projections

projections

She's cool, just the right amount of calculating, and oh so deferential to the code. He's crude, patronizing, but affable; you can't help liking him. They live on a quiet, tree-lined street just behind the main thoroughfare. You'd hardly know them if you saw them every day.
She was wild and wind born, a creature of seasons. She blew into their lives and opened their windows and doors. Did you see her flying through town, smile wide eyes flashing in the distance? She's a creature of seasons, comes and goes through changes, rides high and low on the wind. They would have smothered her in confinement just because they are that way. She would love to be brilliant, but her flame is too blown about, so she lives in a fantasy of exquisite pain. "You will love her; she knows how to suffer," cries into your ear over telephone wires, into your eyes from the printed page.
"My God," the priest intones, "Look over my congregation. Each of us a sinner on the path, answer our prayers for forgiveness. Absolve us, we know what we have done, and would assuage the guilt upon our souls."
They go to bed each evening, shortly after ten. What can they be dreaming?
She takes off, racing through town on a stolen motorcycle, out to meet her lover. They always meet outside of town and travel into the city. They always giggle when they meet, out for a night of fun and laughter. Laughter always becomes erotic after awhile. It's a night of racing madly against death, of Experience. It's a night that lasts for days, until exhaustion makes it end. They are well known in this city that they go to, though strangers in their own homes.
The jukebox music blares and voices shout over. Psychedelic lighting and elaborate costumes make everyone a figure of fantasy. It's a high time for pill poppers, powder sniffers, and mainliners: a high time for all. I see you and wave across the room, "Hey, man, come on over!" General roughhousing, laughter, some surreptitious snorts from a vial. ~"Hey, man, what's happening? Gi'me five!"
She sees you and sidles over. She's on the make all the way. She loves a challenge, can't turn away from one. She speaks her mind, brash. She would love to be brilliant, but her flame is too blown about. You give her your attention, as much as you have available on your high. She smiles, eyes wide and flashing, begs you for a kiss with those eyes, reaches for your hand to read your palm lines, says they show great physical prowess. You are enchanted and thrilled in your response. I stand by and watch you, delighted.
They are dreaming words, kind and harsh, and numbers. They are dreaming situations with predetermined conclusions. In the morning, like well-oiled machines, they will roll along to work. If you look, you may see them on the highways, behind the wheels and shields of their cars. You wouldn't know them if you did.
She licks the inside of your earlobe, her hands tightening on your chest. You are hardly aware of the world without her. I am still watching you, from the corner, highly amused. The music blares, an everpresent background, foreground, background, foreground. It's all so intense, you smile, the agony; the pleasure. I am waiting for a sign.
They murmur uneasily in their sleep. There are signs and portents, to be felt around them, in the cool night air. They stir uneasily, but do not waken, hiding more deeply in their dreams. They would not know how to deal with it all awake.
We have left the bar, walking in the late night rain to your apartment. It's not a long walk, nor a short one. The rain doesn't permeate our highs. We laugh a lot over nothing and smoke cigarettes. You're cool, supremely aware and together. We giggle our secret jokings in the rain; your arms unite us, one around each. Finally we reach the building, doorway, stairs, stairs, stairs, room. Double lock, and you're ours. We will play lovingly with you, a new toy. We love to share our toys, she and I.
"Dear Lord," the priest closes his sermon, "We have sinned and demand forgiveness. We have played by the rules and will enter the kingdom of heaven when we die."
You give yourself over completely to the pleasure which we know well how to give. We blow great wafting billows of smoke from our lungs into yours. We breathe heavenly white crystals into our veins and yours. We all three enter each others' bodies through every orifice, merge through skin and immortal souls, experience climax upon climax, ever greater the heights.
They dream of liquid floating in suspension and do not understand. We are the product of their dreams.
We suck you of your life fluids, moving mouths on every part of your body. Vampires of experience, we will not let you go till we have sucked you dry. Like a vampire's victim, you will crave the life, the experience of others, will suck them dry to gain eternity. We suck you and lick you clean, fondlingly. We again enter you through every opening, cleaning you through. You have been exhausted. We complete our ritual cleansing as you lie immobile, beyond response. We symbolically cut off your genitals, cut out your heart. We now own your soul. It has been a good night.
Dawn has long since risen; they will wake soon. Soon they begin again, another day of their busy aimless lives: rise, work, unwind, sleep, and, oh yes, consume those predigested market-attractive packaged products of the mass media, the mass brainwash, the mass society.
We leave you sleeping and run gaily, arms linked, along the city sidewalk. We stop for coffee at a corner cafe and rolls and donuts. We no longer giggle, but speak sensibly; it is daylight. We go to the park to sleep by the water, surrounded by greenery, curled contentedly in each other's arms. Our easy breath is the summer breezes.