Far Away Cattrall I wonder if this ennui is somehow related to that other unstated domestic theme: (1-2-01) L ately I have been having this recurring dream, although for a dream it seems too well-colored, too neatly timed and clear for me to really be comfortable with it. Somehow I am afraid that it is some mischievous, naughty side of my inspiration, tickling her fingernails across my thigh under a dinner table, daring me with her eyes to continue making small talk with the strangers seated across the way and not let on to what she is doing or else the game will be over and this wonderful tickling will stop... In this dream, I am a frustrated artist, designing display windows for a high-scale department store in New York City. I am depressed and lonely, but through an odd series of twists and turns I have discovered that one of the mannequins at the store comes to life as a beautiful girl whenever no one else is around but me. In these magical moments we run around the store and play like children, using the stores merchandise as props in our secret fantasy life. The truth of the matter is that the mannequin is actually a princess imprisoned by an evil spell. I think she loves me, and I think that I love her, but blinded by her beauty all I can think heard: Eryka Badu Mama's Gun Sade Love Deluxe Disturbed The Sickness Iggy Pop Nude and Rude: The Best of Iggy Pop Eartha Kitt Purr-fect: the Best of Eartha Kitt David Bowie The Hours Michael Penn March Siouxie & the Banshees Peepshow Jimi Hendrix Are You Experienced? Level 42 World Machine Radiohead Kid A about is holding her, kissing her, touching her, making love to her for endless hours; sweat and tears dripping off the tip of my nose, making a tiny mirrored pool on the arc of her swelling breast as we gasp for air against each other, exhausted. But the mannequin princess will not let me touch her. Needing the magic of true love to break the spell that binds her, she spurns all of my physical advances, afraid that it will spoil the magic we have together, and cloud the fact that fairy tales such as this are about love, absolute devotion, and commitment; and not just the hurried insincerity of romping like a couple of badgers in heat. This continues on for a while, me telling her that my love is true, her holding out for some sort of divine indication that I am telling her the truth, all the while dangling her forbidden fruits in front of me like some shiny, feathered fishing lure. But today when I went to the store room where we have our regular nightly rendezvous, she didn't wake up. The previous night her affectionate teasing seemed deliberate and cruel, and I snapped at her, accused her of stringing me along, tried to make her feel guilty over the fact that I have done so much for her, while she has done nothing in return but frustrate and tease. It eroded into a nasty war of words that ended with me storming out of the room. All of the following day I felt like a total jackass, realizing that perhaps she was right, perhaps I was so blinded by lust that I was willing to confess to anything, especially true love just to get a shot at her secret places. I had spent the day wallowing in my own self-realizations, and I had finally concluded that I needed her in my life, not just as a lover, but as a balancing force, a muse, an inspiration, a fill for the multitude of holes that riddle me and rob me of my own self-confidence and power. Since she had come into my life my ability to impose my will on the world around me had increased exponentially, my moxy at an all time high. I needed her. In making her happy, I made myself a better man, a better person. I loved her. It was so simple. I loved her. I did! In that moment, there was no other thought in my mind. It was clear and strong and tall as posters of Mao in the main square in Beijing. "I love you!" I cried at the top of my lungs to the thin walls of my apartment. The next day I bounded off to the store, bought fresh flowers on the way from a cheerful Korean woman wearing red-rimmed glasses that engulfed her entire face and seemed to leave a constant expression of wonder on her face as her eyes were magnified to the size of silver dollars. On the way to the store, I proceeded to tell anyone who stared for more than a second at the gargantuan bouquet of carnations, delphiniums, and baby's breath that I was madly in love with the most magical woman in the whole world, and that the bouquet (and my heart) were for her, all for her. But when I locked the door of the store room behind me and crept up on my princess the mannequin with the flowers hidden behind my back, she did not transform from dull plastic into honey colored flesh. The blank stare of the painted irises did not morph into the blink of lush eyelashes. Instead of running into my arms she just stood there, frozen mid-stride, wearing the latest formal ensemble by Jessica McClintock. "Princess" I cooed, imagining that her stoicism to be part of some game, some further tease intended to draw my true emotions out from under my lust. I stepped up close to her, revealed the flowers from behind my back, and planted a soft kiss on her cold plastic cheek. A moment later when her cheek had not flushed with warmth, I felt a little foolish. She must still be angry over the things I had said yesterday. Of course she was, those cruel words and accusations, crushing her down, stabbing at her heart. Immediately I was a flurry of apologies, talking and explaining the motivations behind those horrible, stupid statements I had made, waving the bouquet around as I expounded on each apology, creating flurries of baby's breath all around me. I finished my last promise to never again say anything harsh to her with my arms outstretched to her, hoping that bearing my guilty soul would break the spell and bring my beloved out of hiding, into my arms, into my soul. Nothing. After a while I began to get worried, worried that something was wrong, that some villainous force had interfered, stolen her magic necklace and stolen her essence away from me while I was brooding my sorrows back at my apartment. But the ancient charm was still there. Still draped around her stiff, unmoving neck, just as it always had been. I wasn't sure what to do. We had never used magic words, or secret handshakes. Just one night when I was working late, talking to myself about what I thought my perfect woman might be like I was suddenly confronted by soft hands around my waist and the most disarming set of eyes I had ever gazed upon looking at me, seeing right through me. I felt a pit forming in my stomach as I pleaded with the mannequin to wake up, begging her not to leave me, not all alone like this. Not after all we had shared, not after all that I was finally ready to promise her. But she remained an emotionless slate, standing there like a photograph. After a while I began to tire of this game. In the end this was just another tease. Another flirtation with nothing at the other end but a harmless peck on the cheek and a disapproving waggle of her finger. Again making me run to her like some pet kept in a cage, only allowed the freedom to eat, or to pee. I loved her, I said emphatically, but I have wants, I have needs. I told the mannequin that she couldn't possibly understand what it was like to want someone so badly, to need to feel her soft touch so desperately that I couldn't sleep at night, couldn't concentrate on the simplest of tasks like opening soup cans or paying the rent on time. I told her things I thought I would never tell her. How sometimes when I was at the store and saw how the blouse she was in didn't have all the buttons fastened that I daydreamed about the adventures we had together in the store. Daydreamed so vividly that I would end up with erections that were so painful, so obvious that I would have to remain at my desk or hurry to the men's room before someone noticed. Still, the painted plastic lips said nothing. And then I went a little crazy, I don't remember the chain of events exactly, but somehow I went from explaining just how incredible and vivid my fantasies about her were to actually removing my pants so she could see how just talking about this was affecting me. And then it was another blur of accusations and apologies, and then somehow I had wrenched the bolero coat off of her shoulders, pulled her off of the stand that fastened to her ankle to keep her standing straight, and I was kissing her with all the fury I could muster. She remained impassive, unimpressed. I began to caress her neck, nuzzle her earlobes with my lips and tongue, all the while sliding my hands down her side, to her belly, and then slowly back up again, carefully under the silky fabric of her blouse to her cold, nippleless breast, which I softly massaged. And then, I'm not sure exactly how, we were on the floor; a mess of shirts and brassieres, my breath coming in heaving grunts, barely in control of myself. Still she resisted, not moving, plastic as ever. Now it wasn't a flirtation, now it was defiance, a master and slave game, Kate from Taming of the Shrew, Scarlett from Gone With the Wind, a sly smirk in their eyes as they surrendered to the aggressive advances of the men they knew they loved, resisting to the end until they were overpowered with a passion so strong it had to be love. Finally, I was inside her. I vaguely remembered some Macguyver-ish inventiveness using either a high-heeled shoe or the blunt end of a coat rack, but whatever the catalyst, I was finally there. Pushing and retreating, crying out my undying love for her as loud as I possibly could as I felt myself melting into her heart, into my true soul. She had been masterful in this final game, using her silence to bring out the animal, the confident man inside me that she wanted me to be. And I told her that I would do anything for her, be anything, accomplish everything, everything! Everything! Everything!!! Suddenly there was a break in the wave, a blanche of cold water splashed against the heights of my revelations and the ever building warmth in my thighs as I felt a sudden squeeze of pressure against my sex and heard an alarmed, very alive voice yell at me "What the hell do you think you are doing!?" And suddenly her eyes were no longer plastic, no longer impassive. Suddenly her stare was aghast; her look angry, confused, and wounded somewhere deep in her soul. As if someone had bent a kink into the garden hose, I felt the river of confidence that had been raging through me willow down to a bare trickle, each drop rolling more painful than the last through me, as I stammered for an answer to the question that still hung in the air…. "I, I… love you?" ,