the Husband and the 100 boyfriends

... ... ... She is there, I am here, and all my ex-boyfriends who used to date me there are also here. Aaron. Adam. Akihiko. Alejandro. Anders. Andrew. Those are just the As.

My 100 ex-boyfriends and I hang out every day. We get into the Porsche 911 Turbo S, bunching into it as if it were a clown car, and drive down roads and boulevards, hills and canyons, palm frond-strewn avenues and parking garages of shopping malls. Geoff drives. The city sprawls out endlessly. Bougainvillea the color of bruises grow across people’s fences. Sometimes, a bamboo grove. Sometimes, a cemetery. Sometimes, a free clinic devoted to the removal of burst capillaries. The sun hits our faces, our eyes squint in the light, our hair billows in the wind.

On the Husband’s credit card account: 101 burgers at Umami Burger, 101 admission tickets to the Getty, 101 Golden Milks at Moon Juice. We go shopping. We go to Barneys. We go to Koreatown. We go to Urth Café to do some light reading. ... ... ...

The Husband is a resting place. He is a chair. Sometimes I drape myself over him and I get the physical comfort of not being alone. I can feel it any time I want; mostly Saturday nights, mostly Sunday mornings. But the times when I need it most are the early evenings when I feel like I am dissolving. During this time, my ex-boyfriends scatter, and the Husband and I go somewhere for dinner. ... ... ...



 great funky short-story by Ling Ma continues @ Granta