David J. Thompson Has Fallen Into a Sex Pit and He Can't Get Up

Every Place Except Bed

I need a place to crash for a few days,

he says as he shoves a 12-pack of High Life

into my hands and steps past me into my apartment.

Nice to see you, too, I tell him, as he throws

his suit jacket on the coffee table and sits down

in my favorite chair. I take out two beers,

walk the rest out to the fridge. I was having

a little thing with this new girl at work, he yells,

told Heather I had to work late on some quarterly reports.

Nothing serious, you know, just drinks and sex

a few times, but tonight I didn’t show up at her place  

like we planned, so the little cooz called the house

and when I get home Heather goes all apeshit

on my ass yelling, You’re not going to get away

with this about a million times loud enough

to wake up the whole fucking neighborhood

I got nowhere else to go. You don’t mind, do you?

No worries, I yelled back, shaking my head,

reaching past the Maker’s Mark for the Jim Beam

in the cabinet over the sink. You need some bourbon?

Sex Pit by David J. Thompson

There’s still a few minutes left in the game

when he starts snoring. I look over at him,

mouth wide open, sprawled on the recliner,

shake my head, wonder how long he’s going

to stay.  Not long before he got married

he told me one night in a bar he’d spent

the weekend fucking and doing cocaine

in New York with his old college girlfriend.

Heather’s great, he explained, everywhere

except in bed. She’s a real Catholic, so

she feels a little guilty about sex right now,

but that’ll get better after we’re married,

don’t you think? Of course, I said standing up

quickly and looking only at the tv over his shoulder.

I steadied myself with my hands on the table,

asked him if there was something he wanted

to hear on the jukebox.

Souls In Hell From Sex by photographer David J. Thompson

I get a pillow and a blanket off my bed, chuck them

on the couch, figure he’ll wake up some time to pee,

and make himself at home. I turn out the lights,

brush my teeth, get into bed, start thinking about

how I’m going to feel at work in the morning.

I roll over on my back and say, Oh, shit, out loud.

I can’t help but think about the rehearsal dinner

and the little toast I made.  I don’t remember it exactly,

something about how great they were together,

how happy they’d always be, a little lie I always thought

I’d get away with until now.