Good find Sandman.
I was kind of blown away when I did the search. It’s funny how we forget such stuff. That is my real motivation for writing stories. I just want to dwell on the moments.
I read this story on a wedsite called redbubble the other day. It also has great photography. It’s a bit like mining for gemstones as a site concept, but there are definitely some great finds to be had there.
This is by a girl called: delirious girl. If you go there make sure you read, “Do with Me What You Will”:
Soul Shopping
Writing requires being alone for many hours and I could always tell when I was getting lonely. I would make dates on the spur of the moment and then regret them when the time came. I called old boyfriends and read personal ads. Through my kitchen window, I watched men walk their dogs in my neighborhood.
Normally, I preferred being single. It’s much better to be missing someone than wishing they were gone. But sometimes it was as if my soul involuntarily searched for its counterpart. The grocery store was its favorite place amidst the shelves of life-giving provisions. It was my soul’s suburban jungle hunting ground. Every isle held potential. Every likely match aroused the question: Could this be him?
If my soul was in search mode, I was drawn to the supermarket up the street. I would make a special trip for a roll of paper towels or a frozen burrito. Perhaps there was something about our common need for food which exaggerated our basic human connection? Men shopped for food. I shopped for men. I would dream, instantly, about being with every acceptable man I saw. I was amazed by the diversity and scope of my hungry imagination. And the longer I focused on one particular man, the more detailed the fantasy would become. They weren’t necessarily sexual. These were practical fantasies of compatibility, co-existence, and acceptance. These illusions worked.
I was old enough to know that sexual fantasies could come true. It’s the other stuff that becomes more alluring. The ability to sit together in quiet, contented contemplation on a Sunday morning was more attractive than a perfectly toned six-pack, strong, muscular arms, and run-away passion. But despite the imaginary quality of this strange exercise, there was a price to pay. I felt as if I lost a tiny piece of myself to every vision. I usually left feeling depleted and a bit depressed.
I might, for instance be standing in the check out line behind a handsome, youngish man with a longish, black ponytail shimmering in the fluorescent lights. His tight white t-shirt secures two firm, tanned arms, ready to hold me close, even in a public place. His spotless skin has a pearly radiance and seems to glow with health. His lips are full and the perfect shape for speaking my name. His exquisite smile reveals twin rows of strong, white teeth which gently curve outward in the centers like they are plump with calcium.
He has an accent I can’t quite place and his hand-basket is filled with odd, exotic foods. Every feature leads to another and my mind is watering as it vacillates quickly between the over-all picture and the particulars. I see the forest and the trees. He has a close up kind of beauty. Many men are beautiful from a distance but as details are added, their attraction diminishes. Others, however, get better with detail. I can’t get too close to him. I’m like an orbiting moon, being drawn to his mysterious, captivating core.
In his basket, I notice green onions, sugar snaps, wine, coffee beans, peas, meat, and a myriad of spices. Nothing is ready-made or frozen. He wants to do it himself. Then, in less time than it takes to steal a grape, or read a label, which I never do, my mind provides a context for us as if I was opening a large, cloth-bound coffee table book on the jungles of Africa. It is triggered by his intriguing voice.
We are together. He is shopping for me. He’s going to cook his favorite Italian meal for us. I imagine him purposfully working in our small but interesting kitchen with the stainless steel trash can, teak wine rack, and ornate expresso machine. His hair provides graceful trails of liquid onyx. The range is churning and simmering as delicious aromas fill the house. His accent is like a frame around his words, giving each one a special quality. I hang each one on the walls of my heart. His difficulty with the language keeps him from talking too much. He chooses his words carefully.
I tell him my intentions: I think I’ll clean out my car today.
” Why?”
It’s a mess.
“I like it like that. “
You do?
” Yes, I love to look at all the empty cups and wrappers and imagine what you were doing. “
Maybe I should just wash it, then.
” Don’t be silly. Why don’t you lie on the couch and read or watch Jeopardy and shout out all the right questions?”
Well, I suppose I could.
I go to the bedroom where he’s custom-built bookshelves to hold all my favorite books, so I could be surrounded by them while I sleep. He instinctively knows that this comforts and soothes me.
When we wake up together, he has my heart. I am not tempted to go anywhere else. I smile a genuine smile of contentment and kiss him thankfully. He feels the same and we both sense the intercourse of mutual desire through the slightest touch. He wants me for the rest of his life. He is energetic and amazing to watch as he moves around the bedroom, unaware of his overwhelming earthiness and sensuality. In fact, I am mesmerized by him so much that my coffee, which he made with great humility, has turned cold in my favorite cup. I don’t notice.
I get up and start writing a humorous essay on some new absurdity of everyday life or the general decline of the human condition that my brain has seized on and cannot let go of until I write about it. The scent of baking sweets provide just the right atmosphere. He knows exactly how long it takes for me to complete a cup of coffee and, just as I am finishing, I hear the sound of fresh grinding.
I share what I’ve written with him. He doesn’t understand English that well but he laughs heartily, making all sorts of delightful sounds. Hours later, while he’s in the bathroom, he breaks out again in uncontrollable laughter, repeating some of the sentences I’d written.
He comes out and puts his arms around me. I feel the weight of his soft, smooth hair on my hands.
When I’m writing, he treats the time as if it was sacred. I seem to meet all his needs just by being my self-involved self. My work gets better. Checks start coming in. I take a break for a few moments and look around my desk. He steps out of the laundry room where he is carefully, delightfully, folding my shirts. There is nothing he would rather be doing. He speaks up:
“I’m almost out of laundry to do. Why don’t you start changing clothes twice a day. That way I could do more.”
He comes out holding my perfectly folded vintage Pink Floyd tour shirt.
I sit back down and look around at the clutter.
I’m thinking about getting rid of some of this junk.
“What…junk? “
Some of this crap I never use like that entertainment center, those mirrors, that old bathroom vanity ,and my fire-extinguisher collection. The magazines. Some clothes that I haven’t worn this decade.
” No. You love your junk. It makes you happy. I want you to keep it,” he says peevishly.
OK, I’ll keep it.
“And I want you to get some more.”
He pulls me to him and kisses me deeply. The caressing continues and we move to the bedroom. I’m drunk on his beauty. We spill into the bed. The afternoon sun is casting shadows like oriental prints on the walls. I get up quickly.
“Where are you going?”
To brush my teeth.
“Please don’t, I love your breath, it reminds me of the smell wafting up from the sewers in Milan when I was a child.”
OK.
“Please breathe on me.”
He is lying on the bed, gloriously naked now, his hair flowing out around his face like tributaries of dark mystery. I lie down, close my eyes, and reach around him. We are transported. I pull him to myself. He echoes every movement. We are in a jungle or a garden of some sort. A clear river flows slowly before us. The air is cool and damp in the diffused light beneath the canopy of huge trees. We are naked and unashamed.
A sound rolls out of the deep forest and the crystal river begins to darken. It then loses all natural contour and takes on a flat, one dimensional quality as it continues to move.
I am staring at an empty, black, conveyor belt.
Ma’am. . . Oh, ma’am. . .you’re next. . .
