Christopher WunderLee - Moore's Mythopoeia

“Oh my, I had no idea,” he blushes Kinseyingly.

“No shit,” wagging and flouncing indulgently so he’s reacted appreciably. “You were too busy with the construction, you never looked over to see the demolition.”

“But how were we to know?”

“Well fuck, where’d you think the miracles went… the holy men… the prophets? It served a purpose, if you take away that purpose, it’s obsolete. Just like anything else.”

“But there still was a purpose,” he offers Wilsonianly, for you.

“No, I had a purpose and that went away with it. My purpose depended upon serving its purpose. By following the rules, I could find my way there, achieve four-star status and all that. When you all demolished it, I had nowhere to go, nothing to serve, no purpose. A novice custodian with no one to guard, ‘cause all the sudden you fuckers didn’t need us… my redemption, which depended upon your peril, is null in a world where there is no hazard.”

“But you did appear…”

“Who knew a fucking seraph would attempt it… zap, I’m supposed to go back to work, with nothin’ to be rewarded with for my labor. Like the old procedures are still in place but the reward system is gone, why bother? Fuck it. I did. Let him jump. Better yet, fuck him… fuck him hard… maybe it’ll come back. Sin and all that…”

“So you’re trapped?”

“Me and about a millennia of others, all impatient and full of piss, locked out of heaven, dead, promised all our lives one thing, the bait and switch, only to find out another. You cock-fuckers couped and us ass-fuckers are fucked.”

“But what if it wasn’t?”

“Fucked?”

“Perfect…”

“It is, more perfect than a Nubian orgy…”

“If it lost its sheen, you could go. If there were one sin, the ladders would return. The purpose would return,” Augustinely peering.

* * *

To be truthful, Joseph had only been in love (a temporary malady curable by marriage) once, and it was not with his wife. It began with formal introductions…

“How can I know if I’m in love, I’ve only just met you?”

“You know you are in love immediately, it’s knowing if you’re not in love that takes a long time.”

She was, like him, just beginning her career. Joseph had worked at Immunex for only two years, he had a desk amongst many others in a large cubicle and was quite used to the synthetic woman from human resources bringing around new employees, for Immunex believed in creating a community of friends and sponsored several “socials” throughout the year, including book clubs, movie screenings, sewing classes, and bird watching outings. She stood slightly behind her guide, who stood at the gateway of the cubicle and in a general voice, announced to the busy men that here was Amelia Daio (Daio Motors), a new administrative assistant on the floor directly above them. She greeted them silently, a small woman with a new dress who would be just another face. Joseph took little notice of her, she was not immediately attractive to him, nor was her manner particularly appealing during that first introduction.

Amelia Daio was of a slight build, she had a straight, angular body with a meager chest that would never be mistaken for voluptuous or curvaceous, she had slightly darker skin than most, and raven’s feather hair. These attributes made Amelia hide; she blended into her surroundings, the perfect face in an audience. However, for all of her plainness, if it could truly be called that, there was a certain sexuality to her that was difficult to describe, and was subtly apparent when one was alone with her. Amelia’s fashion sense was varied, which is not to say that she did not dress like all the other women in the office, but that when she wore an outfit, it seemed to have been made for her and only her, tailored for her body, a shrewd hint of something more.

A clear pool of flesh exposed for a second, a sliver of her belly, her fiancé wants nothing else, he reaches out. She notices his hand hovering by her hip, his finger silently dipping into her shirt, running the tip against her side. He met her eyes, and neither averted their gaze, his hand gliding down her hip.

“Let me see your hands.”

“Why?”

“You have very nice hands.” Simone de Beauvoir said that was the highest compliment a woman could pay a man.

Her heart is knocking against her chest, when he realizes he can see a faint hint of her left breast, cradled in the ivory cup of her bra. She parts her legs slightly and does not defend her skin from his touch.

Joseph saw her for a second time at the café on the first floor of the Immunex building. He was eating boiled cabbage for his bowels; she had a tray of greens, and came up to him.

“Do you mind if I join you?”

Yes. He assented politely; annoyed with her impertinence, now he would have to entertain her. They flipped through magazines, not eating, commenting on the articles. Joseph found her more witty than attractive, and he forgot about her as soon as their lunch was over. However, he stealthily began to think about her, those black eyes with no eye lashes, the waning moon shape of her face, the melodious voice that she employed when she was speaking to him of Minervan and amusing things accompanied by a wise grin, as though she knew before he could say that they were partners in something, something no one else was privy to.

He went to visit her two days later, after he had sat on his front porch well into the night imagining her lips against his own, imagining how they would begin to know each other. She was happy to see him, she smiled in a way that made her eyes widen, as if she was telling him a story. He made fun of her blouse, what he called “a bathmat”, and she laughed. He invited her to lunch and she agreed. They talked about feeling guilty, even though they were not doing anything wrong, they assured each other of that and it was disappointing. They had made absent ( But heed the warning the sage hath said: / A woman absent is a woman dead ) conversation, Joseph had not felt that manic bumblebee buzzing within his chest, he had not taken her hand or spoke to her of their secret knowledge.

The blouse toppled onto the floor, she was disrobing, more than captured images, she is giving up. The short black pants are crumbled at her ankles; she steps out of them like a bather appearing from within a pool. She moves away from her clothes, nude before him for the first time. He can see the aroma of her body, the inch he knows from sitting close to her, the small, scoops of flesh he’s dreamed so often of, the slim waist curving slightly and the long thin legs. She is lovely, he is unprepared, and she is against him, like burying his face in a bouquet of flowers.

* * *

About that time he was interrupted by her theatre, truly a Greek tragedy, if there ever was one, amidst the jeers of coworkers, during a second quarter profit party. Amelia stands pouting, her little outfit worn purely for Joseph, as he walks by her and joins a colleague to discuss the progress of his project.

She has said: “I went to lunch with Mineliss” after he asked her how her lunch was. She is listening to the speeches.

“…and it’s because of your hard work and dedication that this fourth quarter has been the greatest in Immunex history…”

He says benignly how much he likes her pigtails. She smiles with worried eyes. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know it would upset you.”

“I tell you what, I think I’ll just let that be you and Mineliss’ gig from now on.”

“What?”

“Lunch.”

“Joseph, no.”

His Adam’s apple bobbles as he glances towards her, swallowing thickly. “Yes. I can’t share you; I thought you knew that. I don’t blame you, but I can’t…”