Wrestling in the Metropolitan

Wrestling in the Metropolitan

     My hawk gaze follows her in the saffron skylight of our cathedral of solitude. I have hidden for three days in the ruins of this building which once soared into the heavens. I look upon her with thirsty eyes and drink in the vision of woman. It has been months since I’ve seen a female of the species. I sometimes contemplated that I might be the last person on earth. Yet I am overjoyed that not only is there another among the fallen city but she is a female.
     She breaks the crystal silence. “Fancy meeting you here. I’d begun to think there were no others. May I sit in that couch? This looks like some executive’s office.”
      I reply, “Be my guest. Or should I say join me. This place is as much yours as mine.”
     “Yes this is the ultimate collectivism. Everything belongs to everyone” she says.
     I move aside to give her space to sit. “Hey I found a bottle of bourbon in the desk. Would you like to share some?”
     She winks at me. “Sure would. It feels kind of
odd here. I wonder who occupied this place and what happened to them?”
     I hand the bottle to her. “I’d like to think they escaped before the calamity. But I am a wishful thinker.”
     She rests her head on my shoulder. “I hope you don’t mind me resting on you. Men make good firm pillows. And you’re the only man around here.”
    I wrap my arm around her. “I make a handy head rest. And I’m indeed the only male here. That puts me at an advantage. I never was very good with women.”
     She sprawls across the couch and rests her head on my lap. I feel her breath upon my cocooned crotch. She says, “I do apologize. I have taken liberties. Would you like me to sit up?”
     I caress her flaxen hair. I said, “Heaven’s no. Please feel free with me.”
     She replies, “You are a gentleman. But don’t go saying you like me because I’m the only woman around. I wouldn’t take kindly to that.”
     I massage her scalp with long gentle strokes. I say, “In a room full of women you would stand out for me. You are a lovely soul.”
     She looks up at me and our eyes meet. “I’m touched that my soul is beautiful to you. But am I attractive physically? My inquiring mind really wants to know.”
     I begin to knead her shoulders with my questing hands dipping close to her breasts. I reply, “My darling you are the Botticelli Venus incarnate.”
     She beams up at me. “You’re not just saying that to get into my pants?”
     “To say just would be untrue. I confess I do fancy you in that way. But my passion for you is greater than sex.”
     She points up at a sagging beam in the ceiling. She says, “We really should take our conversation elsewhere. That ceiling doesn’t look stable.”
     We stroll hand in hand out under the brilliant blue sky. The ozone layer is mostly gone since the calamity. So I recommend we find shelter.
     The tall buildings stand cracked and fallen in the sunlight. I lead her down the street whose skeleton ruins smolder quietly. Smoky funeral wreaths settle like winter snow across desolate streets. Awash in sacred silence she and I hold hands walking together.
     Calcified relics shine in noon sunburn. Effigies of humanity haunt the daylight. Ravens perch on steel husks. Petroleum fed insects lie in repose. A salamander suns on the pearly marble steps. A centipede crawls cautiously over laminated tiles. We walk by the smoking embers of a fire in a vacant lot. Apparently there is someone else somewhere. A brown paper bag cart wheels on the asphalt. A Bible is laid open to the ravages of nature. Gospel scraps whirl in vortex. Golden words swirl playfully with wisdom strewn like confetti on oil stained sidewalks.
     She follows me like a guru in this city lost in dreams. I put my arm around her waist to comfort her. What more can I do to ease her passage down these graveyards of humanity?
     She stops to look up at the façade of a once intact library building. She leads me into the repository of books which molder under the roof of sky. She leans down and picks up a decaying copy of the Bible. She says “I used to believe in things. When everyone disappeared I lost all faith. I guess you could say I’m an atheist now.”
     I say “The past is dead. Religion is meaningless. Like Nietzsche said we must become our own God now.”
    She weeps. “I want God to fix things. I want the world back the way it was.”
     I embrace her with a bear hug. “You’ll be ok” I tell her. “I’ll take care of you” I say. I have no idea of how to save myself much less her.
     I love this woman as if she was the wife I’d lost so long ago. I never thought I’d feel for another person so deeply again.
     She says “I visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art earlier. I don’t know how stable it is. But the remnants of the paintings are a solace to me.”
    I say, “That sounds perfect. Yes let’s go there.”
     We cross through the entrance of the building. The halls are still passable. A shaft of light shines down from the ceiling. She says, “The whole building is honeycombed with holes.”
     I reply, “It’s a skylight.”
     She answers, “Yes. I just hope the roof doesn’t cave in on us.”
     I wipe my forehead. “I feel lucky today. It won’t fall.”
     She says “Hey there is a ballet class by Degas. It’s just laying on the floor. When I was a wee wisp of a lass I dreamed of being a ballerina. I’m going to take this one with me when we leave. Is that stealing?”
     I reply, “Who would you be robbing? Look, the art has fallen on the ground. I’ve never touched a piece in here. The paint is wet. The holes in the ceiling must let the rain through.”
     She says, “I wonder why the paintings are strewn across the floor?”
     I reply, “Probably vandals cut them from their frame and left them. It’s a fitting desecration of the hubris of our western world.”
     “Then the people who did this could be out there.”
     I reply, “If they’re still alive.”
      She whispers, “Do you think humanity will ever rise from the ashes?”
     I hug her to comfort her. I say, “I’d like to believe so. It depends on how many survivors are still here. Then the soil may be radioactive. We need crops to feed the children. Can people still reproduce? Or has the calamity sterilized them? There are so many questions. Time will tell.”
    “Oh please don’t be pessimistic. I need hope. I beg of you to be optimistic. I need a man to lean on.”
     “You have such a deep and wistful gaze with eyes which see through the hauteur of man’s vanity and beyond his veil of worldliness.”
     “Such a gentleman. But these eyes see right through you. You’re courting my baser instincts.”
     On her tiptoes, she kisses me on the lips. I say, “Look at all this beautiful art. Surely a species which created this can find a way to resurrect. Such genius will find a way. It will happen.”
    She places a fiery kiss upon me. Her tongue presses into mine with paprika passion of heat unbound. Soon the paintings blur in our teary eyes. We discard our clothes under the watchful eyes depicted in the ancient paintings.
     She sits on a patron chair with eyes dripping passion. I kneel and pray to her embodiment of Eden. Her thighs clench and she growls. She descends from her throne to the floor. She says, “I
want you on your back.”
     “Now wrestle with me” she orders. We roll and tumble on the mat of rare art pieces. Slick with sweat our bodies cling to fallen art works and their pigments stain our skin. We are tattooed by the strokes of ancient brush work. The palette of long gone souls touches us with rainbow illustration. Finally she locks my head between her thighs. I concede the match. I ask, “You must know martial arts?”
     She says “I studied Aikido for ten years. Did you like my moves?”
     I exclaim “Sparring with you was an aphrodisiac.”  
     She says, “My daddy named me Palaestra, after the ancient Greek girl who invented the art of wrestling for men to entertain themselves during the times of peace.”
     I reply, “You did your father proud Palaestra.”
     She says, “You feel very turned on. Nothing like a healthy dose of girl power to prime your pump. Let’s go another round. This time I’ll give myself a handicap. We’ll start with you on top.”
     “Oh but the shame if I lose.”
     “Come now. Being overcome by a woman doesn’t make you a sissy.”
     We tussle upon the smudged art with our skin sticky from the paint. The blurred impression of Monet’s bouquet of sunflowers is imprinted on her derriere cheeks. The blazing suns of Van Gogh swirl around her nipples. The stars float in a murky indigo sky upon her aureola.
     “Your behind is printed like a bridal corsage of sunray petals.”
     “Ah, my tush inspired such beautiful words. Well I did catch the garter at my sister’s wedding.”
     “There are plenty of vacant hotels in this city” I propose.
     “Let’s hole up in a deserted mansion. Why not move up in the world?” she accepts.
     Her sweaty body slips from my grasp in our contest of gender triumph. Finally I roll her face down and pin her with my pelvis upon her buttocks. She writhes her hips in a futile attempt to buck me off. She flaps her calves, like the wings of a Luna Moth, with her feet bouncing on my back. Her valentine, coated in Renoir splatter, wriggles under me. She feels like the softest lily, wet with morning dew. Pearls of her body dew mingle with mine.
     My need to assert my masculinity becomes her challenge. Hence, she starts to wrestle with me again but she pins my wrists with strength I’ve never known from a woman. The wet strands of her pheromone soaked hair pummel my face like falling stars. Her eyes light up in womanish delight as she moans through her tears. My communal being streams upward like a swarm of butterflies as I ascend the tornado. The end is only a beginning.She lies atop me kissing me ever so softly. I feel her warm lips touch mine.
     That night we sleep in the cavernous museum. The next day we will search for food. We have become foragers in a hungry world. Morning blossoms over the blighted city. I don my clothes. She covers her nakedness with her dress. She asks, “Do you think you impregnated me?”
     I hug her. “I don’t know. Would it be right to bring up a child in this world?”
     Tears sparkle in her eyes. She says, “Instinct tells me so. Without children there is no hope.” I lead her by the hand out into the blinding sun light.