When We Were French, short story published by Caren Beilin

I record myself. Of course, there were plenty of kids who used each other and not objects, who rolled around in nursery school and under their parent’s quilt covers when they were supposed to be jumping on the bed, and in guestroom closets like back alleys. But I never did. The iron had the game to it, the treacherous game, with the heating up. I’d sit on a big pile of the family’s clean laundry and make out with it. I’d stroke it searing my fingers a little. I got good at it. It made me have such rubbery lips, like a calcified beach ball! I’m not a pansexual, but I remember those days with the objects. And I know you did it, too, like my friends that I’ve mentioned. I know I’m not alone in that I loved to watch my mother as she stood there ironing, and something else was really going on.