A Lampshade

I’m sitting on a blue velvet chair, wearing a black silk kimono robe with gold leaf print on it.

You’re sitting across from me wearing whatever you’d like to be wearing.

Once I have your attention, I sling my left leg over the arm of the chair and flip that side of my robe over my leg, showing you my bare genitalia.

You look at me (or at them) and ask what I am doing.

“I want you to see me,” I say. “I’m showing myself to you.”

You say you realize that. You mean in the larger sense.

“What do you mean?” I ask. I try to say it a bit coyly and rub the inside of my exposed thigh. My touch appears to cause my penis is swell and roll to one side a little, but it is still mostly flaccid.

You say that we’ve been here many times.

I play dumb and look around the room. “I don’t think so. I don’t recall our ever having been in here before …”

That’s not what you mean. I know this of course and am playing dumb, as I said. I’m hoping it will be fun still.

You say that we’ve been in this kind of scene many times already—we’re sitting or lying together in some room that has a vaguely posh yet intimate quality imbued into it, and then I (you mean me, Teresa) start waxing philosophical about writing or life. Or I am being provocative and trying to initiate sex or some kind of strip tease.

I smile and reach over to the lamp next to me—George Saunders be damned—pull the shade from its perch, and set it on my head like a crown.

There’s an outside chance you get the joke already. But if you don’t, it’s okay babe. You can just ask what I’m doing.

To which I will reply, “I’m lampshading.”

You feel however you feel about that, and say whatever you say.

I say, from under the lampshade, “It’s not easy, babe. I get shy. Believe it or not, I do. But I want you to see me.” I reach down with my right hand and part my labia with the first two fingers. “I want you to come inside of me.”

Then I slide my middle finger inside of my vagina. “I want you to know me from the inside out.”

I take my hand away then, put my fingers in my mouth and suck them for an instant. “I want you to taste my life. My inner life.” I gesture around with the same hand. “Not just all this.”

You say you understand that. You get it. But is this really doing that? you ask. Or is this just stalling and misdirection?

I toss the lampshade off, stand up, and snap my fingers. A song starts to play from the A.I. sound system embedded in the walls, floors, and ceilings.

As vampy as I can, I walk toward you.

I get close enough that you can smell me, but I am not touching you. Not yet.

“Do you want to?” I ask in as sultry a voice as I can.

You find this however it lands with you. Maybe it’s super sexy, maybe it’s hella cringe. But it lands however is true for our moment together.