Assignment 3 by anonymouse
This piece is something of an experiement for me. The picture provided the basic impetus for the story however, once I actually started to write, it took off on a tangent. The narration throughout is provided by a disembodied voice and the intention was to capture the illusive nature of a dream.
http://bp1.blogger.com/_xCKKRlF5qK4/...edWaitress.JPG
Soul Surrender
Sometimes you see him. Sometimes, he hides.
You think back to the last time you saw him. It's impossible for you to put into words without grasping at metaphors. It was like a barn dance, perhaps, where the music was loud and immediate. He was that partner across the room you often got to touch, but never to hold. In do-sa-dos you'd skip past each other, occasionally locking arms but never eyes. Fleeting moments that, by the end of the night, had you looking forlornly for him over the shoulder of somebody else as you danced the last slow dance of the night. It's one of those moments that haunt you with questions of 'What if this?' or 'What if that?' happened. And now he hides.
You're thinking of him now. As you close your eyes, you see everything so clearly, except that which you're longing to see. Again the haunting questions begin to stir you. Familiar faces dance around you, taunting you in the way they seem to block your path toward him; the man you really want to see. He's there, somewhere, far off in the distance. Is he approaching? Maybe he's drifting further away.
Just like Pollyanna, you need to escape from the house and return to that place that holds such special allure. Your mind transports you back there in an instant. The barn looms up in the darkness as you approach. The colored lights that earlier had festooned the building are now in darkness. The band is in the car park loading equipment into a truck, but nobody seems to notice you. Cautiously, you tread past them, stand in the open doorway of the barn and peer into the semi-darkness. A lone cleaner slowly waltzes a wide broom around the vast expanse of wooden floor. He's oblivious to your presence. Broad bladed fans circle listlessly above and stir the air, still thick with the sickly sweet smell of stale beer and tobacco smoke. You see a solitary figure. He sits alone at the bar, illuminated in silhouette by the fluorescent lights in the fridges behind him. Your eyes squint with the effort to focus in his direction. A glimpse of his face materializes in your vision. Is he looking at you? You immediately look away to clear your head of the image. You could have imagined it but no, when you look back, he's still looking at you. He beckons you with a wave of his hand in the darkness.
The lure is compelling. Leather soles of your shoes seem to skate effortlessly and silent across the slippery polished wooden floor. You move to him as he often has moved toward you in your dreams. Slowly. Floating on a paper-thin invisible conveyor belt. With each tentative step you take you feel a band of anxiety tighten around your chest. It constricts your heartbeat and breath. You move to within a few feet of him and stop. A leaden pulse throbs in all the arteries radiating out from your heart. It creeps through you, moving up to resound inside your temples and ears. You look back over your shoulder to see if anybody is watching. Nobody. The cavernous barn is now completely deserted except for you and the faceless stranger. He speaks, loud enough for you to hear, but not so loud as to shatter the silence that engulfs your senses.
"I know about you," he says.
A thunderclap resonates in your thoughts. "How could he?" the voice of your conscience asks. Your eyes widen; an expression of disbelief stretches across your face. Confusion. Mouth agape. Instincts to run claw your stomach, but you're paralyzed. His one simple statement holds you in thrall. You attempt to give volume to the questions that continue to ricochet in the fog of your thoughts. He raises a finger to his lips in a motion to silence you.
"Come closer," he says.
A sense of being pulled by magnets causes your feet to move. One step. Another. Inching forward until he quietly tells you to stop. You're unsure of what to do with your hands. They're trembling and the only way to stop them is clasp them together behind your back. You watch silently as he rises from the bar stool and glides slowly around until he's standing directly behind you. His presence looms behind your back.
"I know about you," he says again.
He's just a breath away. Each quietly spoken word he utters puffs small clouds of humid air onto the your of your neck.
"I know about you, and I know about your dreams."
He intones each word softly. The clarity of his articulations adds emphasis. It makes his meaning jangle like a taut string plucked inside your head.
You glance in the direction of the fridges behind the bar. The glass panels of the doors begin to bead with frosty condensation; the polished silver surrounds reflect your image and that of the man behind you. But nothing is clear. The image blurs and distorts and refuses to take on any recognizable form.
"You want him, don't you?"
It wasn't a question he asked. Or if it was, he plainly already knew your answer. It feels like he is all around you, like a cloud of energy able to enter your deepest consciousness at will and read your thoughts. He sees in there the images you conjured earlier in the night. Images of you and of the visitor who manifests in your dreams. He sees images of the man who ravishes you in your darkest fantasies. This man behind you sees them all as clearly as if they were photos in an album; a testament to your innermost secrets and desires.
"I know you want him. You desire him so badly it makes you willing to do anything. Doesn't it?"
"Yes." The word sticks in your throat before becoming audible.
"I can make your dreams come true," he says. "I can make your dreams come true, but first --"
His hands gently rest on your shoulders.
"First, you will surrender to me."
Your whole body seems to vibrate and radiate an inner heat that threatens to consume you. He presses his thumbs gently into your shoulder muscles and begins to massage the tension that grips them.
"You will surrender yourself completely to me. Completely."
A small gasp escapes your lips. Its liberation isn't just caused by the relaxing manipulations of his thumbs and fingers kneading your tense shoulder muscles. It is a breathless consent and willingness that defies every voice of caution in your head.
"Yes. It's what you want. You can't hide your desires from me," he says. "You will get your wish to submit to your visitor, but first you will surrender yourself entirely to me."
The tone of his voice is hypnotic. Compelling.
"Undress. Undress for me right now. Right here."
Once you unclasp your hands from behind your back you become aware of the sweatiness of your palms. Your hands, still shaking, reach slowly for the hem of your cotton sweater. Slowly it's raised until it's inside out and off your arms.
"Throw it away. You won't need it anymore," he says.
You pull your hands free from the sleeves and make a small ball of the garment. It makes no sound when you discard it to the floor.
"Good." He whispers against the nape of your neck. "Now, your jeans."
The brass button of your Levis proves troublesome but eventually pops open. You unzip, hook your thumbs into the denim and then wrestle the tight fitting material off your hips. Gravity doesn't assist and you have to physically push them all the way down to your ankles. The struggle to completely remove them leaves in its wake a jumbled mess of jeans and shoes.
"Good. Very good," he says. "Just your bra and panties to go."
Your hands are already reaching for the clasp.
"No," he whispers.
His hands stop yours and gently take hold of your wrists. You feel an urge to resist and return them to your bra strap, but he holds firm and presses down until the floating sensations in your arms subside. His touch lingers a moment before he again whispers in your ear.
"I want you to look over there."
You feel the warmth of his hands disappear from your wrists. There's a sense of them moving and they reappear either side of your head. His hands rest softly against the cheeks of your face and tenderly press until your head turns.
At the far end of the bar, a shadow moves into sight. It's too far away to see clearly, but its shape is familiar. It is the shape of a man; a large man with broad, square shoulders. You see a slight shimmer of something like light. It reflects off his face to briefly illuminate his features, but not so much you can yet identify him.
"Do you see him watching?"
You don't need to answer. His voice is no longer outside your body but right inside your head, as if telepathically transmitted there.
"He wants you too, doesn't he?"
Your head responds with a small, involuntary nod between his hands.
The shadowy figure silently retreats back into the darkness and disappears.
The hands tenderly holding your head turn it until you face the distant other end of the bar.
"And them?" he asks. "Do you think they'd like to have you too?"
You stare intently in the direction of two more hazy figures in the darkness. One of the men is very tall and angular, the other much shorter and rounded in shape. Neither has a face you can identify although you sense a familiarity about both. It's not the familiarity of any specific individual but more like a hybrid of everybody who at one time or another have been in your dreams. Your head nods lightly between the man's hands to acknowledge their presence before he guides your line of sight back to the bar in front of you.
There's a momentary glimpse of movement behind the bar, just above the fridges. A mirror there reflects back your image and that of the man behind you. You strain to see things more clearly but a beer logo on the glass conceals much of the close range detail. However, in the top corners of mirrored glass that isn't etched, you see more people standing a short distance away further behind you. The accelerated rhythm of your heart pounding in your chest skips a beat.
"You will submit to everyone once you surrender yourself to me," he says. "You know that, don't you?"
He waits for you to nod before you feel his hands drift away from your head. Then, the firm hold of your bra suddenly goes slack. Its limpid straps slip easily off your shoulders before it all feathers silently down your arms to drop on the floor.
"Can you feel them? Their eyes on you?"
"Yes." Your reply is breathless.
Your body, now almost completely nude, shivers. A rash of goose bumps washes over you. He slips his hands between your arms and hips. His fingers hitch into the flimsy elastic of your lace panties in readiness to pull them down. You relish the sensations of the hairs on the backs of his hands brushing on the sensitive flesh of your inner forearms.
"They hunger for you. And they will have you. Each and every one of them will have you. They will have you whenever they want, and you will not be able to stop them. Once your surrender to me is complete."
(c)2007 by anonymouse -- All rights reserved.
