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CREATIVE PIECE
SLEEPING OVER
Chris Wiewiora, Iowa State University
Chris Wiewiora is from Orlando, Florida where he graduated from the University of Central Florida (BA in
English) and worked as an editor at the Florida Review. Currently, he lives in Ames, Iowa where he is a Masters
of Fine Arts candidate at Iowa State University’s Creative Writing and Environment program. He mostly writes
nonfiction. He is a regular contributor to the Good Men Project and a contributing editor to BULL: Men’s Fiction.
Read more at www.chriswiewiora.com
Email: chriswiewiora@gmail.com
ABSTRACT:
My father, a copyeditor for a Christian magazine, shoves a letter about relationships through the cat door in my
bedroom door. I spend a non-sexual overnight at Lauren’s house, where I fall asleep together with her for the
first time. While trying again in my relationship with Lauren, the remoteness in my relationship with my father
widens.
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The week that Lauren and I broke up, my father had slipped an envelope through the cat door sawed into the
bottom of my bedroom door. A sticker of a mockingbird sealed the clasp. The front read: (to read after you’ve
had your coffee and are awake).
A month later, I sat in front of Lauren’s dad’s house in my car, with the engine on, and the lights off. It was
10:30pm and Lauren was alone. But it wasn’t a creepy me-stalking-her situation. It was a me-having-comeover-to-see-her
in the late afternoon and make her homemade buttermilk biscuits that I had topped with
chopped spinach, slightly sautéed portobello mushrooms, sun dried tomatoes, and crumbles of goat cheese. It
was her saying they were amazing while curling up next to me as we watched the movie The Triplets of
Belleville on her bed. It was us making out, and me taking off my shirt, and Lauren saying we shouldn’t go much
further than kissing and touching with our shirts on—just yet—because it was the first time we’d seen each
other since agreeing that we were going to try again.
One of the most intimate times we had had sex was on a Sunday when my parents were at church. Lauren and I
were on the carpet of my bedroom with our jeans around our ankles.
“It’s just so good,” Lauren whispered.
“Why’s that?” I asked.
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