LOBES

            His earlobes stuck to his jaw like dried glue. I needed to split them apart. They needed me to split them apart. They were whining. His face wasn’t showing any discomfort, but I could feel it. I could tell he wanted me to do it. The strips of sideburn skin that were supposed to be exposed were trapped beneath his stretched-out earlobe skin. I could even make out the faint line where his ear shape was supposed to be cut free. I insisted that earlobes aren’t supposed to look like that. That his head was somehow wrong, and I could fix it. And he trusted me.

            We sat on wobbly stools in our kitchen, with legs hardly fastened to seats. A wet towel, already stained a decaying brown after only a few weeks of service, dropped from the refrigerator handle to the floor. A shockwave of pain throbbed at the spot where my neck met my shoulder. I jerked my head to the left. The towel lay there, crying to be lifted off the filthy hardwood, but I couldn’t move. I needed to stay focused on this job. One job at a time.

            My eyes followed his gaze toward the pictures of his relatives and their children on our refrigerator, all of their earlobes also holding onto the sides of their faces like his. Drops of dried glue, frozen in their escape from each of their earholes. God. All of their earlobes are attached to their faces. How had I never noticed it before?

            He stared at the photos while I inspected where I needed to cut and tried to mentally manage the mounting pile of perforated lines connecting saggy ears and sideburns yet to be torn for each of his family members. Each of them begged for it. My stomach buzzed, and the lower half of my body felt cold and weak as I considered all the work ahead of me. I would have to fix all of them. Do I love him enough to take on that much work? I think I do. If we’re going to stay together, it has to be done. I need it as much as they do. I don’t know how I hadn’t noticed it when we first met, but now, it’s all I can see. What changed inside me, I wonder?

            “I’m going to just cut a little bit, enough to get it started, then the rest of it should come easily. Like when two cherry tomatoes grow into each other and get stuck together, you know? You can basically just pull them apart even though they look like one thing. Your body already put a cut there because your ear is supposed to be its own thing. Separate from your face. There’s supposed to be a cut there. I’m just helping it along. You know? Like, I’m not doing anything your body doesn’t already want to do,” I said, drying the rinsed-off razor blade I had sprayed with dish detergent that stung the back of my throat when it joined the air.

            Saying what I intended to do out loud suddenly put another knot in my stomach. It sounded like I might hurt him, but I soon concluded that fear was only my love for him trying to distract me from what needed to be done. This realization confirmed that he was worth the trouble.

            He didn’t speak. He never did when I needed him to. He looked as though he wanted to nod, but he was stopping himself in case I suddenly sliced without warning him. I got frustrated.

            “Can you talk to me, please? I need you to wash your ears before I start,” I said impatiently, “I don’t want you getting an infection. Again, it should be fine. I doubt you’ll bleed very much, if hardly at all. You probably won’t even bleed, actually. I’m making this sound terrible. God. There’s probably solid skin under there. I just need to detach your ear skin from your face skin, but it’s all skin. Does that make sense? And then we can get dinner started.”

            “Please stop,” he said. He was nervous.

            Another shock pounded my neck. My head jolted to the left, and I stretched my shoulders, throwing my head around in circles. I needed to drink water. I chugged a full glass from the tap to soften my twitching muscles. The spasms happen more frequently when I’m dehydrated, and I needed a steady hand.

            I looked at the smooth slope of his ear, running uninterrupted down the side of his head. I looked at the towel on the floor, and my stomach ached harder, thinking of it getting dirtier by the second. I picked it up and dried my hands from the drink with the ceiling-facing side that remained untouched by the floor before walking to our bedroom and putting it in the dirty clothes hamper. As I walked back to the kitchen, I wondered what the procedure would sound like to him. What the wet splitting must sound like right next to an ear like that.

            Suddenly, I was next to him, and I raised the razor blade.

            “Fine,” I said loud and firm beside his face. “I’m going to wash it when I finish anyway, so if you’re going to be difficult, then we’ll just wash it then. It’s your head. Not mine. I don’t care. You can let it get infected all you want. Let’s get started.”

            “Please,” he begged. His hands pulled against the restraints. But the restraints are there for this exact reason. I made it clear why I was restraining his hands when I put him there. Of course he wants me to stop. It’s natural. But he will thank me when it’s finished. When his earlobes are free. I’m already looking forward to the apologies and kisses when he sees his new ears. He’s going to love them.

            “I’ll be done soon,” I said.

            And I split the cherry tomatoes apart.