
my pants
didn’t serve
the purpose I thought
it might.

I suppose that
happens a lot.

But if you were with me
the whole way through,
I think you’ll agree
there were a couple parts
where it could have gone
either way?

It was worth
the daring recklessness
to test one’s mettle so foully,
all for the sake of some
greatly-to-be-desired prize:

The potential sight of me,
dance-hopping around with
golden-fouled drawers (found
out later), trying to get a leg or two
into some svelte but generous girl’s
unforgiving pants!

- all the while she stands there, knickered
up and disgusted, holding my jeans

at arm’s length

like the proverbial bag.

Not something I’d like to have happen,
mind you - but
a pretty moving prospect in the abstract,
huh? Wow.

There should seriously
be more Romantic Horror movies.
Where the horror is not some foreign,
fantastic, injected element shoehorned
unbelievably in - but flows,

naturally,

from Romance Itself.

That's what I think.