Yasmina Din Madden
NEUTRALITY

“Sexually, I’m more of a Switzerland,” he says to her over mediocre merlot in a sleek, dark bistro. As in later he’ll be neutral about positions, she wonders. Or he’ll remain silent and smiling afterwards—polite but distant? Perhaps what he means has nothing to do with making choices or bold pronouncements. Maybe he means that he’ll wind her up expertly, her body a sleek Piaget. Melt, stir, and stretch her like fondue? Who would say such thing about sex, and why is she here with him? Perhaps he simply means that nothing and no one is worth fighting for.

Yasmina Din Madden lives in Iowa and her short fiction and nonfiction have appeared in PANK, The Idaho Review, Word Riot, The Masters Review: New Voices, Hobart, Fiction Southeast, Carve, and other journals. Her story “At the Dog Park” was shortlisted for The Masters Review Anthology: 10 Best Stories by Emerging Authors, and her flash fiction was shortlisted for the Wigleaf Top 50 (Very) Short Fictions of 2017 and Pulp Literature’s Hummingbird Prize for Flash Fiction. She teaches creative writing, literature, and women’s and gender studies at Drake University.

Read more from Cleaver Magazine’s Issue #25.