Watch.
Are you watching?
If you look away, you might lose the rhythm of it, the glisten of sweat along the ribcage, the slow toss of the head, the line of the neck. It's a bit like getting up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the movie, by the time you sit back down, the hero iss in the pit of scorpions and the girl has betrayed him.
There's always a girl.
Shh, no, look, see, the thrust, the grind, the roll, the pin. The sharing of breath, the arching of hips in joining. The scrunch of the nose, the ugly little fumble of petting, the rough squeeze.
It isn't like a dance. It's a bit like falling down a hill, rough and stupid and awkward and not pretty, not if you're looking on it from the outside in.
"It's a metaphor," says the desperate young artist, the silent reel behind repeating over and over, an endless loop, glisten, toss, line, thrust, grind, roll, pin, breath, arch, scrunch, fumble, squeeze. Verb after useless verb and the people walk on by with whispers and giggles.
"It's a bit, well, obvious, darling," one of them finally takes the time to explain, his tangle of waxy blonde hair trying to struggle out of gel-laced captivity. "I mean, you might have at least had them use some props. It's a bit boring that way, isn't it?"
The artist tilts his head back, envisions allegorically blowing the stupid fuck's head off and almost makes up his mind to leave, instead.
"I think it's lovely."
Slender, tall—short?—business suit, with cropped hair. After a moment of swirling confusion where he wonders if he had one too many mimosas before showing up today, he settles on woman. "It's, um, that is, it's a metaphor." She waits. He felt the back of his shoulders prickle. "For how our intimacy looks to the rest of the world. Stupid, right? Stupid and awkard? For…for the concept of self-centerdness, that we're each in our own little worlds but to the everyone else we just look like we're fumbling around in the…in the sack."
She walks over to look more closely at the black and white picture being projected. "You used yourself for the model."
He looks at her, startled. He's surprised she can tell. That video, him and Rachel, it was over four years ago and the whole thing is pretty grainy, black and white. Their old video camera had been a piece of shit, he thought with surprising fondness.
"Yes. Um…low budget," he laughs nervously. She doesn't laugh.
"It's the wrong message, I think," she decides instead, tracing her fingers over the picture. For a strange half-second, he can feel Rachel's lips on his, the heat of her mouth drawing him in, the weight and sweat and warmth of her gluing them together. He swallows hard, aware of his pulse beating staccato against his skin.
She turns to look at him and he's suddenly, strikingly aware that her eyes are yellow, bright yellow, cat yellow and they aren't contacts. She smiles now, a quirk of the lips that says, 'tell them. Say it. I dare you.' But he can't find the words.
"What do you think it means?" he asks instead.
She walks over to him and presses her lips to his. He can smell Rachel's skin and taste her mouth, her real mouth, not strawberries like in stories, but old Chinese food and dry lips. She had walked out a year ago.
Behind him, on the wall in front of everyone, they made love.
"Oh," he said.
"Yes," agreed Desire. "It /is/ a metaphor."
