Wild Collision (Us 4)

“Don’t judge me for liking to learn about dead things.”

I snort and turn my attention to the screen. “Ew, what the fuck is that?”

“It’s an Egyptian mummy,” she explains. “It’s a documentary on how they used to prepare the bodies. Did you know they used to insert a tool through the nose to liquefy the brain? They’d then tip the body forward so the liquid brain could pour out of the nose.”

I gag and hold up my hands. “I’m trying to eat, Mia. Shut up. That’s disgusting.”

“I find it fascinating.”

“Freak,” I joke.

“Says the guy who enjoys tying me up.”

“That’s fun, not freaky,” I defend.

“And this is intriguing. Maybe if you listened you’d learn a thing or two—oh wait, your brain is already liquefied.” She flicks my forehead.

“Hey, that hurt.” I rub the spot.

“Aw, poor baby.” She mock pouts. “Should I kiss it and make it better?”

She leans over and kisses the spot before I can retort.

As she settles back down I say, “I’d rather you kiss my cock.”

“I thought you liked when I sucked it.”

I choke yet again, this time on an actual bite of food.

So, this is how I die—choking on a piece of lasagna because my girlfriend has shocked me. I’ll be mocked forever in hell.

“Could you stop choking over there?” she retorts playfully. “I’m trying to watch my show.”

I finally manage to swallow the food and take a drink of beer. “You are insufferable, woman.”

She grins back at me like the cat that ate the damn canary.

I’m the canary.

“’Bout time you got a taste of your own medicine.”

By the time we finish eating and I wash the dishes—she cooked, the least I can do is wash the damn dishes—her torture of a show finally ends.

She calls me a pussy no less than twenty times.

She has a point. I officially have one of the weakest stomachs ever, since I can’t stop gagging any time one of the … things—okay, mummies—appears on the screen.

“You know,” I begin, “I think it’s kind of wrong the way they take them from their burial place. Isn’t it sacred or some shit?”

“Yeah.” She shrugs. “But it’s history.”

“Couldn’t you study it, document everything, and learn what you needed to?” I reason. “Why remove everything? I don’t get it.”

“I guess as humans we can’t help but be curious about what came before us. How they lived, how they died, and part of that discovery is sharing as much as you can with others.”

She turns her body toward me, one leg curled under the other. She rests her elbow on the back of the couch, her wine glass dangling loosely from the tips of her fingers.

Her red hair glows with a golden hue from the light in the apartment and her eyes are warm, welcoming, loving.