Paper Girl
Matt Leibel

I met a girl; she was made out of paper. She was bright white, three-hole punched. We got to talking. I liked her very much. She had a lot to say. She was an avid reader, five newspapers a day. She had an extensive and varied origami collection that had been written up in a major lifestyle magazine. She'd recently moved here from a suburb of Pittsburgh, and I offered to show her around town. She told me that unfortunately she was booked for the afternoon, but that if I left her my number, she'd give me a ring sometime. And before I could even start fumbling through my things for a pen, she pulled one out of her paper-purse, and handed it to me. I was about to ask her if she had a sheet of paper but then I remembered she was a sheet of paper, and so I wasn't quite sure what to say instead. But she rescued me, bless her heart. Write on my back, she said, and turned around, and bent over slightly. I started to write my name and number when I realized that her back was already filled with names, numbers, and personal messages (had a great time last night. Call me! —Jim)

I stopped writing for a moment. I know it shouldn't have bothered me—it was none of my business, I'd just met her. But I liked her, and I didn't like it one bit that all these other guys liked her too. It wasn't unexpected (she was charming, she was pretty and by God, she was thin) but it still made me less than happy. I didn't like that her lower back was functioning like the graffiti-covered wall of a men's room stall. But it was totally beyond my control. Hell, she'd probably never even call me anyway. What was so interesting about me? What did I have to offer a girl made out of paper? I hadn't even been able to supply a pen.

But she did call, the very next day. My heart pounded while we talked. It was something about her voice: it was so feathery. Listening to her made me feel lighter than air. And she was smart too. She knew about the world, and she had opinions. A lot of girls I'd met recently didn't think you were supposed to have so many opinions. But the paper girl didn't care, she just said what she felt; if it turned out wrong she could always go back and erase it later, she told me.

*

She didn't eat much at dinner. What the hell does paper eat anyway? I thought to myself. Rock. No, wait, paper covers rock, scissors cut paper. I was getting a little light-headed from all the wine. So was she: she flushed at the corners. Like someone had left a red felt-tipped pen lying near her with the cap off. It made her look sexy, somehow. Safe to say my idea of what was sexy was evolving. Before I met her, I wouldn't have thought a sheet of paper was my type. But you never know in advance how your heart will react to new stimuli. In a way, life is like one big emotional science project.

I hated the other men. I imagined tortures for them, jumper cables attached to genitals. Let me stop here to say that I am not a sadistic person. I am just a nice guy who happens to have a raging fire inside him, who happens to have finally discovered what he wants. We were connecting on every level. We were finishing each other's sentences, feeding each other whipped cream with our fingertips.

She came home with me. We started making out on the couch. Her body crinkling against mine. I grabbed a handful of her hair and crumpled it into a ball. She was smooth; she smelled fresh, new and hot and inky, like a school ditto fresh out of the machine. She kissed me with her thin, blue-ruled lips and whispered secrets to me, words I didn't understand until I realized they were the Latin names of trees: the places where she'd come from, her family, her ancestors. Then she wrapped herself around me completely and squeezed, until I was just as wrinkled as she was. It felt so good, this, it was so different, and I realized instantly that's what made her so popular with men, that she was so different, an experience unto herself.

And then I remembered how uncomfortable I was with her popularity. I should have been an adult about it, enjoyed the singularity of the moment. But it wasn't unique, or rather, I wasn't unique. She was lying on her back, soon after, fast asleep. She snored, a little, and even her snoring was lovely to me, the way it made her rustle, like a breeze would, the way it made her almost float away (she refused to sleep with a paperweight). I couldn't stop staring at all those names and numbers, all those Toms and Daves and Randys, those Chandlers and Steve-Os, all in different hands than mine, squiggly alien lifeforms slithering jauntily across her college-ruled skin.

I just couldn't stand it. I got up and went to my supply closet. I'd stolen a bunch of stuff from the office: I'd been angry, a salary dispute. I'd grabbed what I could fit in my bag. Hell, they'd never know the difference. I had an unopened carton full of white out. I started to pour all the little jars into one big jar. Then I took the big jar and slowly poured the fluid all over her. It came out alternately watery and chunky, like spoilt milk. Then I rubbed it in, as evenly as I could, across her back, like lotion. I covered over every name, number, word and squiggle, except my own. I love you, paper girl, I whispered, and kissed her on the left margin, just above the center hole-punch.

*

I guess she felt the cold and the wet on her back, she felt it sticky, like she'd been licked by an animal. She woke up. What the hell do you think you're doing? she said. Then she did something I didn't think her capable of. She tried to kill me. She slashed at me, sideswiping. She thought she could papercut me enough to make me bleed to death. I know this because she kept saying it—bleed, you bastard, bleed. But I didn't bleed. She barely even pricked my skin.

Instead I grabbed her by the edges and straightened her out. I'm sorry, I told her. I just want to be with you. I just want to have you to myself. She kept calling me names: psycho, pervert, piece of shit, twisted freak. I tried to explain to her that it was Love, it wasn't Jealousy. But she could see the truth: it was written all over me, in bright green ink. I tried to speak, but she lunged at me again, and covered my mouth, my nose: she tried to suffocate me. And then I did something irrevocable, my gut took action before my brain could stop me: I ripped the paper girl in half. She screamed like a small animal in the clutches of a fierce bird's talons. The blood poured forth, inky blood, heavy as syrup, in red, blue, black. It ran down my neck, down my chest. It seeped through my clothes, it got in between my toes, it burned into my skin. I couldn't get it out. It was permanent. Her blood is still a part of me, to this day: I'm using it to write this right now.

© 2005 Matt Leibel