Through The Senses

         I can't place anything though I know it all. I know all the curves and sharp edges, I know all the dangers that hide from stranger's eyes and I know why they are dangerous. I feel the coarse fabric of the couch beneath my right shoulder and I feel my body twisted at a strange angle, one that shouts discomfort. I focus my gaze through the darkness at the large shadow directly in front of me. That would be the television, I know, for the most logical place for it is directly in front of the couch I lie upon. The remnants of the dream that woke me shiver at the edges of my mind, calling me to remember. I focus harder on the square darkness of the television, I focus with clarity at it until my mind brings its knobs and buttons into focus, though I know I cannot truly see them buried in shadow as they are. I shift my eyes ever so slightly and muse over the strange curves in the darkness, calling to mind a snake standing upright on its tail. What is it? I know its smoothness, I know its beauty lost in darkness, but my mind will not wrap itself around what it is. I blink slowly and struggle with the breathlessness that still holds me in its thrall. What is it? The sculpture from Emily! Yes, that is it. The sculpture of sinuous lines that never begin nor end but flow like water from an endless source. The coolness of the air brushes against my naked flesh and goose-bumps rise upon me. Where does the coldness come from? I hear, at last, the humming of the ceiling fan. Though the pain racks my body, I refuse to shift from my position until the dream has faded, my breath has returned and the enshrouded living room has become focused at last. Television, sculpture, ceiling fan, they join together in a room of vivid color, eclectic it's called, but now is dreary in black and white, the colors of night, the colorless void of dreams and the place where I find myself lying, dazed and bewildered, naked and cold, upon my rough second hand couch of puke brown staring at slippery water in sculpture form, desperate for color to return to me.

         I tremble as my eyes are drawn toward the hulking shape that occupies the corner of my vision. I feel the darkness emanating from it, as though the black of my world comes solely from that object and not from the sun slumbering the night away. I rise, stretching my cramped and screaming body slowly to avoid excruciating pain. It was as if I had fallen into place upon the couch, naked, from the dream. No, not the dream. I move slowly across the cool wood floor, my feet feeling every weave of the grain, every connection of the boards, every missing minute point of polish, as I draw nearer to the large china cabinet, my breath refusing to catch, my eyes refusing to focus. My mind does not bring up the details of the cabinet as it did the television, shying away from remembering it due to some great and hidden horror that I dare not ponder nor dwell upon. I reach the china cabinet and smell the rich oak wood it's made of. Even standing before it, warm body inches away, I cannot make out anything of it, even the blinding white dishes behind panes of glass are not visible. I reach out a trembling hand and run my soft fingertips over the hard wood, feeling the grain and the roughness of years of neglect. Could I have neglected it so or was it that way before it was mine? My body shakes convulsively and the wood is warm beneath my fingers. What secrets does this box hold? I lay the flat of my palm against its side and press my naked flesh against it, expecting coolness to plague my warmth. Instead, it is like hugging a rigid man to me, warm in his nakedness as I am, yet not comforting in the least.

         Like a flash, I recall the dream of long ago, not the haunting one I woke from. This dream was a passionate dream, a dream of him, the man that had slipped from my grasp with the cold rigidity this cabinet presented. His flesh was warm and I desired to press him against me as I did this hulk of wood, to explore his flesh with my hands and body as the cabinet would not allow me to do. I slide my hand along the side of the cabinet and pull away, leaving only the bare flesh of my palm to touch the harsh wood. I feel a splinter slip into my finger as I move my hand slowly along the wood. I flinch, much as I flinched from his rejection. It was only a dream, I remind myself, only a dream of a man that was never mine to begin with, a dream involving things I would never do in the waking world, a dream of a hot, steamy night in Barbados with nothing between us but air. Should he have shown such interest when I was with him awake I would have never allowed him to leave. The cabinet was his, I remember suddenly, left behind when he fled. The dream was the night the cabinet was placed in my living room, the night that I had come to it naked, as I was now, in the cool light of the early evening, and pressed my naked flesh against it. It was cold then, like ice. Now, as I press against it once more, my finger throbbing from the pain of the intruding splinter, I feel the heat, hotter than before. It burns my flesh at first, then warms it, much like that night long ago, that dream of forbidden passion, that flashes brightly in my mind.

         The heat courses through me and all is forgotten in a moment of overwhelming shivers. Then, the smoothness of the sculpture clashes harshly with the hardness of the wood in my mind. The cool and the hot. The sculpture was as pliant and supple as the wood was hard and coarse yet they tie together in a memory long forgotten, long hindered. Emily and him, together as he and I could never be together. I had stood in that doorway for far too long, watched longer than one should decently watch. I should have fled, but no, his body was too perfect, sculpted in its rigidness, muscles rippling beneath dark skin. And Emily, her coolness warmed upon his warmth, her body flowing like water over his, moving with smooth sensuality that left me breathless, left me gasping. How I wanted to be water over his nakedness! I turned my head, the warm, rough wood pressed against my right cheek, and stared through the darkness at the sculpture. I could be that for him, I could be pliable over his hardness, cool relief over his heat, I could be the sculpture to his cabinet and the passion could be realized within us at last. I shift against the warm oak and the pain in my finger returns as I caress the wood once more, daring the memories to bring vivid focus to life in the darkened living room.

         I push away from the cabinet in a violent motion and move swiftly to the sculpture, running my hands up the smooth flow of water bursting up from some hidden well, some geyser deep in the folds of the earth. She would mock me with her gifts! She would make me remember my unashamed watching of their lovemaking, my unabashed desire to be her at that moment! I take hold of the sculpture and it slips through my fingers to the floor, crashing loudly to the ground but not breaking. How many times had I tried to break the horrid reminder of all that I wasn't? How many times had I failed? The coolness of the sculpture lingers on my hands, like water after being cupped and I flush in embarrassment. With gentleness, I lift the sculpture back into its proper place, slicing my finger on the sharp edge of the base. I recall the sharpness of her words, the coldness of her thoughts, and I know that the flowing water can only cover the sharp cruelty for so long before all is revealed, even in murky water. That, I remember at last, is why I keep the sculpture.

         I turn back to the china cabinet and can see, at last, the curves of it high above my reach, softening the bleak squares of the box. The white dishes inside its confines glow with an unearthly light, as though they are their own source of radiance. I cross my arms and tilt my head, moving closer to the cabinet, my finger throbbing violently where the splinter remains imbedded. How like him the cabinet is! So hard and dark, so covered with coarseness and yet inside lay treasures of great worth, shining brightly from their prison, bringing a sparkle to his eyes and a smile to his lips. The soft curves above the square planes of wood remind me of those tender moments when he'd forget that he didn't desire me as he desired Emily and I would be invited within to know him, to meet with him and to hear his laugh and deepest dreams and desires. He was my friend and he would never know that I had longed for his touch. Could he be blamed for being who he was, a man forced to keep his light inside while the rest of the world shined forth about him? Could he be blamed for seeing release in Emily who, like water, could not be caged and flowed as freely as she wished? No. The coldness of the cabinet before was imagined. It was the warmth of it now as I placed my hand upon it once more that was the true cabinet. It was the glowing light within, the harsh rigidness that met with sensuous curves that were its true source of beauty. How they met, clashed and blended was what made it worth anything to me.

         I turn away and pad across the living room and into the bedroom, where moonlight falls softly across his naked back. The blood red sheet is spread across his lower body, his hand reaching across the bed to where I once lay. I stare at his curly black hair that dances across his forehead and curls around his ear slightly onto his cheek. I smile and shiver and he stirs, turning in the moonlight, his hand clutching at the empty space beside him. He sits up and turns, his brown eyes lit by moonlight as he finds me watching. His smile is seductive in its relief and I move around the bed and slip beneath the sheet he holds up in welcome for me. He nuzzles my neck as we spoon, my back to his front, and I forget about water and wood, Emily and all that transpired moments before as his warmth floods my coolness and his arms enfold me. My finger throbs. "I got a splinter," I whisper and he lifts my hand to his lips and kisses the exact finger as though he knew all along that the splinter had come from him and in which finger it lay. I shut my eyes and drift off to sleep once more.