YOUNG MAN: Ran her debit card for purchase
Flaming haired young thing
tats on the side of her face
and spikes up and down her ears
Ran her debit card for the purchase
Her books: Ditta Von Teese
and the newest young adult Twilight schlock
I’m unfazed, how Portland ubiquitous
Ran her debit card for purchase
Thin waif, seemed tall but must have been the heels,
pale against her black tank top
Ran her debit card for purchase
Pretty tough but pretty and the look seemed to fit her
and she was comfortable in it― Some aren’t
The confidence might be what made her… well…
“Please enter your PIN”
(Not your PIN number―that would be Personal Identification Number-Number BTW)
She leans over the counter now close, into my… area
Holding the pad (not many do)
Mentions (like many do) that the keypad was unusually loud
(It does have an annoying little “beep!”)
There’s reason for that:
And I give her my patent one liner:
“Yeah, but during Christmas in here?
You can’t even hear it.”
She looks at me quizzically, lets that sink in,
I smile, she coyly volleys a smile back:
And. There. They. Were.
Full reveal, there they were:
Fangs
She had Fangs
Pearly white and brilliant against blood red lipstick
She had Fangs
Made her entire mouth gleam red and full
She had Fangs
About a half an inch long. Bicuspids. Canines?
I don’t know I’m not a dentist,
And I wasn’t about to go Google it either because I was too busy
being stunned into zombie like silence.
Fangs. This is new.
Of all the tats spikes henna piercing scarring branding and kidyounot
even devil horns,
Of all the book stores in the city your insecure show-your-
independence-body-mutilation had to come into Powell’s
Forget that. Of course she would whatwasIthinking
In the seconds seemed like minutes seemed like hours—
I was trying to think… fake or grinded or implanted? Or maybe…?
Now starting to, really becoming conscious of how:
“Stirred” I was.
Stirred was I.
Deepdown. Deeep doowwn
Abdomen. Thighs. Loins.
Seen women with Fangs in the movies hundreds of times
but see real ones Grotesquely beautiful ones up close
You suddenly realize the allure
I was turned on and off simultaneously
My Catholic physiognomy simultaneously made me believe yet
crushed my instinct Yin yet Yang
Simultaneously
I don’t really know what I’m saying.
Basically, to be base, my John Thomas didn’t know whether to pull a
Frampton Comes Alive or shriek and shrink into my pelvis: “Closed… But Please, please, please, call again.”
Because frankly what if her mouth came anywhere near my…
Oh god:
And She knew it: What she was doing
She’d seen it before And she liked it. What she was doing:
She had fangs.
I guess that’s why you’d get Fangs.
And like a zombie automaton mouth agape, staring, I put the receipt
in the books the books in the bag put the bag in her hand and then
stopped, we played a little tug of war, she raised an eyebrow and I said:
“I’m sure you’ve um.
Been asked. But… um,
I guess what I want to inquire is um—
Why?”
“Why?” She says “Why? That’s new. Usually I get ‘how?’”
No, I’m just like, ya know… Why?
And she says “Well, I guess, so I can do this:

[He hisses, loud, like cat, teeth bared and evil.]

Oh. And I let go of the bag.
And she smiles again.
And as she leaves, as she struts, as she moves across the store
she keeps her eyes on me… all the way, out… the door.
And then… in the window, because I’m still watching, she pauses and she does…

[with index finger, a come hither motion]

…this.
Well, I’m on the clock, working, but hey I also got a girlfriend and that didn’t stop my ass either.