Cloudy Eyes, Cloudy Skies

She ran her hands across the seams of my chest.

"It's been so long since I have felt skin under my fingers," she said to me. She was unbuttoning the front of my shirt. I made her stop.

"Please don't touch my wretched body, it will not please you. I have been burned horribly from head to toe," I tell her. It is the only way I can explain the seams in my body, where my creator pieced me together from stolen corpses.

Her sightless eyes shape themselves into half-moons of empathy.

"How did this happen?" she asks in her angel voice.

"We were burning my father, in a funeral pyre, and I fell in. The fire was so hot it disfigured me instantly." I came up with the lie on the spot, it was the first thing that came to mind. Often I have dreamed of burning this wretched body, until no trace is left to bring horror to humans.

She pays no attention to my protests, instead she runs her hands over the thin fabric of my shirt. Her palms leave warm trails across my back, and I close my eyes to experience the joy of her touch.

"I'm afraid that I already knew you were scarred, I could feel it through your clothing," she says. Although she cannot see my face, her eyes look up to mine with an expression that is coy and enticing. She presses her thin form against the length of me, she puts her lovely face against my horrible chest. It horrifies me to think of her beauty touching my cursed body, my disgusting skin making contact with her flawless complexion.

"You remind me of the trunk of a tree, you are so large and solid." Of course she means my arms, which are thick and hard from working arduously for this wondrous creature. But all I can think of is the tree that is growing thick against my leg.

She wraps my arms around her. She knows that she must move my limbs for me, for I have no experience with human contact. I wouldn't know the first thing to do with this lovely creature, and my shame of this is endless.

She deserves so much, she is so kind. I could never give her the incredible boundless joy that she truly deserves, so I push her away from me.

She hears me stomp across her wooden floor. My large, hideous form nearly makes the walls shake. She is also very skilled with her ears, to the point where I sometimes forget that she is blind, but of course she has never looked upon me in horror like all other humans have.

"Who is this man?" I ask her. I am holding a picture of a man in a military uniform. He has a piercing blue stare and a wide, stretched smile. "In this picture, I mean."

"That was my husband," she says, and her voice is thick. Her eyes ask me to return to her, but I keep my distance. "He died in the war. This was over ten years ago," her voice speaks of old sadness, the kind that has left its scar tissue, and the callouses left on her heart are a leathery armor. This woman is one of the strongest I have ever known, her voice is firm even as she speaks of her pain. She continues,

"Thoughts of my husband have tortured me since. Do you know what it is like, to yearn and long over and over for one thing? Just to see him alive again, but I can never have it," she puts her hand on her thin, bird-like chest, as if to comfort her heart which throbs in pain. "But now," she says, as she rises from the couch where we were sitting. She smiles her coy smile which promises paradise. "I just wish I had someone to touch, since I know my husband lies beneath the ground and will never touch my skin again."

I cannot bear it. I tell her I must go to bed, and I retire to the shack to sleep alone.

Her name is Ellen. I have lived in this cabin with her for a few months.

I don't know how long it has been since Victor Frankenstein created me, but all I know is that when I see that man (no, that monster!) I will cause him to suffer as I have. He will experience the loneliness I have lived with for so long, I will make sure of it. Oh God, why did he make me? He made me just so I could suffer. No, he never thought of me, he only thought of his pride and his pursuits, and his dreams of conquering life and death itself. He never cared once for my happiness, my maker feels only disgust when he looks upon me and my horrible ugliness.

I ran from him, my awful god and maker, and followed my own path, completely alone. I lived in the wilderness for many months, having to teach myself every basic thing. I learned what berries were good to eat, and which would make me vomit. I learned that fire can bring delicious warmth but is painful to the touch. I learned about the wonder and beauty of nature as well, something that I think many humans still do not understand.

Then in my wandering I came upon this cabin. Inside I saw Ellen, a woman who is beautiful but tragically blind. She sits by her fire, warm curls of tobacco smoke floating from her pipe. She plays a divine instrument, which makes the most beautiful sound on Earth (I love the sound of music so much, I had never heard it before). She lives alone, but is visited often by a young couple, a young man and a foreign woman.

While spying upon Ellen and the people who came and went from her little cabin, I was able to teach myself to speak. I am thankful that my creator gave me a good sort of brain, one that is receptive to learning and thought. I spied on her secretly, waiting for my chance to finally speak with her. I waited until her friends, the young couple, were to be gone for a long period of time, a few years. The foreign woman I am grateful for, as she and I learned much English together (though of course she was unaware of my presence or my gratitude).

So after Ellen's friends were gone, I approached her.

I knocked on the door of the cabin, a place that I knew intimately although I had never been inside.

"Who is there? Come in," says Ellen, so I entered.

"Pardon this intrusion, I am a traveler in want of a little rest; you would greatly oblige me if you would allow me to remain a few minutes before the fire," I said.

"Enter," she says to me. I can already hear the kindness in her voice, and although I am a stranger to her she offers me a meal.

"I have food, you don't have to give me what you have," I say, embarrassed. "I would like to offer you my services."

"Services?" She asks me sweetly, and I have this feeling that she is wise to me. I can see it in her sightless eyes.

"Well I have seen you outside chopping wood for your fire, and you have mended the floorboards of your house more times that I can count. And I would love to ease your burden..."

"It's been you, hasn't it?" She says (her voice sounds like an angel singing!). "You are the kind spirit who has been leaving that firewood at my doorstep! And all those other things you did for me, thank you." Ellen rises from her chair and approaches the place where I stand. She steps close to me, closer than I have ever been to a person, let alone a Goddess of Beauty.

"Thank you for taking pity on a poor blind woman, Lord knows I need it," she says, with laughter in her voice. How modest she is! "My friends who come to visit me are on a trip, they are gone to explore the Orient, don't you think that is exciting?" Her smile glistens, and her eyes light up as she thinks of the mysteries of the Asian coast. "It's a shame such things would be lost on me, for I cannot even see," she laughs good humoredly. She motions for me to sit next to her, in a wicker chair beside her warm fire. I sit next to her, and let the fire warm my clammy skin. My palms are sweating profusely, I'm incredibly nervous. I don't want her to know anything about my origins, and God forbid she ever touch me and discover my horrible disfigurement. Even though she is blind, her hands would be able to see my wretched body as clear as day.

At that time, all I wanted was her companionship. I was so alone, I had never even spoken to a human. But Ellen allowed me to sit beside her, and she spoke to me of all her thoughts and musings. She was alone like me, and her mind worked endlessly on the mysteries of life as I have often pondered. Not only did she grace me with her charming thoughts, but she could play beautiful music.

Ellen took out her fiddle and began to play. Her song was sweet, it's notes playful and redolent of sunlit bliss. The notes she played made me laugh and brought tears to my eyes on that bright, beautiful day.

But when the night time comes, our conversation changes, and dark feelings are brought to the surface. Feelings and longings that have been held under cold water for so long are laid bare as the moon rises.

I work in the hot sun, and to be honest I love it. I rise in the morning with the beautiful sun as it's rays grace the sky, spreading over it like rose-colored water across a murky lake. It starts out cold, and I have to rub my arms as I start my chores. Then by noon the sweat is dripping off of me, and I laugh happily with pleasure as I accomplish my tasks. I work for a beautiful woman, who smiles for me and brings me a cool drink. And always there is the beauty of nature, something that is everlasting and unchanging in my world of dark uncertainty.

Sometimes I feel that my life is a mudslide, ever drawing me into a murk of hate and agony. I am sinking in a mire of cold, foul quicksand that threatens to envelop my face and fill my mouth. I will no longer be able to breathe, and I will be happy for it. I am ever descending, slipping without a foothold; I am free falling towards my death, and I cannot stop my fall! I feel powerless, I feel helpless, and angry. The hatred I feel for my maker overwhelms me sometimes and I am entirely inconsolable. Utterly a victim to my rage I smash the very things I love, the gentle things of nature.

But Ellen, this lovely creature, this Goddess of Nature, is able to guide me. Chopping wood is a thing that must be done, it is a thing that is destructive as much as it is creative. I can look at the pile of firewood at the end of my labors and feel glad that it will warm us both and heat our food. Then, as night falls, we will sit together watching the fireflies float with their mysterious light. We imagine what spiritual plane they may have gotten lost from as they fly into this world to illuminate our darkness.

And always there is the chance that she will want to put her hand on mine.

She steps out of the hot bath water, her linen wrapped around her body. She sits quietly, thinking, not putting on her clothes just yet. All I can imagine is the way her skin must feel, warm and steamy from the bath, and so deliciously bare. I hide myself in the shack, to be alone with my evil thoughts of taking this lovely creature.

I swing my ax, it's weight in my hands is a happy thing. The sun bakes me like I am a hotcake, and a smile stretches my miserable face. The sky is painted with clouds today, across solid slates of blue.

I am surprised to see Ellen walking towards me, usually she does not approach me while I am doing my work. I smash my ax down on the chunk of wood, carving it in half, and I know she can hear the sound of my heavy stroke. She smiles as she walks towards me, spreading a shaky warmth through my body.

"How's the work, my dear?" she asks me.

"It good," I tell her.

She walks closer to me.

"Are you hot? You smell like sweat," she says.

"Sorry," I say.

"It's okay, I like it," her smile is coy again. "What is the weather like today?"

I describe to her the clouds, the sun, and the blue sky as eloquently as I am able. She closes her eyes, and I stare at her face while she is like that. She opens her eyes with a grin like a wicked nymph. Her hair is all jumbled and it is easy to imagine that she has just sprung from a clump of grass in order to grant me a wish. Her legs are long and the tread the grass like it is a shallow pool.

"You know, I wasn't always blind. I remember the sky when I was a young girl, and I remember what clouds looked like. You describe them perfectly, so much that I feel nostalgic," she puts her hand on her cheek, and she turns her face towards the hand. I am starting to feel awkward, as I stand with the heavy ax weighing down my arms.

"I like clouds, I think they look how cotton feels," she is talking, but she is walking closer to where I stand. She is right next to me, she lifts her face to mine, and a sudden brightness flashes on her face!

"Swing your ax, I want to feel your muscles move!" she says, her voice like a young maiden. She slaps her hand on my back, and I shrink away from it. Her brightness turns instantly into a frown, as quick as a dark cloud passes over the sun. She attempts to grab me again, but I just take her hand in mine and put it back at her side.

"Damn it!" she says and stomps back to the cabin.

It is a few moments later that the sadness descends on my heart. I think over and over again, what if things went wrong and I were to lose my only companion? How could I ever be alone again after knowing this paradise? I have to keep her away from me, to preserve the only thing in this world that I care about. But the place where her hand touched me tingles with remembrance.

That night, it seems that all is forgotten. I sit with her beside the fire, and she plays lovely music for me. The night progresses and we become sleepy, the fire heats our heavy eyelids. I sit close to the fire so the heat is intense to burning, and the burn feels good. I sit on the floor, and Ellen gets off of her chair and sits beside me. She moves closer to me, and my already fast-beating heart begins to burn furiously. If only I could run my hands down her graceful form, but that joy is something I will never know. However, she draws closer...

She leans her body against my arm, and puts her head on my shoulder. Her eyes are closed and I can hear her quiet breathing. It was as if her skin was alive, or maybe my own, but her innocent touch made me want to howl at the moon. She is smiling now, her teeth are sweetly misaligned and stained from her tobacco pipe. If only I could stick my tongue into that sweet mouth, and feel the inside of her soft, pink cheeks.

She is wrapping her thin arms around me now, and I can't believe the bliss of those arms. What kind of occultism could cause such intense feelings from something so simple? How can these arms that have been attached to her body since birth possibly make me feel this ecstasy from a simple embrace?

Not only that, but now she is squeezing me hard.

"See, this isn't so bad," she says lazily. Her words are just a sigh.

I can barely speak, much less protest. There is nothing I can do.

She holds me for a while, then we move to the couch because she says she tires of the floor. Then we have the scene I related to you at the beginning of this story.

The next day, Ellen told me to take a break from chores. This surprised me, but I followed her as she lead me into the forest. We walked together in the woods for miles, just talking about the things we saw and what we thought. Then she surprised me again.

"The thing about you, John, is this," she began. John Milton is the name I gave her as my own, since I was never given a name. I got it from the cover of Paradise Lost, one of the first books I read. "You only talk about the present. I like that about you, too many people talk too much about themselves. But I think it is odd that you never talk about your past."

I tell her that my past is not very interesting, and she shakes her head.

"I doubt that very much," she says, and nothing more.

That night we sat together before the fire in silence. She was working on a sewing project, and I was simply staring at the fire. I would like to watch the flames jump for the rest of my life, and to never have to think again.

She finished the work she was doing, and then she turned to me.

"John, you came to me with nothing. No past, no possessions, and just one pair of clothes. Where on earth did you come from?"

"Now there is a question!" I say, and I laugh aloud. She is looking at me with a kind expression that makes me feel light inside. Or maybe it is the rum we've been drinking, a rare treat from the distant town.

"Really...please tell me something," her eyes are expressive, they are turned downward as if they may weep. Her eyes are heavy-laden with empathy. How can I say no to this creature?

"You wouldn't believe me, it is something that is hard to even imagine, but it is the truth." I feel heavy with the effort of speaking this tale. I shake my head, "I don't think I can tell it now."

Then, she put her hand on my back, right between my shoulder blades. She sat next to me on the hard wooden floor. She explored my back through my shirt, lazily sliding her hand back and forth. Her fingers traveled over the crevices and creases of my monstrous back, the horrible landscape that if she were to see it would probably cause her to vomit. But there is no trace of disgust in her face, instead I see something I do not recognize.

Her hand travels down the small of my back, and my heart starts to race. Her palms are incredibly warm. Then, lazily, her hand glides upwards to the back of my neck.

Her lovely fingers rake themselves up the back of my head and she grabs hold of my hair for a moment, causing me some pain. She laughs wickedly, and then she tenderly rubs the back of my head and neck.

What is it about that feeling? All I know is that then she leaned forward and started kissing that spot right on the back of my neck, and I melted inside. Her pink tongue that I had longed for so badly was stroking the pulse right below my jawbone. I felt like my manhood would burst through the ceiling at that moment.

Her breath was hot, and that was enough to incite my longing. As she breathed in my ear, my hair stood on end and I felt an incredible tightness in my gut. She put her warm, soft mouth on my ear, and it was as if she had put her mouth on my member. Oh God, if only she would do that!

She slid around the front of me, and then she was sitting in my lap. Her bottom was pressed against me! The heavenly pillows of her butt on me at last, and I could feel their sweet, soft warmth like a cushion of sweet delight. She pressed her body against mine, and then her mouth was on mine. Her tongue slid into my mouth like a luscious fruit, and it was the softest thing that has ever found my palate. She put her mouth full on mine with great force, and my mouth was filled with her delicious tongue.

Then, I was a wild man. I put my great slab of a paw on the slope of her graceful neck and pushed her face into mine, forcing my tongue into her sweet mouth like it were a honey jar that I wanted to lick clean. Then I heard her make a noise of passionate delight, and the beast in me was nearly driven mad. Fearing I might hurt her, I kept myself under control.

Then I put my hands on the curves of her waist. I could feel her bird-like bones through her pale, silky skin. But I grabbed the flesh of her sides and squeezed them in my hands, her soft body felt so good. She gasped and embraced me, wrapping her arms around me and pressing us together with all the force her small body could give.

She swung her graceful leg around, and then she was straddling me. I could feel the thin fabric of her undergarment pressed against my lap, and the moisture that was already dripping through.

We kissed passionately. I knew what I wanted. I pulled up the side of her dress, and felt her thighs. I squeezed them too, and to my great delight she moaned in pleasure. To make her as lustful as I felt, there was no greater joy.

I felt between her legs, and made her cry out, and I did as well.

She suggested we move to her bedroom, and I followed like her lap dog.

She sat on the bed, her dress was falling down and I could very nearly see her nipple. A nipple is something I have never seen, for I have never even been nursed by a mother.

She looked up at me, or rather her lovely clouded eyes were directed at horrible, repulsive me. Her pink mouth was a moon of lust, a smile that would draw the stars into her bed. She grinned at me in her lusty way, can you believe she wanted me?

"Remove your shirt," she said. I obeyed. Her hands had already found my pants and were removing them.

I was naked then, with my member standing at attention. Did I ever think I would be using it for this? Her hand grabbed a hold of me, and my knees became weak. I was looking down on her sitting in front of me as though I were looking at a fantasy, as she put me in her mouth. It was such ecstasy that I actually fell to the floor, and she cracked up laughing. She grabbed me in her arms once more and drew me onto the bed, and she fell backwards with me on top of her.

"I want you to put your weight on me," she said. "I want to feel you crushing me."

"I don't want to hurt you," I said, but she grabbed a hold of my hair and pulled.

"You have to listen to me," she said wickedly, and so I did as she asked. I let her feel my pressure on top of her, and she sighed happily.

"Oh, it's been so long, my dear," she says to me. I put my mouth all over her face and neck, kissing her as sweetly as I could. Can you believe she enjoyed it, and asked for more? She told me how sweet and gentle I was, and this was true. I touched her body with worshipfulness, I caressed her tenderly.

I know she could not see what I was doing, all she could do was feel. She could feel me with incredible sensitivity as I lightly brushed her face with my lips. She did not know where I would kiss her next, she could not know. Each one was a surprise, and I think it made her burn the way I burned all over, with a heat that could match the sun.

She held my giant paw in her delicate hand, and pressed it to her face. The contour of her face was elvish and sweet, it could not have been more perfect. I held her lovely face in the palm of my hand. Her eyelashes were delicate feathers that brushed against my fingers. Her lovely eyes were fixed upon me.

But all the tender sweetness I felt was matched in passion by the maddening urge to take her! Until now, I had been sick with worry that I would never know how to please her. Now those feelings seemed laughable, all I wanted to do was plow through her with everything I had.

She knew this all too well. She was already taking off her dress, and I could see now her delicate pink nipples that sat on the end of two lovely peaches. I held them in my hand, and I cannot describe to you how wonderful they felt. Her nipples were hard against my palms, and her mouth was open in quiet desire.

She took my hand and guided it down, down through her open dress and over the expanse of her creamy belly. She guided me to the V that lay between her soft thighs. I felt the soft, pink cushion that lay there, truly the most delicious mystery in the world. She showed my thick fingers where to enter, I was so glad that she did.

"Oh!" she said. Her delicious moon-mouth was wide, and her smile turned to a full moon of expression. She grabbed me and stroked me and it was too much, I came immensely. She kissed my neck, and she held me close to her.

"That's good, now you won't be too eager," she says thickly. She pushes my hand again into herself, using me for her own gratification. She pushes my hand into her wetness over and over, until I am begging to be let in. Oh her wicked grin!

She took off the rest of her dress, and then she was lying naked beside me. I was still full of desire but my beast had been calmed ever so slightly. I ran my hand down the curves of her body, from her full hips down to the meat of her calves. She warmed to my touch, and made sweet sounds of enjoyment. Then she pushed me onto my back, her sweet face was devilish as it hung over mine. She got on top of me, and pushed me inside of herself. Her sweet pink cushion slid down my member in a way that was pure ecstasy, and then she started to ride me.

We made love, oh so much of it.

Afterwards, we lay next to each other in the sweet blissful aftermath. I held her body to mine, and our sweaty, feverish skin stuck to one another. Her skin was so smooth it was like a liquid that coated mine, and her soft arms were wrapped around me in a tight embrace. She held her face to my craggy, uneven chest, and she looked just so pleased.

"John, you are really special. No one has a body like you, I will learn the map of your skin every night," she says in her soft, lazy voice. I have held back tears until now, but I cannot any more. Her hair is cottony and soft against my chin as I rest it on her lovely head. It is like a cloud that has come to earth to rest on my chest. A wild storm cloud that will strike me with such a jolt of shaky passion that I will never be the same.

Since we came together, we have been in love ever since. I find that with each passing day my dark suffering becomes more of a distant nightmare. All those days and nights I spent in agony because of my confusion and solitude are over, because I am not alone anymore. And so too my desire for revenge has faded, and the face of my creator drifts away from my mind and dissipates like fog in the cool morning air. I will spend the rest of my life with this woman, I will live to love her. She is my purpose and my savior, and at long last I am happy to be alive.