You let me stay in your home while you were away on vacation. I walked up a long driveway at night with a knapsack and found the key under the doormat. Upon closing the door, I saw the decor was ancient, graceful and strong. Animal furs trailing velvet and leather furniture, diamond encrusted shiny black boxes on brass tables, rainbows dancing on the marble tiled floors from suspended crystals. Persian dishes mounted on the walls with gold trim. A massive mirror above a long, thin table with a leather surface and bulleted ebony buttons.
I sat on a white fur rug with a salad, dressed in delicate white underwear and a thick luxurious robe, which you had laid out neatly at a dressing table next to a tri-fold mirror somewhere in the living quarters upstairs. A fireplace roared in front of me. I was perfectly comfortable in this lush atmosphere, acting like these objects were fun and easy, usual. This, however, was my first time in this house.
I heard three car doors in the middle of my salad (spinach, radish, tomato, olive, pear, gouda, from what I remember – I was vividly into the salad). I looked out the window that stretched from ceiling to floor and saw you stepping out of a new grey car with three others. I panicked. Suddenly I didn’t feel so comfortable. Refusing to let go of the salad I hid behind the furniture in a bedroom up the staircase. I pretended I was asleep, oddly with the salad in hand. I heard your voice, “Coast is clear,” a trampling of booted-feet and laughter filled a room distantly. I heard the crinkling paper bags and the fizz of beer cans opening. The voices soared, then lowered, soared again. A loud sniff resulting in spitting, maybe into the sink, more laughter and the cluttered noises in a wood and metallic kitchen.
My faking sleep resulted in actually falling asleep, and when I woke up you and two others had taken me to the hospital. You told the doctors I was insane and had trespassed and that I would be needing psychiatric help. The doctors in their white lab coats and with their balding skulls, looked at me over their glasses like my grandfather might, a clipboard and a pen. They’re both left-handed. My answers to their questions resulted in them giving me permission to leave. They rolled their eyes and walked down a long aqua green hallway, hands in pockets, heads bent down, occasionally gesticulating and looking at the other.
I disappeared down an industrial road with tall green grass and a few white warehouses. I found my way back to your house with its long driveway, expecting to find out why you had dropped me so disrespectfully at the hospital. Inside the lights were off and someone was sitting on a stool by the door, accepting donations and checking a two or three page list with names. I walked past the door-man through the darkened rooms. Everyone was wearing costumes with a mask. There were deep purple throbs of light, but the rooms were otherwise an inky black. I found you easily, as your shirt was so white it glowed in the oppressive dark of the party.
Still wearing my white underwear and robe, I stood behind you, a fingertip tracing lightly your side. Suddenly, the image of you softened me and I was no longer angry or even upset, only glad to have found you in the maze of blackness and mysterious purple blots of light. You were laughing and poked your head around your shoulder. Seeing that it was me, you took my hands in yours and your lighthearted smile turned puzzlingly serious. You got on both knees and tugged lightly on my robe sleeves, a signal for me to do the same. In the middle of this dark room where we could only see each other, on our knees face to face, you took my head in both hands, said nothing, and kissed me.
“Surrender” by Cheap Trick came in shrill over the speakers and we kept kissing on our knees, though laughing a little within the kiss. A dance troupe circled around, and so we admired them momentarily, but were taken with each other, holding arms, then shoulders, necks, no struggles whatsoever. Surrender.
