Out of nowhere the iguana appears at my feet, its thick hide identical to the tree’s bark, and it winds its way around my ankles; I can’t distinguish between its tail and the roots.
“Grandmother looked just like me on the day she passed over and passed on the gift. Though some call it a curse. My own mother refused it. Fled to a new country. These souls, they’re hollow, but heavy. I’m tired, too, Click.” Her bracelets echo my name as her hand slides up and down, a friction, a fissure broken open.
I’m naked. Inside her. I can’t tell where the tree behind me ends and Kiara, enveloping me, begins.
To be like this, always.
I picture the relief.
I stand in one place, for all eternity, welcomed into the bosom of her family, waiting for her to come to me for her sustenance, knowing someday I’ll be wrapped in her arms forever. No longer scurrying after her, a rat sniffing her scraps. My boughs forever extend out to her in eternal welcome. My obvolute fingers caress her as she strokes me. She needs me as never before, to nourish her. Me, the key ingredient to her mólé – spectral treacle. She stands with her chattering sisters, the azul beach framed behind her. Tourists spy her under the protective canopy. Look! they cry. Kiara! Kiara, who had retired and gone underground in search of peace, quiet, family.
She graciously poses for them, still looking like a girl of twenty, standing against a tree, a babe cradled in her arms. The infant looks up at the swaying branches as at a cooing father. The tourists snap her picture.
Click.
There I am. At last.
I’m in the frame.
Like the others, my mouth will be open. Not in horror, but in joy.
In the Absence of Motion
Peter Baltensperger
Bernard fell in love with the statue the moment he saw her at the back of the park. He had just moved into a new neighborhood on the outskirts of the city and was just starting to explore the area around the apartment building. He was following a small stream running along the edge of a field when he came to a secluded park surrounded by old trees. Walking along the path leading into the park between the trees, he immediately noticed the statue at the back. Without a moment’s hesitation, he walked across the grass until he stood right in front of her.
He had had several statues in the past, in different places where he lived, but this one was without doubt the most beautiful of them all. Sculpted from white, white stone, she stood on a low pedestal in front of a semi-circle of trees resembling guardians, wise old men. Endowed with a perfect body with just the right amount of lines and curves in all the right places, she was the epitome of femininity, an artistic treasure in an otherwise quite ordinary setting.
She had her arms lifted and her hands folded behind her head, her head titled slightly forward so that she was looking directly at him from her enigmatic stone eyes. He couldn’t take his eyes off her, the finely chiseled features of her face, her perfectly shaped breasts, her molded waist, her slender legs. Her pubic area was a mere suggestion where her thighs came together, a virginal understatement that suited her perfectly. He couldn’t believe his luck to have found such a beautiful statue in an obscure place like this, and quite by accident at that.
He loved statues of all kinds, but this one all the more so because of her unique bearing, the solemn guardians behind her, the calming stillness of her environment. Statues never moved, regardless of what he did. They simply stood there, looking at him without complaints, without telling him what to do, without expecting anything from him, faithful and trusting lovers every one of them.
Although still a virgin at twenty-six, he had heard and read and seen more than enough about women and their relationships with men to render him permanently suspicious and distrustful of them. Yet despite all his misgivings about the female sex and any kind of contact or relationship with them, he still dreamed of maybe someday meeting a woman whom he could trust like a statue, who would accept him without reservations for who he was the way the statues did, a woman he could love absolutely and would love him the same way in return.
So far, he hadn’t been able to find anybody even remotely like that, and so he kept dreaming and indulging in his penchant for statues wherever and whenever he could. His new love was still standing on her pedestal, patiently waiting, her charisma devoid of any kind of urgency, her stony gaze unchanged. He rejoiced in her presence, utterly content just to stand before her and admire her.
Yet the more he lost himself in her beauty, the more he saw her as not just a lifeless statue and the more aroused he became. He glanced furtively around the park, but there was nobody else. Keeping his eyes fixed on hers, he pulled down the zipper of his pants, his hands trembling with anticipation, pulled his penis out into the evening air, and rubbed it into an erection for her to see. The look on her face told him that she approved, accepted him for himself.
Holding his erection in his hand, he walked up to her and stepped on the pedestal to stand in front of her. He put his arm around her slender waist, took her perfect breast in his hand, her hard nipple pressing against his palm, and rubbed himself to a thundering orgasm against her pubic mound. He gasped with pleasure, moaned against her smooth stone skin. He thought he could feel her shudder ever so slightly, could feel her eyes on him, could feel her stone-cold body warm in his embrace. He pressed himself against her until the rush of excitement began to abate, then detached himself from her and stepped off the pedestal.
Arranging his trousers and straightening his clothes, he found a bench from where he could observe her for a while longer while he caught his breath and managed to get his body to relax. She was his now. He no longer had to worry about her because she would always be there for him and he would always be able to go to her again. He decided to name her Esmeralda, his precious stone, to mark the momentous occasion.
Back in his apartment, his life-size, anatomically correct doll with the flexible limbs was waiting for him in her shocking pink negligée. She was sitting on the couch in the living room where he kept her when he was at work during the day and when he had supper and watched TV in the evening. He had only acquired her a couple of years ago when he felt that his trysts with the statues weren’t quite fulfilling him any more. For one thing, he couldn’t always get to them, especially during the cold weather and when he was occupied with other things. It also started to bother him that as much as he enjoyed his relationships with the statues, he still always found himself alone in his apartment at the end of the day.
When he came across the doll in one of the specialty shops, he felt she was the perfect addition to his statues. She was in every way the same in that she never complained or demanded or criticized and was always there when he needed her. Only now he had a statue of his own he could keep in his apartment, share his evenings, dress her in whatever clothes he decided to buy for her, and take her to bed with him to keep him company during the night. He named her Lydia because he liked the name and he thought it suited her quite well.
The only problem was that her skin was a rosy flesh color and he had come to like the whiteness of the statues. In an effort to make her more statue-like, he scrubbed her repeatedly with bleach and in the end managed to lighten her skin considerably. She still wasn’t statue-white, by any means, but it was enough for her to fit in.
Lydia knew about the statues, but she didn’t mind at all because in the end he always came back to her and she was his main companion. Besides, she was much warmer than the outdoor statues. Her breasts were soft and pliable, and her pussy molded true to life and fully functioning to provide him with pleasures the statues simply couldn’t supply. She didn’t have any problems with the arrangements.
Bernard told her about Esmeralda as soon as he came home. He sat down on the couch beside her, put his arm around her shoulders and a hand on her warm breast and told her all about his excursion, his discovery, his encounter. Lydia didn’t mind at all. She didn’t say that she didn’t mind, but the expression on her face seemed t
o indicate that she was quite all right with his new arrangement just as she had been with his previous liaisons, as long as he always came back to her and didn’t neglect her too much. He definitely wasn’t planning on doing that.
Having settled that to his satisfaction, he turned on the TV, took her into his arms, and watched a couple of shows with her until it was time to go to bed. He carried her into the bedroom, pulled off her negligée, and sat her on the bed so she could watch him get undressed. Then he climbed on the bed, pulled her down beside him, and put his arms around her. It was much more like having a woman with him than when he was with the statues, even though he would never have dreamed of giving them up. They were his first and greatest love, and would always be.
Yet, he had to admit, it was much more comfortable and more arousing being with Lydia. He could squeeze her breasts to his heart’s content, he could bite her nipples if he felt so inclined, he could manipulate her body in any way he felt like, and she never complained or criticized anything he did. What he enjoyed most about her, and missed most in the statues, was that she had a perfectly molded pussy with a tuft of real hair he could caress with his fingers, and a tight, life-like vagina that perfectly accommodated his full erection.
Even though he was quite tired after his excursion, he played with her breasts for a while so as not to disappoint her. Then he climbed on top of her, penetrated her, and started to work himself up to another orgasm. It took him quite a while, but Lydia didn’t mind at all. She just kept lying there on the bed with her legs spread and let him pump her for as long as he needed to. He finally did have another orgasm, much to his relief. He moaned and groaned for a while to let her know how much he enjoyed the act. Then he climbed off her again, took her back into his arms, and went to sleep.
He kept going back to Esmeralda whenever his schedule and the weather afforded him the luxury of a visit. At the same time, he made sure that he paid enough attention to Lydia and spent enough time with her as well. Visiting Esmeralda with her perfect body and her beautiful surroundings again stirred up, for some inscrutable reason he couldn’t quite figure out, his fantasies about having a real woman for a companion. Despite his excellent relationship with his new statue, he kept wishing increasingly more often that he could have a woman in whom he could trust and with whom he could play real-life statue games.
And then, one nondescript chilly November evening when he couldn’t go in the park, he decided to visit one of the neighborhood bars he had started to frequent to have a couple of drinks to warm himself and just to be among people for a while. He was sitting at a small table near the bar nursing a Bourbon when he glanced around the room and saw a woman sitting alone at a table not very far from his own. She wasn’t exactly pretty, rather plain, in fact, and wore rather plain, loose clothes that didn’t do much to improve her appearance. Her face was framed by light blond, almost white, curly hair, and she looked quite skinny and rather pale, emaciated, almost, it seemed to him. Yet there was something about her that attracted him to her in a strange, perplexing kind of way and he found himself glancing in her direction more and more frequently.
What probably struck him the most about her was that she never seemed to move. She was sitting at her table with her legs crossed, one arm in her lap and the other on the tabletop. Her hand was holding a piña colada, her watery blue eyes staring expressionlessly out into the crowd. Every now and then, she would lift the glass, take a sip of her drink, and put it down again. Other than that, he didn’t see her move at all.
Bernard watched her for a while and considered his options, weighed his chances. He had never approached a woman before with what he obviously had in mind, and he wasn’t sure if he could, and if he could handle the highly probable rejection. Yet the more he looked at her, the more he felt he should do something and the more he convinced himself that it would be all right.
The woman seemed to be getting near the bottom of her drink, so he finally picked up his glass, rose from his table, and walked over to her.
“Is it all right if I join you?” he asked, his voice shaking with uncertainty.
The woman slowly turned her head and ever so slowly looked up at him, scrutinizing him, appraising him. He shuddered, wondering what he had done.
“I suppose that would be all right,” the woman said to his surprise and relief. She gestured to a chair across from her.
Bernard sat down and extended his hand. “I’m Bernard,” he introduced himself.
“Valerie,” the woman replied. She put a limp, pale hand into his and he held it for a moment before letting it go again.
“Would you like another drink?” he asked
“I think I could use another one,” she said.
“Not feeling very well?” Bernard asked, thinking of her pale complexion, her emaciated look.
“I’m fine,” Valerie replied. “I could just use another drink, that’s all. I was going to order another one myself if you hadn’t come along.”
They finished their respective drinks, called the waitress to bring them two more, and settled back in their chairs. Valerie wasn’t the most talkative woman and he had to carry most of the conversation, but she listened attentively to everything he said and responded appropriately albeit briefly to his remarks. The second drinks loosened them up a bit and he was gradually warming up to her.
The feeling that there was something different and special about her and that he was oddly attracted to her was getting progressively stronger, perhaps from the drink, although he didn’t think so. The longer he sat across from her and the longer they talked, the more he knew that he wanted to know her better, that there were possibilities, promises. He noticed that she hadn’t moved again since their mutual introduction, except that she was now looking at him instead of staring at the crowd.
Valerie finished her drink and put her glass down on the table. “Time to go,” she said. “It’s getting late.”
Bernard screwed up his courage and asked her if he could take her home.
“That’s what I meant,” Valerie replied, her face expressionless, her watery blue eyes focused on his.
Bernard felt a surge of relief. Everything was progressing without any problems, although he still wasn’t quite sure what this woman was all about. But then, he had only had contact with statues and a doll all those years and simply didn’t know what to expect or what to do.
He did know enough to pay for the drinks, hold out his hand when she started to get up from her chair, and help her with her jacket. Then he guided her through the crowd and out of the bar with his hand on her elbow.
“I just live a short distance from here,” Valerie announced when they stepped out into the chilly November night. “We can walk.”
Bernard tentatively put his arm around her waist. Valerie didn’t protest, but snuggled up to him instead. He was delighted. It only took a few minutes to get to her apartment, as she had said. She unlocked the door and motioned him inside, then led the way straight to her bedroom at the back.
She turned on the lamps on the night tables, took off her jacket, and stood by the bed, looking expectantly at him.
“Could I ask you something?” Bernard asked, his voice trembling again with insecurity. He really had to get a hold of himself, he thought, but Valerie didn’t seem to notice, or just didn’t mind.
“You can always ask,” she said, her eyes still looking at him without even a touch of emotion.
“I wanted to ask,” he began, cleared his throat, started again. “I wanted to ask if you wouldn’t mind keeping perfectly still.”
“No problem,” Valerie replied, to his relief. “I don’t particularly like having to do anything.”
“Really?” he asked, surprised by her answer.
“Really,” she said. He noticed that she hadn’t moved an inch from her spot by the bed, not even her head.
Bernard was feeling better and better about everything. He reached out and started to undo her blouse and she never moved at all, no
t even when he pulled the blouse down over her shoulders. So far, so good. He stepped behind her and undid the clasps of her bra, pulled it down over her arms, and reached around her to take her breasts into his hands. They weren’t very big, but they definitely felt very nice. It was the first time he had ever touched a woman’s breasts, and the sensation sent shivers of pleasure and delight through his body.
Valerie never made a single sound, just stood there motionlessly the way he had asked her to. He proceeded to undo her skirt and pull it down over her legs. She didn’t even lift her feet to step out of it. He knelt down on the floor, lifted one foot after the other, and pulled her skirt from underneath. Then he took hold of her panties and pulled them down the way he had done with her skirt, lifting her feet again to pull the panties from underneath them as well.
She stood quietly before him, the first naked woman in his life, her pale skin looking almost white in the light of the bedside lamps. He looked at her for a while the way he looked at the statues, reveling in her pure femininity, admiring her shape and her curves, her quaint breasts, her barely concealed pussy between her slightly parted legs.
Then he quickly undressed himself, took Valerie by the shoulders, and lowered her on to the bed. He rolled her towards the middle to make room for himself beside her.
Spending quite a long time playing with her breasts, he delighted in the unique experience of touching real-life, soft, pliable breasts with his virgin hands. Valerie kept lying on the bed without moving once, without saying a word, without any suggestions or complaints.
Bernard was in heaven. In all his fantasies, he had never pictured anything like this with a real woman. This was so much better than what he was able to do with his doll, and infinitely better than his encounters with the statues. This was real: real, warm, living flesh, trembling ever so slightly under his hands, responding to his touch, making him feel fuzzy and exceedingly pleased.
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