The Imagery of sexual intimacy - “Inventory”
The narrator in “one man” recounts, “He kissed me, his face rough with stubble. He smelled like yeast and the top notes of expensive cologne. He lay on top of me and we made out for a while. Everything inside of me twinged, pleasurably. He asked if he could touch my breast, and I clamped his hand around it. I took off my shirt, and I felt like a drop of water was sliding up my spine…He rolled the condom down and lumbered on top of me. It hurt worse than anything, ever. He came and I didn’t. When he pulled out, the condom was covered in blood…I still smelled like him, like the two of us together, and I wanted more. I felt good, like an adult who has sex sometimes, and a life.” The imagery of blood and breasts confirms that the narrator is a woman who has just had experience with sexual intercourse. Although the condom prevents contact between them, the intercourse is intense. Evidently, the narrator loses her virginity during the intercourse.
The Imagery of the Narrator’s body - “The Husband Stitch”
The narrator elucidates, “My body changes in ways I do not expect – my breasts are large, swollen and hot, my stomach lined with pale marks, the inverse of a tiger’s. I feel monstrous, but my husband seems renewed with desire, as if my novel shape has refreshed our list of perversities. And my body responds: in the line at the supermarket, receiving communion in church, I am marked by a new and ferocious want, leaving me slippery and swollen at the slightest provocation.” The manifest changes in the narrator’s body are attributed to pregnancy. Breasts and the stomach respond to the baby’s growth. Moreover, the pregnancy increases the couple’s sexual appetite. Moreover, the narrator is extremely sensitive to her bodily changes.
