Discretion

There once was a girl from Nantucket
Who’s Microsoft mouse up and chucked it.
She then got a yen
For that very good pen
Till her muse almost caved and said fuck it.
So she opted instead
For a ball point whose head
Had good drag and a soft core
Was started …



Lying on the couch, just a brush after midnight, she watched her neighbor through her curtains as he moved about within the embracing frame of his window. She wondered if he ever caught a glimpse of her in passing. If he did, she mused, how long might he let himself stand and stare before he returned to whatever task had been at hand?

It was desolately dark in her apartment. Her ability to see him at all was the gift of a lonely streetlamp one block south of her, directly facing the alley: and the living room light in his apartment.

The laws of science would say it was impossible for him to see her, of course. Yet he stood there, seemingly with a purpose. As the streetlamp dawned through her window and splashed upon her hips and her thighs, she bought the illusion. She had his rapt attention.

She arranged herself for her audience. Does he see me in here all alone? Can he catch enough of a glimpse to be curious?

As she toyed with this idea, she turned her attention to her not-fully-moved-in-yet apartment. Her walls, still naked, barrenly awaited some modest adornment. But that was okay. The nudity of the room permitted shadow play. She had managed to unpack and hang her curtains this morning after soft scrambled eggs. She smiled as the fabric cast its shadows listlessly upon the wall just beside her.

Just then the wind picked up. The Pixies that had been dreaming in these blue linen veils of discretion were suddenly and rudely evicted. They were replaced by bawdy and raucous Tricksters. She watched as her curtains flailed and then submitted to the Spirits of the night breeze: a breeze with no mercy. Relentless. Almost vicious. She watched her curtains convulse in the light of the streetlamp. She smiled then, bearing witness to the torrid dancing affair both spirits and shadows were having upon her living room wall.

This then is what inspired her to reach for herself. She read the soft smooth folds of her flesh as if they were Rilke in Braille. She admired her own beauty with her hands.

Women are soft, she thought. We are soft to offset the harshness of a man’s world. We are the talcum powder absorbing the dampness of every day. We are the curves and hollows that soothe the world. We are what we all want to come home to. We are peace.

She licked her fingers to taste herself. He was right. She did taste good; like a mango, but warmer and smoother. She closed her eyes and imagined herself beneath the shade of a mango tree: breaking open the skin and tasting its flesh for the first time. No one need be in her company, no lover, no reptiles, no mythology; only her fingers, two at a time, tearing open the flesh of her mango.

She felt her juices emanating, like mango dew, down into the palm of her hand, making it hot. Not full droplets mind you, just that whisper thin film of moisture that cloaks you upon that initial interaction with humidity. Her mons was dank and humid, like Florida in July.

He was entertaining, she noticed. He had a lady friend over, and was guiding her physically across the room. Toward what? A table? A couch? Had he moved the furniture? Was he directing her toward the shadow play he saw through the window?

He bent her over in the framed embrace of the window. Her spine collapsed beneath his grasp. On his couch, she arched and sighed in anticipation of what he might do next. She turned toward him then, not yet ready to be used. They began dancing to the music surfing out his window and onto the lusty breeze.

“Fake Plastic Trees”, she noticed, smiling at the irony in resignation.

“If I could be what you wanted, all the time.”

She closed her eyes and once more sampled her mango. He had played that for her while she was bent over not so long ago. But this new woman was different, not so unknowing, not so confused. She watched her replacement’s confident dance moves now like a pupil submitting to a much-needed lesson with great humility. Perhaps if she had been earthier; perhaps a shade of self-possession more sailable to his easel and paint knife, an eggshell shade, not one so violently verdant.

But he was dancing with her mentor now, and her mentor had relented. Only soft dark shapes moved now in a horizontal tango. He left the light on.

He keeps the lights on and he never likes to talk dirty. Hands and mouths dance alone and in silence for one another by the light of a solitary reading lamp. She remembered going rounds with him like two high school debate team captains arguing the allegory of his stacks of National Geographics. Eleven years worth of high gloss photographs arranged in haphazard piles only he would consider organized. She had thought her taunting playful, flirtatious even. She winced when she recalled the night he confessed to her how much her taunts had hurt.

Closing her hazel eyes, she skimmed through all eleven years of those magazines. The bloodletting of lambs by Turkish farmers, the fading traditions of the Masai, the suffering of women in Afghanistan; these were his porn as far as her mentor would surmise this evening.

Her blue linen veils of discretion hid them from her- now revealed them and the street lamp- now were sucked out the window, leaving her momentarily in the dark. They danced again in the framed embrace of the window. Her blue linen veils of discretion danced openly and unashamed with the wind. They offered no apology.

The song was over. The CD player changed discs. She listened now, like a wolf, to his every sound. She could hear ten thousand times better now, thanks to her obsession. She could listen to his fear and to his loneliness. She could listen now, for the first time, to how disappointed he was in her. She could writhe here in a seclusion that protected them from one another’s pain. She could rape herself here in the privacy of her own darkness. This way, he would never have to know her, nor was he close enough to pass judgment. This way, he avoided any interaction with her. Interacting with her only served to dampen and loosen the gauze he had so fastidiously turnicated about his heart.

His gauze concealed the Pandora’s box dwelling deep within him. Making love to her always managed to kick open the lid- blinding both of them. She hid from her own pain and his, with her hand in herself, in the darkness. She cried out now, not sorrowfully, but amid gasps for air.

There had been so much interaction, so much longing and intensity between them. At times like these she remembered his eyes and the warmth and mystery that lived there.
Arching her back now, beneath a self imposed Adonis fisting; she wondered if he could see the same things in her undaunting stare. She stopped, breathed in, and pushed her dress down.

In what context had he put what he’d witnessed in her? As he plunged deeply into this new conquest, pounding her flesh relentlessly until his sweat made little droplets on his shoulders and made his freckles look like they were multiplying. Had he wondered what hallways and stairwells he might get lost in if he fell down into her eyes? Had he born witness to the myths that led to her soul as he looked at her? Did he fear that amid one of these trysts, she might find him there, down inside her, and never let him out? What if, once he sank down into her, into those imploring portals, she blinded herself? Would he be locked in?

She could do that. He believed it. She could keep him from ever leaving and that terrified him.

“I see you in there.” She smiled and said aloud. She thought of the ribbons of pale teal velvet that lie within her favorite rubber ball and how it once held her in pangs of chest tightening rapture in her grade school playground. There within the rubber ball, were ribbons of shimmering pale teal that rose high and then fell like a roller coaster. She’d spend recess after recess mastering the rhythm. Bounce. Scoop. Catch. Bounce. Scoop. Catch.

She could master the rhythm of the clear rubber ball and hold seven jacks in her hand at one time. What she couldn’t understand was why the pale teal ribbon never moved inside the ball. What she couldn’t understand was how it could remain so unscathed by all the bouncing. No matter what she did, the ribbon never moved.

”Yes, my love.” she says this aloud, her chin resting upon her left shoulder as she watched the silhouette of his back rise and fall atop her mentor. Yes, she was looking for the same thing, she thought. An entryway, a hallway that would lead her down into those plush pale ribbons of teal that once stared back into her pools of hazel. When had he learned to blind himself? When had he locked the door?

She arose and stood before the window staring into darkness. His window a blackout, She reeled from the power outage. It’s only a game she told herself. Got to regain the rhythm.

“But I can’t help the feeling, I could grow through the ceiling if I just turned and ran” in search of the shade of a mango tree.

Turning to her barren apartment, she trained her eyes in the dark to find her keys, shoes and her wallet. Bounce. Scoop. Catch. Got to regain a rhythm.

She started for the door of her brand new Miss Independent apartment. Her thoughts were on the twenty-four hour grocery store. Maybe fresh fruit would offer up a distraction. Maybe there would be mangos. She turned around again and glanced at her blue linen veils of discretion. Marching purposefully toward them, she thrust the window shut and headed back for the door.