Entity

I hit send and he gets me. I’m sending him parts of me. No, not me, just my body. But disembodied.

Like:

Here’s my ass in those pants he likes. The ones with the fruit machine fruit on them. He said, well, he wrote, bet u taste sweeter. I laughed out loud because he wasn’t there to hear. No purring necessary.

Here’s my cunt, just for him. A weird angle but he’s not fussy. He wants my fingers in it though. He writes, good but next time i want more. Pussy’s an examination to pass or fail at.

I check his profile again, all the writers on his list are dudes (he loves Murakami, he loves Bukowski) and his favourite movie of the last five years is The Wrestler. Mine’s Teeth and I don’t read.

*

We message enough to switch to our real email addresses. He takes this to mean trust which he takes to mean permission so he tells me what he wants in a new tone and he uses capital letters to denote Respect.

He is exacting, which I like. Precision is key. He starts wanting specific pictures so I stay home on Friday nights while the others are out and stage them for him. My head’s light like I’m spinning under clouds, face sky up.

I give him me in pound-shop pink-and-black striped over the knee socks, just enough thigh.

I give him me ass up in half pulled down white panties (I have to call them that for him) – image cut off at the waist or face hidden in a pillow.

He ‘rewards’ me with passages from Bataille’s The Blue of Noon which I mostly despise.

I send him passages from Chris Kraus which he doesn’t get.

He hasn’t seen my face yet.

He can’t stand to see me all at once, all walking and talking.

*

We agree to Skype. I get ready like I’m going out. Eyeliner and everything. No one’s home and won’t be for a while. A strange man with a strange voice. He tells me not to talk. Anyway I’m only stuttering glitches, a blurred clit.

I cover my tits with my hands. He tells me to part my fingers so the nipples peek through. Just like that he says, just like that. Like that slutty Bronzino in the National Gallery I think. Female nude or whatever. Something about nymphs.

I smile, say nothing. He hasn’t heard my voice yet.

Later he mails to say you’re kinda pretty 🙂

*

He gets into telling me what to wear or not wear for our Skype sessions and how he wants the camera angled, so yr lookin up baby. He forgets the capitals now that we’ve sort of met. The wooing’s over.

I stay home on Friday nights while the others are out and practice looking up, looking down and looking round. I know how to look.

He sends me instructions which I carry out. He doesn’t even know my name. But I know his.

So I put on black lipstick and take off my t-shirt and pout. It’s OK. He tells me to open my mouth so I do. Another black hole.

He hasn’t heard me speak yet.

*

It’s a relief. To feel like an object but know I’m much more. Or maybe nothing more. That’s a relief too. This object is subject, subjected to and subject too. The semantics are endless.

*

Finally finding an island the sailors stop. They build fires, breathe sighs of relief. Land at last. The heat disturbs, the land rumbles and reveals itself as animal, as monster flesh. The sailors are dislodged, dismembered, drowned. The whole thing all at once.