Alison Bell Miller

An Affair on Lombardy Street

The landlocked Airbnb has a nautical theme and an irregularly shaped board nailed to one wall that might work if they installed hooks, I offered to the man I’ve loved for 24 years before we kissed and carried each other into the bedroom.

The backyard is at this time off-limits to guests, though we are encouraged to dispense of our trash there due to an ant problem for which we may be charged. Renters may also be charged for using acne products immediately prior the towels.

Likewise, silicone lubricants are prohibited. The Airbnb sits a block and a half from the marketwhere my cousin and I used to buy croissant sandwiches when the jazz bar closed where the man I’ve loved for 24 years used to play.

The Airbnb has a keypad for a lock and I give him the code. I wake to his face for the first time in years. I send him home in a shirt wearing wrinkles and the perfume my ex-husband sayssmells like my mother.

My hosts have left two thick, hooded robes hanging in the closet. When the man I’ve loved for 24 years leaves, I draw one around my naked shoulders step in front of the mirror on the bathroom door. I look at my flat belly, my limp curls, and see who I was always meant to be.

Alison Bell Miller (she/her) is a writer and sex educator. She has published two chapbooks, Flowering, (adj.) by Weasel Press and blink by BarBar Press. Her work has also been published in various literary magazines including Hobart Pulp, Anti-Heroin Chic, San Diego Poetry Annual, and Cultural Daily. The owner of sex positive adult boutiques in Richmond, Virginia, she currently resides in San Diego.