AT NIGHT by Eric Barnes
“IF YOU'RE NOT CAREFUL,” I say, “I’ll put that in a story.”
She doesn’t even pause. “As long as you call me Nora.”
“But don’t worry: There won’t be a sex scene.”
“What?” Nora asks, yelling. “They have to have sex. The only thing
more embarrassing than them having sex, is if they don’t have sex.
It’s like they secretly hate each other.”
“Okay. They can have sex.”
Nora’s naked when she says this. She’s climbing into our bed.
ERIC BARNES is the author of the novels Something Pretty, Something Beautiful from Outpost 19 and Shimmer, an IndieNext Pick from Unbridled Books, along with numerous short stories published in Prairie Schooner, The Literary Review, North American Review, Best American Mystery Stories, and other publications. More at www.ericbarnes.net. Barnes has been a reporter, editor and publisher in Connecticut, New York and now Memphis. Years ago he drove a forklift in Tacoma, Washington, and then Kenai, Alaska, worked construction on Puget Sound, and froze fish in a warehouse outside Anchorage. By day, he is the publisher of three newspapers covering business and politics in Memphis and Nashville and, in 1995, he graduated from the MFA program at Columbia University.