Saturday 2 January 2016

THE SCRATCH



Winter whispered past my bedroom curtains, our bedroom curtains. Even they were sheer. You could see intertwined limbs forming ancient runic patterns against the sway of the violet lace.
I have a strange habit of glancing at the curtains now and again. He finds it distracting. He says it ruins the steadiness of the love making that he wished to acquire as if making love too had something to do with his briefcase code. Something so secretly organised that even i was denied access.
There is a strangeness in not just my staring at the curtains, but also how they responded back by swaying an extra bit as if giggling at me. Sometimes i would close my eyes but the violet would haunt even the deepest corners of my mind compelling me to look at them after all. 
Who was I making love to or being made love to?
The man in his thirties with a chiselled worked out physique and a grim orgasm face that made it very difficult for the little child in me not to giggle or atleast let out a smirk?
Or those invisible violet hands that would touch my sore spots till they ached for more soreness, never relief?
The curtains had become some sort of imaginary man that i was in love with, who knew all my weaknesses and how much i liked to be in control and let me ride till I came profusely not in sexual pleasure but the joy of feeling liberated.

Being transported from reality to the real reality is a wonderful escape from what is obvious. The smell of lilacs and lavender mixed with a bottle of vanilla essence and kept in an ancient box carved with Pegasus on top…. Unreal?
I would often imagine scraping at the wooden box trying to get whiff of that imprisoned fragrance. My nails would scratch against the carved wooden Pegasus, crafted in with the finesse of a serial killer…never a clue, just a signature.
The scratches have lessened the intensity of its sharpness and the blunt edges of the box bear the signature of my curiosity much like I bear that of Adam on my body.
He says he loves me. His nails scratch my back as a I arch in pretence for his pleasure, all the while imagining the brush of the lilac on my breasts and those violet fingers tracing my jawline.
Adam and I have been married for 13 years. It’s the year of the last supper, a surreal reminder of dark desires that might just blossom into a bavarian gentian of destruction for the both of us.
He did not want kids. 
Guiltily neither did I.
I didn't want the evidence of noncommittal love making with my husband to flatter my womb in mockery.
I loved Adam. Why would I not?
He remembered my favourite pineapple ice cream and thought my derriere looked ravishing in the tiny red dress that I had put on for our anniversary this year. He was all man.
Charming, handsome, rich, familiar….. predictable……

People say we look great together. I wonder how great I would look with the violet sheer lace wrapped around me cupping my fullness in its invisible arms ??
Mad frenzy is it??? Or am I just not in love with Adam anymore??
My mind says neither of that is true.
But my oestrogen levels and my libido say otherwise.

I remember that time i had accidentally scratched Adam’s arm while watching some silly horror movie on the net. He had the night off and I had to cancel my dinner plans with Anna, my best friend. He doesn’t get time off work a lot, you see.
Adam had screamed at me. And spelled out atrocities that wore well only in the ghettos.
I had only looked back. Which obviously called for more abuses since I was being daft.
What Adam couldn't see was that it wasn’t his language that bothered me. It was the scratch.

My mind had wheeled itself back to the loud masculine moans of pleasure and the starry look in his eyes as my fingernails had dug into his flanks, his shoulders, his ample buttocks while he lifted me off our “beverly hills” bed and rocked me against the head board, not caring about the bruises that would turn blue the next day.

His words rang in my ears as he groaned,"more Shay…more…” and deafened the chaos he was creating over a small scratch that had bruised his wrist in anticipation of a gore movie climax. I couldn’t hear him any longer. Only wild rustling of the violet curtains and the blood rushing into my ears, threatening to pound my head into believing reality, rocked my senses.

I remember sitting it out that night. The make-up sex.
I suddenly realised what was missing.

It wasn’t a mid-life crisis, or a baby, or the fact that Adam’s life had become my world. It was that my world comprised of an imaginary fabric painting my body and soul with its gentleness and love, that was throbbing to be poured into me and making all the loneliness disappear.

It was a Friday when i packed my favourite things including the bedroom curtains and the box away in a suitcase that was a little older than my marriage.
I only left a note behind. 
In his study. 
Beside a shirt that had a torn front pocket and a button missing from the carefully tailored collar. 
A flaw in Adam’s perfect life.

“Dear Adam,
I wanted to say, “my love”, yet my love has been shared and so has my soul. I leave with what love means to me. And I free you of us for thats how it is meant to be.
All your things are in place, the china, the coffee mug and the morning papers. 
You will find everything where you need them to be except for me. 
I have found a place for my self. Where I am not shared or violated by scratches that aren't etched with my love.
I leave you out of love. 
And for a reason, I leave behind a torn front pocket, a broken button and the fresh scratches on your back that have pleasured your night. 
Don't let the new ones become sore like the old ones did.
After all, What else is left between you and I, except for these scratches for memories?
In time,

Shay”