The Secret Goldfish. David Means

Her boyfriend has his pants shackling his ankles and she has her shirt above her shoulders. A beastly, dark night, raging gusts rock the car on its shocks. The words whispered aren’t much different from the radio noise, vows floating over static, meant more to tickle the timpanic membrane than anything else—and gooseflesh on her arms proves to him that his breath in her ear is arousing, and the words she speaks, with her lips against his neck, don’t come anywhere near his ears, but he feels them anyway, a soft, moist flutter of lips and tongue. It is the solitude and joy in this stuffy car in the center of the absolute rage of the elements that amuses, draws us to them, makes us wish there might be some way to pluck her out of the car, to warn her of her pending fate. Twenty yards down the sand, Lake Michigan churns wildly with the same violence that sends supertankers to their grave, and yet they are going at it, finding handholds, testing new courses with their fingers. The external rage of wind that will in a few hours send this girl’s car off the bridge now helps them to feel that the only solace and relief and safety in this world lies in the intermingling of their bodies, while outside the earth breathes hellfire.