Gutted

With a thud, the fish clutched to the cutting board.

“You don't know how to gut a fish?” she said incredulously.

Sensing an opportunity I crept up behind her.

Feigning interest.

It's important, she explained, to start with the head.

“Head?” I nudged closer to peer over her shoulder.

I watched as she penetrated the knife

Deep into the scaly skin, just behind the gills.

Somehow I took this as a sign

And rested my palm against her buttock

My fingertips immediately fishing for that comforting curve.

She nimbly cut around the head and removed it.

“See?” she said.

I drew closer still, my groin now unambiguously close

But she carried on as if she only had eyes for the fish.

“Next”, she said, “we need to slice open his belly and pull out his entrails”

“And what does that entail?” I queried.

But the joke was lost on her.

Suddenly the knife slipped into his soft, dark abdomen.

and slit expertly along its length like a zip.

By now she must have felt the insistence of my bulge

as it childishly pointed to what it so craved.

I watched as she inserted her fingers into its wet depths

And scooped out the ‘stuff we don't want’

“I want. You”, I thought to myself.

“And that's how to gut a fish” she said triumphantly,

As she slipped out from under me

and swanned off to the living room.

Leaving me with the entrails.

And all that that entails.