the eroticism of store bought sushi

exhibitionism and female desire

My fingers twist tighter around the strap of my bag. It’s a small, black messenger-type one that wraps from my side to my back. My shoulders slouch forward while my other hand falls toward the bottom black shelf, where the dim, fluttering lights reveal a rainbow of colors and an assortment of sushi. Some of them have faded to greys. I’ve been standing in front of the stacked containers for quite some time now, my heart thrumming in my ears and droning the music from my mind into crashing, lapping waves of ringing sound. The pressure, a suction, from my buds is increasing the throb of a looming headache that pinches my temples. No doubt there’s a sheen of sweat increasing the flushed luminescence of my overall complexion, but luckily my, albeit overgrown and now unkept bangs curtain over my scrunched brows. I think of the wrinkles that will form from my perpetual furrowing and puckering and try to relax the muscles in my face. Unclench my jaw while peering shamefully, inquisitively, down at the silken array of sliced fish under their plastic covers.

I turn one of the containers over in my palm and flinch at the calories. I turn it back over, then over again to look at the macros this time, searching for that ticket of justification. Something to justify me shoving the sushi between my cheeks and warrant the quivering loll of my tongue through the soft center of each roll. The fist of tension in my gut doesn’t unclench itself, seemingly yanking on my stomach like a string to a dinner bell. My tongue pushes from my mouth to wet my lips as if in preparation, then retreats back inside. It rests between my teeth, a symbol of desire, ecstasy, pleasure, and sensuality in all of its forms of hunger. I lower the container after puffing a short exhale, beginning to turn when my heels halt. I stagger back and scan through the sushi again. I repeat this process of yo-yoing back and forth until impulsively snatching the largest one available, a jumbo assortment, and speeding toward the self-checkout. My face becomes hotter as I scan the box as quickly as possible, as if checking out an XL neon colored sex toy and a Playgirl magazine.

I think shame is a central experience of the Americana aesthetic and a defining feature of U.S culture. Guilt and embarrassment is what ultimately creates, or extends into the experience or the being of perversion; exhibiting perversion of course is the big NO in any essentialist, religious climate, but somewhere in there, in this perversion, and the conditioned shame attached to it like a hungry child, it’s become associated with Otherness. And Otherness, well, that often means femininity. Between what expresses femininity as an innate or socialized label, one can spend more time deliberating, but at this moment, being a woman, and a feminine woman at that, is much like the raw, hacked up, dead fish I drool over now. I pay credit and escape toward my car, into the simmering blanket of thick night that wraps itself around me like a wet tentacle.

I think of how I simultaneously identify with the array of sushi I’ve purchased—although I’m not entirely sure, either, whether I wanted to eat or comparatively be eaten, like the sushi—chopsticks and tongue-wetting and bamboo bed and all, or fuck the sushi. Fuck myself? I sit in the sticky heat of my car with the motor purring softly beneath me and the headlights piercing the blue space in front of it and recoil when anyone gets too close. As if I had one finger sinking deeper between the meat in my panties while chewing on the similarly colored sushi. The sauce smears my fingers and I suck them clean. If I were a man, I would be able to answer my question(s).

More sushi goes down, my throat bulging slightly when I swallow more than I could have chewed enough, and I wish I could have bought simply a block of raw ahi. I have, before, sunk my teeth into it and felt each crackle of the thin layers of tissue separate. The texture made me nearly gag at first before the slimy clumps slid down my esophagus and plopped into my stomach. When I pulled away, it looked as if I’d taken a chunk out of a grapefruit pink brick of soap.

A car pulls into the space in front of me. I squint through the windshield at the driver, who blinks at me while I continue to chew. Although I have already lowered the next bite from view, from my side, I look to see another person peeking down at me as they walk around my car. I swallow another mouthful almost whole, then look down and away from their voyeurism. In that, I feel like an exhibitionist as if a foggy spotlight is going to shine through the roof of my car to reveal me shoving my face in a public place, no better than throwing open my coat to reveal the perked and bruised hues of an agitated, angry arousal that means nothing other than violence. Or purposely placing my naked, arched body in front of open blinds revealed by a bright golden light so everyone might see into a box that was seemingly made for showcasing pleasure. The heat in my face seeps down to my pevlis before I can help it.

Does the standard American nuclear family engage in performative incest every time they sit around a table and watch one another eat? In either case, I won’t be mentioning this bout of gluttony to anyone; I’ll devise a plan to discard the trash in a garbage that isn’t my own so no one will find it and know it’s mine. Shield my face from the security cameras as if agents are standing by, watching and waiting for such a moment to rush me and catch my indulgence red-handed. My stomach now feels tight, not from tension and stress, but from how full it is. I won’t turn the light on in my room. My skin is soft and warm, and I’ll slowly undress, revealing its newfound shimmer. A gloss that makes my fingers come away slightly sticky. Thin strings of clear mucus bead down my knuckles. My legs splayed wide, surrounded by dark, a dim pink glows. Sashimi glistens beneath the lights, spread and stripped against the blanket of bamboo while fingers dip into rice vinegar and a knife wets itself before slipping its edge in. The seafood fills my mouth one piece at a time, sweet and salty, and I swallow another bite.