The letters came every other day. Marbled homemade paper covered in a sweeping black script. At first, they were sedate. They asked questions. Soon they were filled with declarations of love, and promises that scared and excited her. Her own letters contained bits of poetry, and a young girl's darkest fantasies, and she wrote of her love, of her longing to be with him. Then the calls started. He called once a twice a week. He was demanding on the phone. He had no tolerance for her shyness or inexperience.
When they meet again, it was at another convention, in Boston. He meet her at the bus station in a big gray car. He drove them to a hotel located in the suburbs. His roommate looked her over, suprised, she could see that she was with his friend. The roommate was young, and thought it impossilbe that someone so young could want his older friend. She hardly saw the roommate, who excused himself quickly.
He ordered her to take off her clothes in the bathroom handing her a black silk robe. When she came out, he had opened his beige suitcase, and inside lay clamps, long strands of silk robe, leather cuffs. What lay on the bed was a smaller case, opened, revealing straight edge razors. He looked up at her. Her eyes were wide, and her hands shook.
-Do you trust me?
-Yes.
And he tied her to the bed. He spent an hour whipping her. Twisting her skin into iron clamps, piercing her ears with needles. She found it exquiste and horrible. It was like love. The intense pain coupled with gentle caresses, kisses that emptied her. Each bit of pain created her again and again. She knew that pain was supposed to transport you from your body but this pain made her actuely aware of her body. She had never known her body so intimately. She had never given her body so fully to anyone. After he removed the clamps, once the agony of blood rushing back to skin had subsided, he cut her. He cut her many times on her arms, and her legs. She could feel the blood. It was the only time anyone besides herself had cut her. He made love to her. The pleasure all the more because of the pain.
She went home with a mother-of-pearl straight razor, a line of bruises on each thigh, and the still raw scars of his cuts.
11 comments:
Intense ... is this your "poem"? In progress?
This really isn't the poem...it's part of what I have been thinking about but this has more to do with the idea of wound. I don't know...it's been a very strange period for me. I've been thinking a great deal about my past, and looking at in new ways. This writing is coming from that place. I feel like I'm about to crack out of an egg, and I need to purge this stuff. This of course leads to a whole other set of questions...
And again, maybe it is the poem. Defintely in progress...
I love the extreme close ups to the body in pain. A body that, no matter how many and how intense the close ups are, remains elusive and fugitive: away from the pain, from the pain inducing gadgets, and away from the man trying to fix his object of desire.
Very intense and beautiful writing... it's keeping me awake after working a 10 hr. shift.
Now that you say that H, I think you're right about the elusivness. At first, I didn't think of it that way. I mean, I purposeful created a distance between the character and the reader. But between her and the "top" that I couldn't see. But you're right, of course, the distance existed between the two. Okay well between me and J. He used to complain that I was so far from him when we "played." Hmmm..Part 3?
Exactly, the distances are always extreme: they go from letters and phone calls (long distance) to close ups. The distances don't allow a revelation of a face or a body, the object is always blurry and out of focus.
I love the fact that you guys are married and still comment on each other's blogs, establishing a dialogue.
I personally thank you for it.
(word verification: gumymhrh)
We felt kind of dorky about it last night as H was sitting right next to me lOL. He would talk to me and then write some stuff.
I'm glad I didn't scare you away. H and I were taking bets about who would be totally freaked.
Totally freaked by what? The fact that you and Horacio talk to each other? ... Oh, no, I get it ... did any money change hands?
Nope no money LOL. H thought John and Ernesto would stick around. I hoped but am used to people being weirded out by my writing and my past...
And hell isn't wierd when couples talk to each other? It is here. I went out to a wine bar with some girlfriends. I commented that H would love it here, and that he and I should come some time. She said "My husband would hate it here. He couldn't stand havingto talk to me for too long." Um...okay.
Ginger, just in case you're curious or wondering or whatever, I'm not freaked out by your writing. I'm not too easily freaked out! Anyway, still here, but rather obnoxiously busy. Sigh.
Hey Jess! I hope you're not as you've read it before:)
I saw that you have a lot going so I totally understand! Stay sane.
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