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Nightlife

By Sandra Lindow

Originally found in Azimov’s Science FictionMarch 2009

~

She had a certain primness,

a masticular, mandibular tightness,

as if she were always on the verge

of correcting your pronoun agreement

but was holding herself back.

And then it came to her one night.

An incubus or succubus,

she could have handled—

her virginal days were far behind—

but a syllabus was a problem

of a whole different magnitude,

insinuating itself through

her auricular cavity, haunting her dreams,

a commalingual seduction.

She was the direct and indirect object

of its attentions.  It coordinated

and subordinated her, forcing

her to experience dependence

and independence, cyclical states

elaborated by soft explosions of breath,

a heightening awareness of interjections,

the intercourse of discourse, multiple

ejaculations, a consuming passion.

When periods stopped, she imagined

pregnant pauses and exhausted, could

have slipped into a commatose state

except for her stubborn resilience,

but finally it all came together.

She emerged victorious, a semester’s

Remedial English all planned.