The Wire | Hannahs
"Hannahs" appears on FunHouse Mag. Kevin Maloney is the author of Cult of Loretta (Lazy Fascist Press), and lives in Portland, Oregon. Check out a snippet from "Hannahs":
Hannah #2 was a girl I met on an online dating site. We were both interested in origami, dream interpretation, and the Mexican-American War. Or at least, she was interested in those things, and I pretended to be, because she had the most attractive profile pic of all the women who hadn’t included “alcoholism” in their list of interests and activities.
On our first date, we went to an arcade where you could play classic video games for a quarter. She spent the night evading ghosts, smashing barrels with a hammer, and rescuing princesses. I mostly fell down pits, which resulted in a crappy little song and me losing one of my three lives. I said, “Are there any games where you get rewarded for falling down the pit?” She laughed with a little snort, and we made out leaning against Ms. Pac-Man. Her kisses tasted like watermelon bubble gum.
On our second date, we went to a foreign film about a woman who explores her sexuality by fornicating with various grocery store employees. Every time a pair of breasts appeared on the screen, Hannah #2 said, “Jug alert!” Afterwards I took her home, and we made out on her front porch. This time her kisses tasted like popcorn. She revealed her French kissing technique, which consisted of tagging my tongue with her tongue and then swirling it around really fast. It was a PG-13 version of duck-duck-goose.
On our third date, we drove to the Oregon coast and walked along the beach and came across a dead seagull, which we dissected with a hunting knife Hannah #2 had in her backpack. We excavated two bottle caps, a tape dispenser, and a functional cigarette lighter. Later, I found a piece of driftwood and, in a romantic gesture I’d learned about in movies, used it to write Hannah’s name in the sand.
I pointed to it, and she said, “Oh.”
I asked what was wrong.
She said, “Who’s Hannah?”
I said, “You’re Hannah.”
She said, “My name’s Rebecca.”
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