"woman god" acrylics on paper. b.g.
It was in no way the greedy, conniving want of the material that Marcella was afraid an outside observer into her soul would see, but rather a passionate desire to create and to cultivate a life beautiful and full of life's best things. Being rarely lacking in attention of men, she approached each new lover looking for what he and she could create together. What they could found and build up. On weekends and on breaks during the work day, she would idly leaf through real estate ads, cataloguing diligently the costs of certain ideal neighborhoods.
It was a genuine warmth and admiration that she felt for the men who took her out in the evenings, and if the pleasure she derived from the nights she spent with certain of those men was not erotic, it was still pleasure. She cultivated certain moments of intense intimacy: Meetings of eyes that insinuated tantalizing invitation, washed down with pungent wine during dinner. A touch straying in the tense and stiffly friendly conversation while walking into a restaurant, a touch so light as to be that of a phantom. A moment of agreement in conversation about a point simple, but made to feel important and crucially intimate, a bond to tie them together.
It wasn't as if there was no pleasure for her in the nights they converged in twisted sheets and blind thrusting. It was only that her pleasure was solely based on what she and the man were creating together, the life they might build up from all the ridiculous nocturnal fumbling. A house, a life. Children, maybe. Careers and success. Respect. Vacations and dinners. Beyond that, sex was nothing. A man naked and a man clothed were of only nominal difference in her eyes, and a man aroused could, if she were not careful, reduce her to laughter. It hadn't always been that way for her, and she had no idea what had changed in her life. She considered asking a friend, or her mother about whether or not her lack of sexual interest was standard. But she had never cared much about being normal and, not actually being concerned or unhappy, she concluded that she had no reason to worry.
Her housemate was named Tracy, a rail thin and pleasant woman who was studying to be a librarian at the local university. They hadn't been friends before moving in, having met only by benefit of responding to the same "FOR RENT" ad. Despite not having likely ever gotten to know one another in other circumstances, Marcella and Tracy became close enough. They shared meals every now and then, and they kept each other up to date on one another's life with quick conversations whenever they met in the hallway that connected their two rooms. Tracy was not plain, not ugly, not pretty. Her features were distinct and striking, her body without curves, like a fashion model or invalid. If she was not a blonde, Marcella imagined that Tracy would look like a man, with the dense coat of hair that covered her body and face. Marcella had walked in on Tracy drying off from a shower once, and she had noted that the other woman was as flat-chested as an adolescent boy.
Tracy had no friends aside from her boyfriend, a large, thick man named Varun. He spoke with a stutter and, despite his largeness, he walked and spoke and inhabited an aura of gentleness that was as often pathetic as it was pleasant. He often spent the night, and at least once a week he would bring his friends over to play video games on Tracy's plasma T.V.
Tall, well-groomed by habit and given by nature the physical shape that some doomed men base their lives and their art around, Marcella did not bear Tracy or Varun any ill thoughts when she considered herself better than them. She respected the town, enjoyed talking to them both and generally lived a life that had nothing at all to do with either.
One night in early spring, Marcella awoke with the sound of rain outside. She was drenched in sweat, the room having becoming sweltering with tropic heat in the few hours since she had laid down. The temperature had risen nearly ten degrees since the rain had started, the sudden unlocking of the clouds also releasing a heat that had been building in its winter dormancy. She went to the window and, ignoring the raindrops, took a deep, thirst breath of the fresh air. In the empty space of the backyard, which both her and Tracy's windows opened up on, Marcella heard the soft, guttural pant, the exhalation of air sudden, as if pushed from the body by force and given the sweetest, ripest touch of a moan.
Rhythmically, the panting and moaning filled the backyard. As she listened, smirking at first, Marcella could make out the creak of the bed frame, the squeal of bed springs, and the scratching of hands or feet, or knees against the sheets. Frowning, Marcella leaned further out her window to hear the sounds in the night, becoming aware of her solitude and secrecy. Being able to listen safely, undetected, she felt no shame straining to catch every little noise. A stirring when through her, so quiet as to be nearly undetectable to her self, at first. It was several minutes before Marcella realized that the panting and the bed sounds had caused the long reticent fire to descend from inside of her.
As she listened to the crescendo of moans at the advent and then collapse of her housemate's orgasm, Marcel had discovered herself with her fingers in order to secretly join Tracy. Then, in the cooling silence, Marcella went back to her bed and lay awake for a while. She saw herself walking across the hallway, knocking lightly on the door, stripped naked and desperate. Or maybe she would meet Varun in the bathroom, and show him what she wanted. Her fantasies became more and more abstract and, as she began to cool, she became embarrassed. After a while, she turned over and shut her eyes, hoping that, in the morning, she'd simply forget.
"blue box" acrylics on paper. b.g
