1 *It’s going to happen again, but tonight will be different.*
2 It began a week ago. I was in the den seated on my wooden chair, a sheet of white linen draped over my body, concealing the translucent strings fastened to my limbs – the fate I cannot escape. They are my genie’s lamp, pulling on them enslaves me, and gives me life. And it’s been so long since master tugged on them, very long.
3 I’ve lost count of the times light turned to shade, leaving that effervescent afterglow – vivid images turning sepia brown, waiting for their turn to be hung on stagnant walls. An obscured and still world, and the only hint of life were grandfather’s incessant ticking, and the scratches and creaks created by shadows – shades continually moving across the dust covered floor.
4 That night, the scurrying stillness stirred the hanging dust.
5 I felt the linen sliding off my body, and the shadows began to take form; a Grecian pot, a silver urn, a dark wooden mahogany table, a Persian rug, an antiquated dresser, a doll house, sinews of graying drapes intertwined in a mating ball, my strings entangling the chair’s legs.
6 And amidst all these you stood, wearing a peculiar expression on your face, your dark eyes intently probing, feeling through the locks of my hair, trimming the sides of my torso, measuring the one-foot distance between my feet and the floor. One by one, your clothes fell, eyes grazing on dust of the room, saluting your spectators with your nakedness, emphasizing the contrast your supple flesh made with this world.
7 Your gaze fell on my hands, examining them. They were almost the size of your palm. You pulled me closer, took my arms and guided my fist around that thing alien to me. I felt it grow, filling the space between my fingers, its limpness vanishing until my palm began to creak. It was wood against wood, not at all so alien after all. This was by far the closest our flesh resembled each other. This tautness was not alien to me.
8 You began moving my arms back and forth, slowly at first, your eyes never leaving the junction of our flesh. Then the movement became more rapid, then more fierce. My joints began to creak from all the violent perturbation but you never once took heed of their plea. Your eyes were tightly shut, face turned up, mouth ajar, gasping for breath, voice rasp, chest heaving, body tensed, praying for the desert rain to fall. And it did, the coagulated fluid surged through my fingers, every last drop covering my hands. Somehow our similarity vanished. Wood turned to flesh, and just as before you were alien to me. My fingers regained its former shape, brittle from the sudden change. They were never meant to accommodate, never meant to be stretched so far. You placed me back on my chair, and pulled the drape over me. It was as it has always been, grandfather’s ticking, shadows creating scratches and creaks. Somehow they seemed louder than usual. Your dirt covered me.
9 It happened again the succeeding nights. My silhouette world reclaimed its vivid form, its colors more distinct.
10 I was taken from my chair and laid on the table, you sat on me with your stiffness stretched between my breasts, pressing on them with your hands, making it slither through my cleavage. I was hung by my strings on the antique dresser, my feet dangling an inch from the floor while you brushed your nape with my golden locks. You lay on the Persian rug and held my face to your groin, rubbing yourself, pushing between my neck and chin. The other night you sat me on the table, took the Grecian pot and the urn, pressed them together in front of me, and slid yourself between their necks, pointing towards my lips, moving back and forth, and finally covering me with liquid you spilled. And each time colors painted the sepia images.
11 Tonight you were less anxious, less narcissistic. Slowly you took your clothes off, and neatly folded them on the table. You placed your hands on my waist, lifted me up, and rested my weight against the doll house while you carefully undid the knots of my dress, slid it off my body, intricately folded it along its seams, and placed it on top of the pile of your clothes. You lifted me and sat down on my chair, placed me on your lap and turned me so that my feet hung by the outer side of your thighs, my back rested against your arm, your stiffness protruding between my legs, pulling them together as tightly as you could, squeezing forcibly between them. My head was rested on your chest and I could feel your hips gyrating in unison with a beat. I never knew you had a drum confined within that body, it was the first time I heard its pulses. Somehow your flesh began to take on a form similar to mine, this unifying tautness made us one – it turned you into wood. Your chest lost its softness, your arms were immobile, your fingers and your neck stiff, moving with mechanical precision, drawing your hips back and forth and back and forth, moaning with the ebb and tide, your lonely wishful eyes staring into mine, deep and questioningly, looking for a hint of reciprocity
12 I could already picture the soft cushion of your bed tonight, the warmth, the colors, and the dim contrast of light and shade. The carpeted floor will not creak on your weight and the silhouette shadows taking a permanent form.
13 “I’m almost there now…”
14 *I’m almost there.*—————————————–
15 I never saw you again. That night you sat on my chair and looked through my eyes, searching for something that was never there. You just stood and left, leaving my body sprawled on the floor. I know our clothes are still neatly folded on the table, with the graying sinews of linen drapes and the hanging dust patiently waiting to settle on my uncovered, unblinking hollow eyes that shall only witness my sepia images fade with the light.
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