In Short – Volume 1, Issue 1 (Spring 2024)
May 31, 2024
Enough
By Monica Prince
The morning after my first sex party, Judd drops off his electric truck at a nearby charging station. I hear him leave but not return. My skin still wears the fingerprints of one-off lovers from yesterday, their kisses vibrating on my lips, the latent buzz of the host’s hand against the small of my back.
What a delight to be the center of attention, craved by people with consent baked into their hips.
Judd climbs back into bed, naked, and kisses the inside of my ear. We turn wordless as we kiss— repositioning ourselves into his favorite position: my ankles crossed on one shoulder, him on his knees. He slowly slides into me, wet, warm, welcoming. His groan is always the same—guttural, from his sacral chakra.
I love Judd. Not for this morning sex. Not for my sudden orgasm. Not even for his gracious expression as each stroke pushes him closer to climax.
I love Judd for his tender kiss on my left instep. For his request to cum, cum inside, stay inside. For the breathless pull of his body from mine only to press us back together.
Last night in the hot tub, he held me stationary while a woman detonated an explosive ordinance within me. With every shiver, intensified by the jets, Judd coaxed me higher and higher, the roar in my skull deafening. I started to black out and he kept me on this side of consciousness so I wouldn’t drown. Is that love?
Polyamory taught me love, even in its most unadorned expression, unspools in me without warning. From my husband’s worship and my other partners’ passing adoration to the one-night stands. Tumbling with Judd—in bed, on the path between our homes, at the bar dipped in cigarette smoke—restores my faith in love as a language depicted as presence.
He will never say it back. He will never tell me he loves me. Words that flirt with the feeling will spill from his lips—appreciative, honored, grateful—but he’ll never say love. I won’t resent him. Attempt to draw the vocabulary out. Use my pussy as a weapon to force a feeling unfelt. But every time he offers me something close, I’ll promise myself this is enough—the sex, the undivided attention, the red hearts in our text thread.
It has to be enough. I cannot expect anything more.
Monica Prince (she/her), one of the foremost choreopoem scholars, teaches activist and performance writing and serves as the Director of Africana Studies at Susquehanna University. She is the author of four books, including her most recent choreopoem, Roadmap. Her work can be found in The Texas Review, The Missouri Review, The Rumpus, American Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. When not playing the Sims, find her writing, researching, and performing choreopoems all over the country.