AtomicCafe1
03-22-2009, 08:49 PM
The third and final short story for my fiction poetry class, and I am sad.
Comments, criticism, anything, it's appreciated!
Guise
“Good Lord, honey, what in the world are you doing? You’ve been in there for hours!”
I slowly pushed open the bathroom door and there she was in her blue bathrobe: the almond-bronzed brunette beauty that I had met in the supermarket, that I had married and that I now spent each and every day with. She had her head tilted up, just inches away from the mirror, lightly rubbing a small amount of one of the millions of designer lotions she owned beneath her cheekbone. She waited a few moments for her fingers to completely dissolve the lotion into her skin before offering a response:
“Oh, I have not.”
I approached her and tenderly put my arm over her shoulder, replying sincerely:
“Why, yes you have. I recall you saying, a little before nine o’clock, when you were in the TV room, the exact words: ‘Would you turn off my bathwater, dear? My show’s not over yet.’ Exact words. I do not lie. And look at the time—ten forty-five! You were in the bathtub for an eternity…”
I twisted my arm to reveal to her the face of my silver-plated watch, which read as I had told: ten forty-five. She glanced at it, didn’t flinch a bit, and fluidly reached to the side of the sink and grabbed her own watch. She notified me of her findings:
“Yeah, sure. Nine forty-five, dear.”
I feigned perplexity, comparing my watch to hers in wonder.
“Must not have ever switched it at Daylight Saving Time!” I lied.
“Yep,” she answered, unamused at my attempt at deception.
I cradled my arms around her stomach, hugging her from behind and resting my chin on her shoulder. She squeezed another bit of lotion into her palm and proceeded to do her other cheekbone.
“I had you fooled, though, I saw you,” I jested. “You know, I gave up my acting career for you, right honey? I’ve told you that before, right?” She knew I was fibbing, as I told her often that my sole acting experience was in the fifth grade’s A Christmas Carol, but I kept at it: “You should have seen the looks on their faces; they all said I was the best they’d ever seen!”
“Mhmm,” she piped, still uninterested.
I observed her in the mirror from where I stood, my chin still on her shoulder. She really was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. She looked to me the very same as the day we met: her naturally long eyelashes to match her lush wide-circled eyes, her sloped nose, her petite chin. I really was the luckiest man on earth.
“No, but seriously, I wonder, I am concerned.” I released her and addressed her from behind with a fabricated air of authority. “What’s going on here?”
She broke her concentration in massaging her cheekbone to look at me in the mirror, checking to see if I was serious. I continued my act, unwaveringly:
“You couldn’t have been drooling over this beautiful face of yours this whole time… or could you have?”
Her eyebrows morphed from confusion into the smooth, relaxed position of her smile. “Of course,” she teased.
I furled my brows, pretending to figure out the situation I was making up. “No, you’re not that conceited”—her eyes jokingly scolded me at this—“and you couldn’t have been playing with these deluxe bathroom commodities the whole time.” I picked up her gigantic, brown lotion bottle and put it back down again. Then I discovered the solution: “Aha. You must have been reflecting, thinking.”
She straightened up, finished with her lotion-rubbing process, and examined her face in the mirror. I grasped her shoulders and rotated her to look at me, which she finally did after resisting for a few seconds. I examined her scrupulously.
“Nope, there’s nothing bothering you,” I said. “You must be dreaming about something.”
Her giant, brown eyes loosened and she choked a laugh at my absurdity. I nodded with a smirk on my face.
“Yep, that’s it. Dreaming about the boyfriend you got on the side…”
She broke free from my hold with a smile on her face, shaking her head at my deliberate ridiculousness. She then turned on the sink and let a puddle of water flow into her cupped palms, and she bent over and drowned her face in it. I continued:
“Dreaming about all the secret lunches you have with him, the after-work walks around the park, the forbidden love…yes, I’ve got you figured out, alright.”
She turned and grabbed her red washcloth hanging up next to the side of the sink—“Oh, cut it out,” she said while doing this—and then dried off her face. She carefully hung it back up, then yawned and suggested, “I think I’m going to go to bed.”
I abandoned the performance I had put on and readily agreed with her.
“Good idea. I’m wiped out already.”
I grabbed my toothbrush from the holder and got the toothpaste out of the drawer.
“I used to be able to function perfectly well with only five hours of sleep, remember? Nowadays it’s the exact opposite.”
She heaved the brown container—more of a chest it was, though—that lay to the right of the sink nearer to her and unlatched and opened it. I continued:
“And, good God, now I need naps as a supplement! I’m getting too old, I tell you…”
I rotated the toothpaste cap until it fell onto the counter and then slowly pushed out some of its contents onto my toothbrush. I watched as she took one last look at her face and then firmly took hold of her nose with both of her hands. She twisted it a bit, then finally gave a great tug and the nose came off with a small, discreet sploosh-ing noise. She turned it around and looked at it straight on, wiping out a minor flaw with her thumb before placing it into the brown container in the slot for the nose. I turned on the fountain and dipped my toothbrush into the stream of water.
“I bought a lottery ticket today at the gas station,” I said.
She moved on to her right ear and, struggling a bit, she cranked and twisted until it popped off with tiny clicking sound. She gently placed it in the right ear slot in the brown container, and then repeated the process with her left ear.
“The first one in years,” I continued. “And a hundred twenty-five million dollar jackpot!” I lightly jabbed her with my elbow at this. “Could be our lucky break, honey.”
She continued her custom, and by now she was onto her majestic locks of brown hair. I tongued my toothbrush around in my mouth as she carefully ripped out her hair, starting from just below the forehead and in one clean swoop all the way down to the back of her neck. When she had them all off, she grasped hold of the fringes and shook them all about. She stopped this and then ran her fingers thoughtfully through all of them, her eyes full of admiration. I spit in the sink as she placed the hairs into the plastic compartment of the container.
“I saw Steven at the gas station, too,” I said. “He says that we are due to having dinner with him and Lisa soon.”
“Yeah,” she responded as she plucked the excess gunk off her head, “it’s been a while.”
“They said they couldn’t do it this weekend, though, since little Jeffrey has his end of the year basketball tournament. But maybe next weekend.”
“That’d be nice,” she said in a hushed tone.
She paused, briefly staring off into the corner at the collection of seashells we had accumulated through our vacations over the years, but then she shook off her thoughts and looked at me.
“Well…” she uttered as she stared at me. She smiled her signature smile—the closed, asymmetrical, perfectly crooked smile of hers where the right side of her mouth jutted up at a beautiful, vertical angle. She gazed into my eyes, then leaned over and glibly kissed me. I dipped my toothbrush into the running water, and, even though there was no toothpaste on it anymore, I cleaned my teeth once again. As I threw my toothbrush into the holder as I would a dart at a dartboard, she ripped off her mouth in one dramatic pull, and I cringed at the noise. I always hated mouths coming off; that corrosive, harsh noise they made brought to mind rats gnawing on shattered glass.
“Oh, I forgot the mouthwash kitchen,” I thought aloud, and I briskly moved into the dining room to retrieve it. When I popped into the bathroom again, she had taken her eyes, her skin, and everything else off. She was rubbing her head with the red washcloth, and, fondling for the hanger, she tucked it away and closed up the brown container with all her facial features in it and turned to exit the bathroom. She inched by me and I stepped out of her way.
“Night, honey,” I said.
Her black, gaping head turned to the muffled voice that it must have heard, and I smiled at the abyss that was there. Without her distinct face, she looked no different than anyone else who had their nose, mouth, hair and everything else in their containers, but I just smiled and turned back to the mirror. She would have her face on tomorrow again, before I even get out of bed, just like every morning. She then turned and groped out of the bathroom, and disappeared.
I stretched my arms up into the air, gave a great big yawn and then reached for my tan container—chest, more like it—that was next to hers. I whipped it open, looked one last time into the mirror, and then quickly yanked my nose off.
Comments, criticism, anything, it's appreciated!
Guise
“Good Lord, honey, what in the world are you doing? You’ve been in there for hours!”
I slowly pushed open the bathroom door and there she was in her blue bathrobe: the almond-bronzed brunette beauty that I had met in the supermarket, that I had married and that I now spent each and every day with. She had her head tilted up, just inches away from the mirror, lightly rubbing a small amount of one of the millions of designer lotions she owned beneath her cheekbone. She waited a few moments for her fingers to completely dissolve the lotion into her skin before offering a response:
“Oh, I have not.”
I approached her and tenderly put my arm over her shoulder, replying sincerely:
“Why, yes you have. I recall you saying, a little before nine o’clock, when you were in the TV room, the exact words: ‘Would you turn off my bathwater, dear? My show’s not over yet.’ Exact words. I do not lie. And look at the time—ten forty-five! You were in the bathtub for an eternity…”
I twisted my arm to reveal to her the face of my silver-plated watch, which read as I had told: ten forty-five. She glanced at it, didn’t flinch a bit, and fluidly reached to the side of the sink and grabbed her own watch. She notified me of her findings:
“Yeah, sure. Nine forty-five, dear.”
I feigned perplexity, comparing my watch to hers in wonder.
“Must not have ever switched it at Daylight Saving Time!” I lied.
“Yep,” she answered, unamused at my attempt at deception.
I cradled my arms around her stomach, hugging her from behind and resting my chin on her shoulder. She squeezed another bit of lotion into her palm and proceeded to do her other cheekbone.
“I had you fooled, though, I saw you,” I jested. “You know, I gave up my acting career for you, right honey? I’ve told you that before, right?” She knew I was fibbing, as I told her often that my sole acting experience was in the fifth grade’s A Christmas Carol, but I kept at it: “You should have seen the looks on their faces; they all said I was the best they’d ever seen!”
“Mhmm,” she piped, still uninterested.
I observed her in the mirror from where I stood, my chin still on her shoulder. She really was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. She looked to me the very same as the day we met: her naturally long eyelashes to match her lush wide-circled eyes, her sloped nose, her petite chin. I really was the luckiest man on earth.
“No, but seriously, I wonder, I am concerned.” I released her and addressed her from behind with a fabricated air of authority. “What’s going on here?”
She broke her concentration in massaging her cheekbone to look at me in the mirror, checking to see if I was serious. I continued my act, unwaveringly:
“You couldn’t have been drooling over this beautiful face of yours this whole time… or could you have?”
Her eyebrows morphed from confusion into the smooth, relaxed position of her smile. “Of course,” she teased.
I furled my brows, pretending to figure out the situation I was making up. “No, you’re not that conceited”—her eyes jokingly scolded me at this—“and you couldn’t have been playing with these deluxe bathroom commodities the whole time.” I picked up her gigantic, brown lotion bottle and put it back down again. Then I discovered the solution: “Aha. You must have been reflecting, thinking.”
She straightened up, finished with her lotion-rubbing process, and examined her face in the mirror. I grasped her shoulders and rotated her to look at me, which she finally did after resisting for a few seconds. I examined her scrupulously.
“Nope, there’s nothing bothering you,” I said. “You must be dreaming about something.”
Her giant, brown eyes loosened and she choked a laugh at my absurdity. I nodded with a smirk on my face.
“Yep, that’s it. Dreaming about the boyfriend you got on the side…”
She broke free from my hold with a smile on her face, shaking her head at my deliberate ridiculousness. She then turned on the sink and let a puddle of water flow into her cupped palms, and she bent over and drowned her face in it. I continued:
“Dreaming about all the secret lunches you have with him, the after-work walks around the park, the forbidden love…yes, I’ve got you figured out, alright.”
She turned and grabbed her red washcloth hanging up next to the side of the sink—“Oh, cut it out,” she said while doing this—and then dried off her face. She carefully hung it back up, then yawned and suggested, “I think I’m going to go to bed.”
I abandoned the performance I had put on and readily agreed with her.
“Good idea. I’m wiped out already.”
I grabbed my toothbrush from the holder and got the toothpaste out of the drawer.
“I used to be able to function perfectly well with only five hours of sleep, remember? Nowadays it’s the exact opposite.”
She heaved the brown container—more of a chest it was, though—that lay to the right of the sink nearer to her and unlatched and opened it. I continued:
“And, good God, now I need naps as a supplement! I’m getting too old, I tell you…”
I rotated the toothpaste cap until it fell onto the counter and then slowly pushed out some of its contents onto my toothbrush. I watched as she took one last look at her face and then firmly took hold of her nose with both of her hands. She twisted it a bit, then finally gave a great tug and the nose came off with a small, discreet sploosh-ing noise. She turned it around and looked at it straight on, wiping out a minor flaw with her thumb before placing it into the brown container in the slot for the nose. I turned on the fountain and dipped my toothbrush into the stream of water.
“I bought a lottery ticket today at the gas station,” I said.
She moved on to her right ear and, struggling a bit, she cranked and twisted until it popped off with tiny clicking sound. She gently placed it in the right ear slot in the brown container, and then repeated the process with her left ear.
“The first one in years,” I continued. “And a hundred twenty-five million dollar jackpot!” I lightly jabbed her with my elbow at this. “Could be our lucky break, honey.”
She continued her custom, and by now she was onto her majestic locks of brown hair. I tongued my toothbrush around in my mouth as she carefully ripped out her hair, starting from just below the forehead and in one clean swoop all the way down to the back of her neck. When she had them all off, she grasped hold of the fringes and shook them all about. She stopped this and then ran her fingers thoughtfully through all of them, her eyes full of admiration. I spit in the sink as she placed the hairs into the plastic compartment of the container.
“I saw Steven at the gas station, too,” I said. “He says that we are due to having dinner with him and Lisa soon.”
“Yeah,” she responded as she plucked the excess gunk off her head, “it’s been a while.”
“They said they couldn’t do it this weekend, though, since little Jeffrey has his end of the year basketball tournament. But maybe next weekend.”
“That’d be nice,” she said in a hushed tone.
She paused, briefly staring off into the corner at the collection of seashells we had accumulated through our vacations over the years, but then she shook off her thoughts and looked at me.
“Well…” she uttered as she stared at me. She smiled her signature smile—the closed, asymmetrical, perfectly crooked smile of hers where the right side of her mouth jutted up at a beautiful, vertical angle. She gazed into my eyes, then leaned over and glibly kissed me. I dipped my toothbrush into the running water, and, even though there was no toothpaste on it anymore, I cleaned my teeth once again. As I threw my toothbrush into the holder as I would a dart at a dartboard, she ripped off her mouth in one dramatic pull, and I cringed at the noise. I always hated mouths coming off; that corrosive, harsh noise they made brought to mind rats gnawing on shattered glass.
“Oh, I forgot the mouthwash kitchen,” I thought aloud, and I briskly moved into the dining room to retrieve it. When I popped into the bathroom again, she had taken her eyes, her skin, and everything else off. She was rubbing her head with the red washcloth, and, fondling for the hanger, she tucked it away and closed up the brown container with all her facial features in it and turned to exit the bathroom. She inched by me and I stepped out of her way.
“Night, honey,” I said.
Her black, gaping head turned to the muffled voice that it must have heard, and I smiled at the abyss that was there. Without her distinct face, she looked no different than anyone else who had their nose, mouth, hair and everything else in their containers, but I just smiled and turned back to the mirror. She would have her face on tomorrow again, before I even get out of bed, just like every morning. She then turned and groped out of the bathroom, and disappeared.
I stretched my arms up into the air, gave a great big yawn and then reached for my tan container—chest, more like it—that was next to hers. I whipped it open, looked one last time into the mirror, and then quickly yanked my nose off.