The following is an extract from Like A Kiss, a short story written as a fabulation from archives of 1990’s lesbian photography.
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It's late June, it hasn't rained in a while and they go out a lot. They’re almost in love. It seems to be constantly night time.
Earlier at the bar she had realised how much she liked the line of Amy‘s hair just brushing at the top of shoulders. So neat against her white t-shirt.
Emma wants to talk about photographs. She wants to say:
I like to imagine slug snail tentacles unfurling like a punctum, extending out into space. Its aura that surrounds an image, the personal weave of space and time. I like to prise the picture from its shell, pull its soft body out. Images can kiss, if you don't put a thin sheet of tissue paper between them, the shiny surfaces stick together in an embrace so passionate, separation is deadly. I wonder what I’ve fixed my body to so firmly that if you peel me away little rags of skin are left behind.
She wants to lean in closer over the table, right up to Amy’s ear and whisper:
I’m gonna suck this punctum up into my mouth, coat my gullet. Each kiss is a punctum to another that splits into another again, passing backward and forward in this multiple embrace. I would like very much to go around kissing forever. I want to put the world into my mouth, swallow down entire lives. I sit greedily looking at photographs, shoving them whole into my mouth too fast, I can't keep still long enough to even look, I just want to consume it, I want to know it's in there, that I have it. It's funny to think of a hole as a lack, have you ever put your fingers inside one?
They stay until the place closes and outside their hands brush against each other as they walk and she stops thinking about pictures.
-
Amy’s sat against the white painted brick of the house. She's pulled on an old vest and her hair’s rumpled. She laughs. She lights a cigar. It looks ridiculous but also hot, like a tiny stupid dick in her mouth. Emma imagines her in a green velvet smoking jacket, jostling shoulders at the club. The men there caress overstuffed leather chairs like beautiful women. They wear thick gold bands around swollen fingers and drink whiskey on the rocks. She spits, froth and a string of tobacco like a hair. She looks so beautiful like this, leaning her head back against the wall to steady it, something about the way she holds her arms. The air’s cooled off and her skin looks blurry and radiant like vapor from the pavement in a heatwave, streaming out the little hole in the back of her t-shirt.
The next morning Emma sits on the table in the kitchen while Amy makes toast. She’s never seen anyone butter bread so beautifully. Amy sings under her breath. She kisses Emma for the first time in the daytime and it’s disappointing. Her hands move like tiny birds amongst the crumbs.
July passes by, a rumple of unmade beds and breakfast sandwiches and dehydration. There are these moments at around 8am when the sun shines through the gap in Emma’s blind and casts a warm rectangle over her face. When she wakes up, still spinning a little, everything is quiet and sweet. The little hairs on her potted geranium stand up in the light. Half a pint of water sits on the side turning tepid, bubbles collecting against the glass. It's a dizzy, hyper-real feeling. To complete the scene there needs to be a mug of coffee set on the bedside table, thick green china with a round handle and steam coming off the top. A Sunday morning that’s perfect and recognisable. She imagines herself caught in this morning glow. quietly shifting in the bed to study her partner’s eyelashes, the down on her face like geranium leaves, the soft slope of her nose. She knows exactly how it's supposed to look, the gently alcoholic night time smell in the warming room, a leg slung out elegantly from a white linen sheet, a naked lover half asleep.
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Later they go to the movies and see this film about a lesbian (possibly? It's hard to tell but she definitely could have been queer) who's trying to write a story but she keeps getting distracted by these intense fantasies and odd characters she's meeting until you realize that the film is set in this hinterland between reality and imagination and there's no distinction between what the woman is writing and what's really happening to her.
I thought it was a bit cliche. She says to Amy as they walk out into the early evening. -Yeah I know what you mean, like I felt like I’d seen it before
right!?
-I did like the bit where they had sex though, because the sheets-
Oh my god the sheets yeah, I was literally thinking the same thing because -They were so nice!? Weren't they? Like pale yellow
With the green
-The green pillow cases
I really liked those sheets -Me too.
All in all the lack of narrative was a bit wanky though they conclude over coffee in the American diner across the street. It was up itself and the timeline was confusing. Though it did have that hot lady with the amazing mouth who's been in all that stuff for FOCUS before. Also Amy said how she was bored of all these millennial films that wish they were French, when the protagonist’s a roughly middle class girl who’s quiet and observant but a bit mean, and has weird relationships. And because it’s hard to work out what they’re feeling when they talk to each other it's supposed to be a profound look at modern day life but it's just a bit boring? Like Amy says she gets that already through her friends telling her about their lives, what more does she glean from watching it in 35mm in the cinema? It's more interesting when you actually know the people involved.
They walk home slowly after dark and before they have to split off, Emma asks Amy if she wants to go to hers and Amy says yes.
There's a bunch of lads further up the road drinking tins and taking the piss out of each other. Three of them are squeezed onto one of those pay as you go electric scooters and another one’s behind them filming on his phone. Emma and Amy cross the road, walking through the side of the video frame. As they near the corner they hear the loud laughter and some swearing. The scooter tilts to one side and the boys fall off. One of them sounds really drunk and he just keeps shouting ‘tit’ but nobody else is paying him any attention.
They walk up her street and Emma lets go of Amy's hand to reach for her keys. The film did have quite a good soundtrack she thinks, later she’ll copy it onto a playlist that she’ll listen to on and off for the rest of the summer.
She gets home from work and finds Amy in the narrow kitchen draining a pan of pasta, steam billowing up around her. She stands, leaning against the doorframe, watching her move through
the haze, waiting for Amy to see her as she turns back to the sauce on the stove. She wants to keep this moment forever. Amy’s beautiful in her fogged up glasses with her hair tucked behind one ear, curling around her jaw. The clock on the wall ticks back and forwards within the same second. There's a reflection in the jewel blue tiles above the hob. Indoor roses bloom endlessly. She's just about to take a breath, about to catch her eye, to smile, to set down the colander. Rain is just about to fall and the shadows in the corners of the frame allow an endless and impossible place.
She gets home from work and Amy’s in the kitchen. She's about to do the washing up, and put the plates away and deadhead the roses.
****