Mixed Media

NOTE: “Mixed Media” was first published in Lustily Ever After, an anthology of rewritten myths and fairy tales with an erotic edge. The anthology is still available at https://www.amazon.com/Lustily-Ever-After/dp/B01ILEB8CA/ but I’ve recovered the rights to republish it here and in the Pygmalion Revisited book, forthcoming. Thank you to Sophia Soror of A Two Dame Production for returning republishing rights to me! In this version of the Pygmalion myth, we are asked to consider what would happen if it was the artwork that fell in love with the artist rather than the other way around.

My first awareness was a splash of color—a violent assault on my infant senses. An awakening. It touched every fiber of my latent being with passion, anger, madness.

I was alive.

And then there was nothing.

No. There was, with my awareness of self, an awareness of other, as well. I dwelt upon that.

I would like to claim that in my embryonic state, all the mysteries of the universe were revealed. That I transcended the mundane. That I understood the mind of God. But truthfully, those were concepts that had not even dawned on my burgeoning awareness. My mind, my being, was filled with only one thought. There was other. I was not alone. All my desire and my being was focused on other.

When you have but one thought and it keeps playing over and over again, time crawls. How many times can you count to one in an hour? A day? An eternity? And yet I was never bored. I was refreshed with every thought of other. Deep within me, I yearned for other.

The next stroke was gentler. Or perhaps, since it did not startle me to consciousness, it only seemed gentle. Passion continued to underlie my awareness, but it was tempered with sadness. A sense of great loss overwhelmed me and I desperately clung to the desire for other, begging to not have it torn from me. My heart, if I had such a thing, was filled with inconsolable longing for other. Awareness of other overrode awareness of self. Other filled all my thoughts and all my desires.

If only, I sighed and felt my own thoughts echoed from beyond. Or perhaps I was echoing that longing. Could it possibly be that other yearned for me as much as I yearned for it?

I say ‘it, ‘ for truly I could not conceive of either male or female. Those thoughts evaded my mind at such distance that I would not find them for many ages. But the idea that two beings could be so drawn together by desire flooded me. If desire exists, surely satisfaction must also be possible. I floated on a new emotion as I found hope.

What I would do for other.

Of course, I had no means of doing. I was, for all intents and purposes, non-corporeal. Yet, I felt as I touched other with my mind, my awareness, that even this gave it some peace. I bathed in anger and madness when I awoke to my being, but as other tickled my consciousness into cognizance, I leapt from passion to sadness to despair to hope.

I felt the soft brush of flesh on my body. The very thought of having a physical existence with which to express my emotions filled me with joy. I wanted to test my limbs as I felt them take shape. I wanted to leap, to grasp, to run, to hold. What could I do with this body that suddenly encompassed my emotions.

Other skillfully, but with tenderness, bathed my body in light so pure that I wept for the sheer magnitude of my being.

I could feel! Not just the emotions I found inexplicably in my mind, but the gentle caress on my skin. I could feel the loving care with which my boundaries were explored. This is me. This is other. With touch came my first genuine contact with identity. My breath caught in unseen lungs as I was massaged and manipulated. Muscles took shape beneath my skin. Structure. A skeleton that gave rigidity to my stance. And with structure I found boldness. No matter how locked to my environment, I stood firm. I was one with my world and I embraced it as it touched me.

I absorbed all I could feel. I had known no other senses and now there was a mysterious world unfolding around me. I felt the hard stone where I was seated, its edge pressing into my thigh. I cherished the feeling. Where before there had been nothing, now sharpness began at a pinpoint and radiated outward, causing muscles to tense and flex as I sought comfort. The cloth, draped casually over my arm, was soft and warm, unlike the hard coldness of the stone. And across my shoulders, down my chest, there was a movement of air. Breath against my skin. The other.

My scalp tingled with delight as hair grew from my head. And suddenly, I knew by its absence what silence was. I had not known I lived in silence. But now, hearing the whistle of a bird, the rustle of cloth, gentle brushing, the sigh of breath ... now I knew what silence had been.

The soft breath on my ear brought with it the sound of other’s voice.

“I don’t hate them. I did, but not any longer. I’m just through with them. They can’t conceive that their actions hurt others. Or their inactions. A word could bring such all-consuming joy, yet it’s absence is such pain and sorrow that I cannot help but weep. Would it be so difficult to say, ‘I love you?’ Does saying the words cause them pain? Or is love itself but latent pain?”

I love you. I savored the words in my mind. This. Love. This combining of all the emotions I had learned with the physical senses of my body must be love. Hate, Anger, Passion, Madness, Sorrow, Despair, Hope, Joy, Touch, Sound. All taken together, I knew love. I love you.

“Worse yet are those who say the words but can’t abide by them. Those who swear to be with you always but then leave without a trace. Forsworn, forsaken, forgotten, and forlorn. And yet, he was so earnest. He loved me like no other, but he was just like all the rest. He left and went to war. A woman needs... I need more than that.”

A woman. I knew, now, the voice of other was woman. I had no frame of reference for woman. Yet I defined her in my mind. Woman was the perfect complement to me. We would match. Woman would mold around me and fill those spaces within me where there was nothing, as I would fill her heart. She had voice. I had hearing. The voice was musical. It did not screech or scold like the distant bird. The voice was like her touch. She was firm and precise, but gentle and soft. Each touch, each word, sparked more passion. Whether she spoke of her anger, her disappointment, or her love, she was passionate. Her breath caressed and raised my ardor where it touched me, even when it cooled the temperature of my skin. She stroked along my body from my hair to my toes, each inch coming alive with her touch. This was woman. She gave life, gave being. She breathed sweetness into my soul and called forth the best that I could offer. I will not forsake you.

And her scent...

Scent? What new sensation was this that aroused and inflamed and flushed my skin?

I could smell the oil and turpentine. They were near. But they were a part of me and easily filtered out. One never noticed, I supposed, one’s own odor. But wafting to my newly opened nostrils was a pale essence of almond and the heady scent of woman. There was a pungent aroma that accompanied her breath. Chamomile. The words identifying the scent accompanied it. I would learn to love this as well. It changed as days progressed.

Time now had meaning. It was measured in seconds we were together and hours we were apart.

I could feel my environment taking shape around me. Through the sound of her voice, I learned of life. I basked in the glow of her attention, even when she was not directly touching me. I was connected to everything around me through her. I could feel the coolness of the window, the warmth of the fire, the bitterness of the past, and the passion of the present.

“Love inflames me,” she said. “I can’t think when I am in love. I can only feel. I feel such a strong connection that I cannot separate myself from my lover. I don’t ask myself if this is right or if this is good for me. I am so inflamed that I’m consumed by my lover. When he touches me I am aroused. I don’t need anything else. It is enough to know I am the source of his pleasure. That is pleasure to me. So why am I surprised that he turns from me and takes pleasure from someone else? I’m not good enough. Eventually, he will leave me. Even the one who came to stay.”

I felt the splash of moisture touch my cheek and wondered at the sense of loss I felt. I longed to reach out to her and caress her skin the way she touched mine. If only I could make her feel what she does to me, there would be no doubt left in her mind. But I am passive, unresisting as she works around me, unable to make the sounds that she makes.

Reach out to me. Touch me. I will love you always. Don’t search for another. Don’t hold yourself from me. I worship you. Free me from this silence that binds me. I love you. I will never forsake you.

“I know how foolish it is. I am not an automaton. I have needs. I know how to pleasure myself. I know at least one man who could give me that pleasure, as well.” She hummed to herself as she arranged the bedding. It was soft, and while it would provide warmth when we were tucked beneath, it was cool to the touch. The crisply pressed sheets caressed my skin where they touched me. “Of course, he’s gone. I’m sure he didn’t mean to go. I know he loved me. I’m sure he intended to come back. But war ... But war.”

A sob and a clatter and she was gone.

Don’t leave me. I am here for you. Please be here for me.

I wondered if I would ever be able to make sounds like she made. Would she hear? I would pour my heart out to her. I would bring her into my world; I would show her what love and devotion truly are. But an immense gulf separated us, even when we were together. Some undefinable difference between self and other that I could not cross. I could not break free of the scene that bound me. She could not see past her grief to where I waited.

I wondered how it was that I could feel so intensely what she felt, but could not communicate the depth of my love. She had added grief and loss to my repertoire of emotion. And I found that with each addition, my love grew.

Was I woman, too? Was I one of the hateful he who hurt her? I would not be. I would love her, care for her, protect her, hold her. I would be whatever she wanted ... whatever she needed me to be. And I would wait here in this unfinished emptiness for her to find me and love me.