Szilvia Molnar: Where are my panties? A love story
I went on a date! I got kissed under a tree! I took off my shoes and my toes combed the green grass on the hill that we decided to lie down on.
It was a Saturday. He had rented a car and I had brought some fruit I hadn’t washed. We drove for an hour, and first, when we started the car, it rained and when we arrived at the sculpture park, the sun appeared, teasing us through white clouds. So, it would begin; us walking through fields, trees, over hills, and passing metal, more metal. Sometimes he was two steps ahead, sometimes I was two steps ahead, and sometimes our arms grazed each other like branches in the wind.
We walked and talked and he was funny, and I felt free and so I laughed.
This is what days should be made of, I thought.
He said I’d like to find a spot where I can kiss you so we started looking at the ground, like we had dropped something. We found our place under a tree, away from the main path and next to a Richard Serra sculpture. I put a sweater down on the grass even though the ground was soft and I started eating the strawberries that I had brought for us because I wasn’t ready yet to be kissed. He sat down next to me with knees bent and arms over his knees and watched the rusty sculpture, as if he expected it to move. I watched him and after two bites, I was ready and I kissed him.
The sun and the wind tested us. The leaves and my hair danced. Every living being played together on this patch of grass, like a solid orchestra.
All the animals are rooting for us, he said lying on my wide-open sweater, with his face under mine, and I looked around with his breath still warm on my chin and saw that the day had left us alone to be the center of the universe. I agreed with him.
When we walked away from our spot and looked back on the flattened ground, it was like we left a potential ufo landing behind. I carried my shoes with two fingers until the grass ended and turned to pavement. He carried the half-eaten box of strawberries.
I was looking for my panties on the side of his bed two days later. He didn’t help with the search as if he wanted me to stay or stay naked longer. That night, the entry in my diary read:
It’s when he wrote his name in semen on my belly that I knew I was in love. (June 14th 2015)
*
I am picking up my used panties from the side of our bed two years later and throwing them into our shared laundry basket. You’re quieter than usual because you’ve just lost an eye and there are days, ones that are longer than others, when you don’t get out of bed.
I’m going to look more like a pirate than a man, you say and start crying from the good eye. Naked from the waist down, I come around the bed to sit next to you. I put my hands on you but not near your head where I know parts still hurt.
What kind of a husband will I be if I can only see half of you? And I shush you like a child that needs soothing, this takes some time.
You’ll just have to take your sweet time, I say. Because I’m not going anywhere.
I spend the rest of our marriage trying to stay true to these words.
Originally from Budapest and raised in Sweden, Szilvia Molnar is the author of the chapbook Soft Split. Her short stories and poetry have been published in Two Serious Ladies, Little Brother, The Buenos Aires Review, and Neue Rundschau among others. She lives in Harlem, New York.
