My back is sore. Neck sore. My muscles sore. My mind straddled between the gutter and big dreams and getting the fuck out. Thumb out, ass out, just raw for it. Fuck me, I'm better than you, better quote me a good price. Yeah I can play the car sales man. Sweet merchandise. And no fucking test drives.

Rhapsody is lying on the carpet, his belly down, plush carpet, feathery and shaded light aquamarine. Legs sashaying gently in the air, blowing bubble gum, chewing like a horse and just smacking it. His shirt is rolled off and his jeans turned up crisply at the cuff. Shoulder-blades edged back getting a feel of themselves. The running of the bathtub plashing with a steam of tranquil home-life. The mouth-licking fingers of bath gels.

He has locked the husband in the closet.

- Can we talk about this?

- Nope.

Flicker on TV remote. Endless promises descending on him in icy forty inch resolution. Products, precious products, so many. Rhapsody is letting himself be lazy, purring. It feels so good to be lazy. The steady humming of chilled therapeutic air-conditioning playing over his naked back. Lying slanted cheek down against the pillowy touch of a melted ice cream carpet. The carpet sculpturing a relief in his lean cheek.

- Can we talk about this.

- Shh. Opera's on.

Behind the closed white-pleated doors, the husband is handcuffed arms raised to the rail of the closet. Between many jackets, many anniversaries of acquisitions. Upright, twisted in a position hard to negotiate, in humorous underwear. A request - a mistake.

Bath time.

- Let me out.

- Beg for me.

- Son, let's be adult about this.

- Say I'm the sweetest piece of ass you never had.

Rhapsody taps on the closet door three times, then caterwauls - actually cackles to himself.

- Please let me out.

- No I'm busy.

He is feeling masterful. He is running great powerful operations across the globe. He has secretaries. To gossip with.

To the bathroom. Finishes undressing, in no hurry. Lifts his leg over the ledge, desultorily, letting his toes retract until the codling hot overtakes him and he just must slink into soapy Eden like a spoiled princess. He soaks the sore ache out of his joints, lets the dust and exertion and grime rise to the surface. He gives a kiss to the acrylic smooth of the tub wall, pretending it to be the cinnamon freckle woman he spotted the other day on a patio. Her belly.

Shouts out.

- Will you service me you fat bastard.

- Listen, I will give you more money. If that's it. I have a hundred in the wallet on the fridge.

- Got it already. And the money in the bedroom. And your anniversary ring.

Considering this.

- It's sweet that you take it off.

Rhapsody also has taken the husband's cell phone to play with. He is sitting up in the bathtub and pretending to make very important calls. Appointments, negotiations, acquisitions. Canceling lunches. Five of them.

Distraction and agitation. I just want the money. Old men leering at you their pink heads glistening like pre-cum, bobbing up and down. Men who would have you up to their penthouses and count the silverware when you go the bathroom.

Believe me you don't mean for it to get lodged in you. You take shots to the face, good, maybe the face needs toughening. Maybe because your eyes were so pretty you thought the world was pretty too. Then you get your boy parts beaten into you, good, welcome to the mould. See them, fat slobs in trousers cooing at buxom bikini babes on TV, saying in little hissy spits - yea baby, yea baby, yea baby. Baby what? Baby, please - I should hope. Beg her you piece of shit.

Revenge. I would turn them into fucking strippers, their fat asses bared while beautiful sexy strippers laughed at them. Just for kicks. I would get mine. Down on all fours, all flabby fours, shaking like meat.

He puts down the cell phone.

Do not drag them with you into the light. Just step into the light.

He waves his magic wand. He is rising like expensive sunlight throughout a private salon.

Submerged skin folds around his bones as he drops as slippery as hypodermic gism to the sweet spot at the back of the retina. Unreal time dying and washing away. Up thighs, waist, neck, the wide eyes calm and sinking.

Wide awake and dreaming.

This is the fog where the aches and bad deals and just bullshit begin to turn pastel. Yellow, pink, blue, iguana. Day pollution peeling off in a scent of lacquer castles. Bath gel in a naval. Fresh strawberries after a rain shower. He resurfaces, gasps, relishing the burn in his lungs.

The husband now figures it is appropriate, even necessary, for him to assert himself.

- You think you're such hot shit!

Yea, buddy. I'm fucking genius.

- How long do you think you can keep this up?

O, a while. Rhapsody has combed this place for money and is now just waiting for the wife to get home. He likes it here - the amenities are amazing. Because he already has the money and now maybe there will be a scene as well. O goodie a scene. He loves too the movement and the dance. O he could have been a ballerina. Perhaps he was one, in another life. Maybe he has the wife's number programmed in phone memory. We'll just try this one. . . .

 

©2002 Ryan Kamstra - Contributor's Bio