Tag Archives: painting

Libidinal Attachments 

K couldn’t stop talking about his new painting. “She does whatever I ask,” he boasted, tracing the cut on his cheek.
When he showed me the painting, I was greatly underwhelmed. The way he spoke of her, I was expecting a hot woman in leather or something. Instead, I saw a lumpy pale creature gazing into the distance. She belonged in the boring wing of a museum.

K greeted her graciously, introduced me, and then scuttled us away, claiming that he was extra demanding last night and she needed rest. He was genuinely concerned.
“Where can I get one,” I teased.

“What do you have in mind?”

“Prettier and skinnier than yours. Maybe a little bitchy.” K eyed me suspiciously.
……….
She was delivered on a Monday. I removed the packaging and found a beautiful women, nearly naked, hip bones protruding confidently. She glared defiantly at me from behind her glass. “I am your master,” I demanded. I unzipped my pants.
……….
“She’s defective, K. She just stands there. Won’t do a damn thing I say.”

“Did you really expect otherwise?” He paused: “So that mark on your face…”
“She tried to kill me. I’m not into that weird shit you like.”


Emotional Effusiveness

“Why did you bring that thing back,” she asked, knowing the answer. “What would you have done,” K replied, reminding her that she had been present that evening at the fat man’s house; reminding her that she had been present when the fat man forced the painting on them, exclaiming, “This one is my favorite and I want you to have it.”

How the fat man could tell “this one” apart from the others was anyone’s guess: countless framed images of Nordic women in various states of ecstasy–heads cocked, hair tousled, etc.–and undress adorned the walls of his modest middle-class home.

(Although she pretended not to overhear, she had heard the fat man whisper something like, “This one reminds me of your girlfriend,” before handing K the painting that now occupied a prominent space in their alcove.)

“It’s creepy,” she huffed before marching into the bedroom.

“I’ll throw it out tomorrow,” K said meagerly.

When K woke up in the morning his girlfriend was gone from their bed. He found her in the painting next to the Nordic, face in a frozen, forced smile, eyes pleading but also seductive, body contorted erotically and unnaturally.

He decided to keep the painting.