It's the kind of hot that makes your cat throw up on the wood floor in the hallway. It's a hot that sends you to the fridge for the third time in an hour, not because you're hungry but because your body needs the air. You don't even know you're standing in the cold glow of the 40 watt bulb until the bushy tail of your overheated cat rubs against your leg, startling you. You close the fridge and fill a glass of water from the tap before returning to the couch.
It's so hot you can't concentrate on your work, or on anything. You think a movie will help, something relatively mindless, something you've seen before. Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill 2 seems fitting. You put it in but find that watching people kill each other in the desert only makes you hotter. How are they doing anything in those pants? you wonder. How do they have the energy to lift those guns? And those swords? There's blood everywhere. Jesus, those pants! The sweat pooling behind your knees makes you want to claw off your own skin, or at least your clothes.
You almost can't believe it, but it's too hot to masturbate. You wonder if you'd even be inspired to have sex in this heat, if that is, you had a partner to bump uglies with. Would the slick of your bodies make it impossible? You doubt you'd even get that far; the mere thought of having to push, pull, or pump anything is exhausting. Hell, just the thought of having to lift your arms over your head to remove the t-shirt adhered to your chest and back makes you want to take a nap.
Eventually, you find yourself in a sort of in-between place. You're sitting on the couch or walking down the hall or standing in front of the fridge, or you've finished a cold shower and are lying in your PJ's in your bed, knees propped up, typing mindlessly into your computer. Sweat trickles down your shins and you tell yourself it's good you're single, that you wouldn't want to cuddle with anyone in this heat (even though you actually love cuddling and would probably still choose to do it even if it meant dying a sweaty, dehydrated death). You remember how puffy and greasy your face was this morning, how dry your mouth. You probably smelled like a mummy. It's good to be single, you think, staring at your cat, who doesn't care how much water you retain or that you sweat all over his side of the bed as you tossed and turned the night before. He doesn't even care when you moan anxiously in your sleep, or when you curl around him and secretly wish he was someone else.
Finally, when you realize you've been staring at the wall for an indeterminate amount of time, you slide your hand through the damp hair at the nape of your neck, click off the light, and spread yourself out on your big bed like a beached starfish as the pinwheel of your electric fan spins warm air at you and your vomit-breathed feline. In the darkness, you tell yourself tomorrow is a new day, that it won't be as hot, but you know it will be. You know too that if it were any cooler, you'd be complaining about goosebumps and the chill of your sheets, all the while telling yourself that it's good to be single, that you'd rather not have to fight someone for blankets in the middle of the night.
You run your hands through your cat's fur and tell him tomorrow he'll feel better, tomorrow tomorrow. You kiss his nose, close your eyes, rub your greasy eyelids, and let the heat settle into the darkness like a hand in a hand, like a cat in your arms.
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