"blue figure" acrylics on paper. b.g.
Suddenly he wanted to taste everything, to put everything in his mouth, to lick and to touch. Harold Budd never ate so well, or enjoyed it so viscerally. He decided to have sex outside of his marriage, and began to look around with new eyes. In this season in his life, he found it was the fat and the happy women who drove him to a frenzy. While in the past he had lusted, in a cold and silent way for the young ladies who were interns and consultants and assistants in his office, now those ones were of no concern to him. They were imperfect, works in progress. When those younger women drifted into the landscape of his fantasies, he enlarged them, strained the seams of their blouses and pants with what he considered perfect sexual ripeness. Instead, he became focused on the women joggers who seemed to always be just outside his window.
Budd had moved his family, when his children had been only babies and he and his wife not much older, into a house at the base of a large mountain. The house was practically inside of the local state park, the housing development an island of pavement in the otherwise untouched natural land. The development had only been possible due to a rather shady deal between the developer and a state legislator. Because of the natural beauty and the rarity of such a neighborhood, it had not been cheap to purchase the home. Budd had only been able to afford the house by a fortunate twist of fate. His aging father had become so infirm as to need constant care, and Budd had used the opportunity to move him into a rest home and sell the old man's house.
The mountain was popular with joggers. Budd would watch them from the window most mornings. The women. Large, cheerful women in small groups marching up and down the mountain. Large butts and big legs. The newfound voraciousness overtook him. He thought he'd bite his own fingers off. He announced to his wife that he was going to take up jogging, and went out to buy sneakers. She hardly noticed. She had recently been promoted at the high-tech firm where she had gradually climbed the ladder of upper management, and she was working too much to worry about her husband. In any case, she had suspected him of having other women for almost fifteen years and, now that her suspicions were on the verge of being validated, she was tired of being suspicious and no longer cared.
Budd had no luck at all meeting women. None of the joggers he approached were anything but polite, and none of them were at all interested in having more than a few moments' worth of conversation. Several times, women hurried away in the middle of one of his sentences. They laughed politely when he told them how great they looked in the tight exercise pants, and they looked at him blankly when he suggested they stop jogging a minute and go to one of the many mountain vistas along the trail. Part of the problem was that the women travelled in groups. There were plenty of solo men joggers, but he had trouble finding women jogging alone. At first, he didn't think it would be much of a problem. He approached the groups and tried to see which of the women would be swayed by him. Quickly, his ambitions began to deflate. After a week of no luck, Budd realized he was developing a reputation. The women knew him now, and they were staying away. His frustration blossomed into resentment.
One morning, earlier than usual, he went out jogging. Once he had passed his first group of women, he hurried past them without a word. He found a steep ditch on the side of the road and tossed himself down its embankment. He pulled his hat low, so as to hide his features and lay there waiting. Soon he heard the voices of the women on the road and he lay still. They spotted him, and he heard them calling out, asking if he were alright. He lay still.
When he felt a hand on his shoulder, he sprang to life. When she saw the rubber mask she started to scream and swing at him. Several of her blows struck his face and shoulders, but he was able to shrug them off. A feverish power flowed through him. Only one other woman had followed the first one down, and she had stopped about halfway down the embankment, so was too far to quickly reach her friend. Budd had all the time he needed. Grasping the front of the woman's shirt, making sure as he did to grab a handful of her sports bra, Budd showed her his knife. She continued to struggle, but was scared enough to stop hitting him so much. Deftly, he used the knife to rip the shirt and bra apart. As the fabric fell apart, exposing the woman and distracting Budd, she punched him hard in the face and kicked him in the stomach. Groaning and dizzy with pain, but now completely engulfed by the fever, Budd grasped hold of her pants as she crawled away and pulled them down. Having come in close range to do this, he received a kick in the jaw for his effort and he finally fell backwards. As he fell backwards, his pleasure climaxed and immediately turned into fear. He had to get out of there. The naked woman was scrambling up the embankment and her friend was screaming at him. She had already called the police. Budd tore into the woods, away from the trail, stumbling over the bramble and rocks. As he had planned, he reached the parking lot through that route, and he made it to his car. When he reached home, he felt like a new man. Power and warmth radiated from him as he marched into the house and went up to take a shower. As the ice-cold water hit his flesh, Budd felt like singing. He closed his eyes and imagined going outside naked, so that all the world could see him.
That night he dreamed that he went back to the mountain. Like the day before, he arrived before daybreak and began jogging up the mountain. As he rounded the turn in the path where his ditch lay, a figure sat in his way, a massive green-skinned thing that was sitting with its back to Budd. Budd stopped and stared. The figure must have heard him, despite his best attempts to stay quiet, and it looked over its shoulder. It stood up, revealing massive, flaccid male genitalia. It looked at him. It reached out one long finger and it pointed at him. It smiled at him.
"male monster" acrylics on paper. b.g.
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