Ten-Minute Write, No. 3

The fake blond walked just ahead of the fat man on the sidewalk that morning. The fake blond was skinny, attractive; the fat man was bald and had a misshapen nose that made his face interesting but not attractive. The fake blond was in sales; the fat man was a successful character actor.

The day felt equally hot to both, and it caused them both to sweat profusely as they walked, yet their thoughts were rather different.

For the fat man, his perspiration was suffered most acutely between the wrinkled loaves of his ass. He felt the rivulets form and the water drip into the crotch of his boxer-shorts, and he imagined his moist, shit-smeared posterior in the most negative of ways. He grew quickly paranoid that everyone on the street around him could smell his filth, and what he wanted most was the coolness of an air-conditioned bathroom and the ability to wipe himself clean again.

He didn’t know it, but his ass was being stared at by the fake blond woman walking behind him. She too felt the discomfort of the day’s heat, but she felt her sweat mostly around her breasts and the swath of bare flesh where the sun was hitting her back and her shoulder-blades. Unlike the fat man, she relished the sensation. Being regarded as beautiful so often, she found every moment of filthiness refreshing—mainly because it helped her to feel like she was part of the rest of humanity.

She stared at the gray pants of the man in front of her with a feeling of satisfaction, for that is how the beautiful eat the ugly.