She was standing in the corner. She had a lampshade on her head. The lampshade was making her head sweat. I am a lamp, she told herself. She was standing in the corner with her arms straight down at her sides and a lampshade on her head, waiting for her husband to come home. Her husband wanted her to be a lamp. Her husband was a good man. But he wanted his wife to be a piece of furniture. What kind depended on the day of the week. And that was hard. For her. It turned him on. She said out loud, "I am a lamp." She didn't really want to be a lamp, though. She wanted to be a human being. That was the problem. A lamp, she told herself. I am a lamp, she thought again. Who knew what she would become tomorrow? Maybe she would be an armchair. An armchair is better than a lamp, she told herself. Then it occurred to her that being an armchair would probably require her to bend both of her legs all the way back over her head so that her butt would be the seat. And that wouldn't be comfortable. At all. God only knew what would happen if her husband wanted to sit down on top of her at his desk to do some work that he had brought home from the office. Probably, she would break. A broken armchair. She heard her husband's key turning in the lock of the front door. She thought to herself, At this rate, I will end up a bike rack. Day in and day out, she would ride around on the back of her husband's car. In the wind. In the rain. In the snow. It would never end. The tall dark outline of her husband stepped into the room. I am a lamp, she told herself under the lampshade. That was what her husband wanted. She turned herself on.
"F Is for Forniphilia" was published in
You're a Bad Man, Aren't You?
