vagary
“Without leaps of imagination or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all is a form of planning.”
the girl neglected her duties often. dishes left on the floor dusted with crusted egg yolk and burnt toast. globs of sticky jam on the bedding. it was gross, though there was no one to say much of anything to her. she was too beautiful to confront. haughty and inapproachable unless she had a cigarette in one small palm. the fingernails painted varying shades of citrus. lime. grapefruit. lemon. pomegranate in the winter. mascara streaked the pillowcases and lipstick on the mirror. the girl kissed herself often. you’re beautiful, honey!
a performer by heart, she listened to conversations at cafes to create new characters. a man in a bowler hat boasted loudly to his date about an Indian Yellow painting in his bedroom. He slapped the table to emphasize need over want; one must categorize what is essential and discard the gaff. the girl watched his mannerisms, the slope of his back, and rounded shoulders. he donned insecurity like a loose cape. the girl peeped through her bangs and took notes. sipping a cold latte, she let the foam sit on her lips. pretending to have a mustache, like the man. to be a different person, you had to be seen as a different person.
on the walk home, she mentally masturbated, allowing her fingers to roam between her thighs. sticky with milk, her palms pulled at the snap-buttons and flicked her lace underwear to the side. she thought of the man in the bowler hat, so out of sync with the cadence of conversation. the woman across from him barely said a word. he didn’t notice. the girl had grown increasingly aroused by the power imbalance and slipped away. She left the flakey croissant and nub of her smoke on the table with a handful of coins.
she walked the alleyways home, scraping the soles of her boots against the rough pavement. contact was everywhere. she resisted what she wanted and stomped her way through the world. at her apartment, she flicked on the webcam and set up the ring lights. wet and ready, she took out the orange wig and a yellow ruffled dress. the outfit was too tight; it would be a struggle to slip the garment off. the girl wore it anyway. her audience wanted excitement over elegance. she gave the people what they asked for. if it were up to her, she’d sit on a short stool and sip martinis in the moonlight. she’d stand on her desk and write on the walls, staccato questions to puncture the wounds her clients covered up with wads of paper.
what is the sound of anger? how did you arrive on earth? who makes you laugh—is the giggling kind? where do you withhold? when is cynicism an acceptable behavior? why won’t you turn your camera on?
the girl learned quickly: most people prefer not to be seen. a child's mask is made of plastic, paper mache, crayons, wax, and sequins. the people she encountered adorned themselves in shame, pity, and pride. they trussed themselves up in expensive leather and silk. heavy jewels and tiny gemstones that glittered despite the lack of light. the price tag could not cover the scent of greed, guilt, and clinginess. the fear and self-loathing people wore was palpable, and the girl had devised a sorcery to keep the vultures online where she could cap the session at twenty minutes.
it didn’t take long to instigate desire in a world that clung to codependencies like strands of spaghetti sticking to each other in clumps. the girl had few friends. two to be exact. she preferred her aloneness to anxious attachment. she would not be robbed of the delicious detachment spontaneous love offered.
as soon as the camera was on, the girl pressed and moaned and danced. she combed her hair and flicked her tongue. she’d say what she needed to say and move her body in the soup of feathers. she kept the men on mute; all requests had to be made beforehand. it was her one rule. she would assume whatever name the client wished. it was never interesting; the same candy-coated floss that went with the neon underwear and plastic wigs.
once the session was complete, she’d turn the camera off and strip her bed. she had a closet of sheets. soft linens in varying shades of white. one client requested she purchase a dark rose duvet, and the girl declined. the man added hundreds to the fee each time she refused. what we want is weighted by the resistance or insistence of the other. she was resolute, and the man switched his request to crushed velvet lingerie in the shade of a burning sunset.
Pyttipanna is a Swedish dish named for the ‘small pieces in a pan.’ Fried onion, potato, and sausage are topped with a fried egg with pickles and beetroot. the girl would sweep, shower, and prepare a quick Pyttipanna when her calls were complete.
the girl would add whatever she saw in the fridge. sometimes it was classic and other times a mix of leftovers. she liked adding pickled asparagus and artichoke and toasting thick slices of rye bread with butter. she’d eat in her clean bedsheets with a fork and fingers. she bought bottles of dry chardonnay and would drink from slender glasses with butter-greased fingers. glass after glass, until she could only taste hope and not the despair of the faceless men on the other side of the screen. she toasted with the cockroaches—hello, darlings!—her only uninvited companions past midnight.
the more she consumed, the closer she became an alethiologist, a truth seeker. she studied errors and coherency, the lines between what was said and unsaid. the man in the bowler hat kept repeating himself to his lover. stuck in a loop, the woman was incapable of freeing him. the man needed someone to stick a thumb in the vast web of stories he wove around himself like a chrysalis. safety was an illusion. the thing that would crawl out of his tomb would look exactly like him, speckled with rot. awakened by fear.
a crescent of light peeped through the girl's window and fell on her shins. she waved her hairy legs in the light and set the empty bottle on the floor. the planets moved in circles around her. spinning faster and in long strides. the girl set her head back against the clean linens and closed her eyes, her skin dewy and freckled in the darkness. the butterfly uncurls her tongue and drinks the sweetness—looking for moist surfaces to feed on. rotting plants, excrement, blood, and sweat; the filth is the nectar that nourishes.
Photo source.
