A Scribner’s Tale

A Scribner’s Tale
     Brooke says, “John when you told me about those bitches from the previous agency who took the belt to you I cried for you. Just thinking of what that tough leather on your soft bottom must have felt like made me wince. John, know that I will never try to force you into a career mold by brute force.”
     “Like their namesake flower, those belladonnas enticed me with beauty whose touch was poison.”
     “What drove them to such cruel measures?”
     “They felt like I discredited their program by turning down their job offers which were pathetic for a college grad like me. Their caveat was that if I didn’t submit to their sordid penance no other agency would take me.”
     “You need not have capitulated to their sick game. Here I am living proof that another job coach was always waiting in the wings for you. Know that if you ever need correction from me it will never be meted by pain.”
     “Brooke, you have my complete cooperation in all things job-related and otherwise.”
     “John, I know we usually meet at the coffee shop. But for me to understand your book clearly I need quiet. So this time let me take you to my apartment where we can work together without all the noise.”
     Upon arrival, Brooke says, “John, my couch will go easy on your derriere. I know the bed provides more relaxation to your body overall. But though I feel we are close in many ways perhaps we should not yet share the intimacy of my bed. Let’s get as comfortable as possible while not engaging in bedroom aerobics which could inflame your still tender and swollen flesh. There is no need to be uncomfortable when getting down to the work at hand.”
     She says, “I usually help people get on a payroll but for you, I am doing something different by helping you get your book published. However, after having read it I am trying to figure out how the pieces fit together and how the plot works.”
     “Here is a passage that brings it all together.”
     “That chapter fascinates me. Your evocation of a
female having coffee with her girlfriend was clearly written by a man. The emotions you describe are not those of a woman.”
     “I just based it on movies and reading women’s prose at poetry websites.”
     “I hope being with me here at my pad doesn’t make you nervous. Now be quiet while I finish reading the scene. All done. Your imaginary trip down the river of womanly camaraderie was clearly based on a studious reading of authentic female authors. Yet your description of women talking about their men friends was clearly written by a male. Don’t feel bad. You have to be in our skin to feel what we feel. But I’m all sweaty. Do you mind if I take a shower?”
     She walks out of the shower towel wrapped and dripping with her skin pinkened from the hot steam. I am on edge about not disappointing her with my writing. But her questions are focused on plot structure, though my female characters hold her interest.
     Her hip sways so closely to me that I can feel the heat from the hot water of the soaked towel she wears. She says, “Let’s shed some light on the subject.”  When she reaches over me to pull the light cord the droplets that flow from her inner thighs are near enough for me to lick them up with my tongue was I that daring.
     I say, “This passage should pull it all together for you.” She wipes her hands on her derriere and takes the book.
     Her hand rests on my knee. I laugh. She slaps me on the back. We laugh together. She says, “Sorry just wanted to make you feel more at home in my abode. You seemed a wee bit tense.”
     “I know you are just trying to help me relax.”
     “John, tell me if I am correct, one of the key elements of successful fiction is to suspend disbelief. Well, there are some pretty surreal scenes in your book from what I’ve read of it. So let’s act out some of your scenarios just as you described them in your stories. Here I am speaking of the confessional scenes.”
     “Which ones are you referring to?”
     “The most unreal ones are the ones that involve wives sharing their secrets about their old flames though they are in fact married. Those are the ones we should focus on. You’ve told me about being horsewhipped by those bitches from hell. But most of all the silver-tongued devil that you use to seduce the hearts of lasses through prose has never been properly exorcised by a woman in real life. So this will be your opportunity to make your prose more believable by getting out of your intellect and into your emotions.”
     She says, “I want to see with my own eyes what those brides of Satan did to you.” She undoes my belt and slips my 401s and the fruit of the looms off in one fluid motion. Then she grabs my hips and guides me into a kneeling position on the sofa with my knees sunk into the cushion. Her fingertips move in lazy circles round and round my buns. She says, “The welts that strap left on your tender flesh are almost healed but still pink.” She says, “With my fingertips, I can read the Braille of your punishment barely legible like scars from childhood. Are they still sensitive to my touch?”
     “Just enough to enliven my skin like the pelt of raindrops.”
     Then she says, “I’ll spank you but only with my hand. Belts are made for holding up britches. Besides, I’m just a kitchen witch whose bitchiness is
limited to the subliminal sabotage of a soufflé.”
     When the river of job search dries up she takes me on a different kind of quest. Her guided imagery exercise brings me to a house whose gardens my grandmother tended in the shade of a sinking sun of life. But her hypnotic vibrations are so deep that my soul slips out of my body and into dreams that come like a light in the darkness.
     I am back in my hometown in Mississippi under my grandparent’s roof with the sun sinking with the delicacy of nocturnal lovers on a path to heaven. But the shards of daylight have not yet succumbed to the shades of night. And so the news comes from the hospital of my grandpa’s passing.
     My best friend stands watch over the burning clouds from within the carapace of the house. My conductress in this cell in the eye of God recruits me to properly usher grandpa into the paradise that lies beyond the sight of angels. And so my matriarch lifts a looking glass to mirror my bare visage in a dance of light and shadows. In turn, I hold a mirror to reflect her as the embodiment of the cosmic feminine.
     She ascends a rise into the neighbor’s backyard.
She is bathed in the luminescence of the final throes of the dipping sun whose light gathers around her like a shawl of gold as she welcomes my grandpa home. With her mirror, she bundles the sun into a bushel of light so bright that its radiance is all I see in the trembling moment of awareness.
     The ritual concludes in the impending shadows of night. She addresses me, “You depend on me to steady you as you take your wobbly steps on the bottom rungs of the corporate ladder. But I am about to graduate with my master's in social work. If we are to maintain our connection which I value as much as you, we must take our relationship into another realm. You must join me in the quantum universe where nothing is as it seems. Our journeys together into these astral planes will become more frequent until like a kite come untethered you fly free. Are you ready?”
     I consider the prospect of being with this beautiful priestess for eternity which is most enticing.
     I reply, “Would I ever again see this beautiful planet that I call home?”
     She says, “Take my hand and walk with me in the bond of trust. You don’t even have to give up your body right away. Only if you decide to return to the earth will your soul reside in another body. Does that sound attractive?”
     “What will my relations on earth think if I disappear? They may wonder if I was kidnapped or worse.”
     “You can tell them you are entering monastic life and therefore must forgo human contact to dedicate your life to God. We can’t marry in this life because I am your job counselor and it would be against my professional ethics. But the heavenly matchmaker can be persuaded to bring us together in our next life. But such matters can wait.”
     I reply, “When do I get to propose to you?”
     “We’re already on the other side. Now that you are no longer the schoolboy with a crush and me the teacher at a loss for what to do about it the constraints don’t apply. Please, pop the question sooner rather than later.”