Saturday, October 13, 2007

a cup of coffee

I sit down in a chair i love to claim whenever i come here. I place my white ceramic mug on the small cedar table to my left, which makes a sound like a chef breaking an egg on the side of a pan. I look across the long narrow room of the cafe, out over the bar where a line has grown and see the young barista whose hands i complimented smiling at me as she steams a pitcher of milk. I pull back the cuff of my shirt to examine my watch for the time. You still have a few minutes.

I'm near enough the door that i can hear it open and close, but i do not look up every time it gets used. Instead, i put my attention into my notebook on my lap, scribbling across an empty page with my favorite fountain pen. I dig the flesh of my fingers into the rigidness of the pen's nib, holding on with an authority that allows me to freely paint my words across the lined paper. The ink bleeds onto the tips of my thumb and middle finger. I love it when this happens. I feel like it is evidence of my labor, my craft. These are my paints splattered on my clothes, my cheeks caked with soot. I rub the two symmetrical spots together, rolling the flesh-on-flesh contact around and around, when i feel an urge to look up at the door. Your hand has just left it as you let it close behind you.

You look around the cafe, even glance right at me, but keep studying the landscape. Finally, your eyes come back to my frame in the chair, notebook open and inviting on my lap, cup of steaming coffee effusing into the air. I clip my pen in the page where i'd left off, and close it. I raise myself from the upholstered seat, and greet you as you march in my direction, removing a few outer garments amidst your procession. We stare at eachother, but this level of frankness betrays the awkward tone of the benign smalltalk we share. Most of the awkwardness is yours. I ask you if you'd like something to drink, then guide you into the chair communing on the other side of the small cedar table.

You spend the first few stanzas of our conversation mostly behind your large cup of tea, cradling the wide bowl in both hands, holding it slightly tilted against your mouth. Our chemistry is immediately recognizable. We can both look at the far end of the cafe and have the same object grab our interest. You and i both notice the elderly gentleman holding the chair for his "date" to sit in, which seems odd in a cafe usually occupied with freelancers and their laptops. I glance back at you, and can tell by the way your shoulders are widening that you are growing more and more comfortable.

The volume of your voice has gradually increased, and, when you listen to me or answer a question, you look directly in my eyes, instead of a few inches above my head. I'll hold your stare, and you don't turn away so quickly. Not as quickly as when we first said hello. In fact, you are risking getting caught. You know, and i know that at a certain point you won't be able to turn away. At a certain point, you'll be trapped, and the only way you can escape is to leap to your feet and flee.

I am ready when you do, and snatch at your arm, grabbing you by the wrist. I hold it firm. You tug your entire body away from me, like a kite pulling in the wind. This sudden move has the eyes of those around looking at us, waiting for you to respond. I guide you back to your seat, where you recline in silence. In the span of the next ten minutes, the only glance i get from you burns. It is one of anger, humiliation at being caught.

When i feel that you are ready, i lead you through a slow discussion of what you'd confessed to me online. I force you to talk explicitly about the things you want done to you. I demand that you speak at the same conversational level that we were previously. You are made to describe why you believe you deserve to be treated this way, why you have come to meet me at the cafe, and why you know this has to happen.

As each minute passes with you not taking your eyes from mine, i strip you of your vices. I remove you of your hangups. I peel away your vulnerabilities. At a certain point, you'll disappear.

At a certain point, you'll be gone.

9 comments:

littlegirl said...

oh mr. deity!

this was so captivating. and because you used the first person/second person narrative, i felt as though you were talking to me . . . if only i were that lucky of a girl. i'm off to dream of such meetings over coffee.

Mae said...

Coffee and the thought of Deity being Deity. Yum!

Anonymous said...

Goodness, Deity, that's quite the finish. It's such a deep craving to disappear into it all... be gone.

And then there's this: "...you know this has to happen..."

Must it? Or perhaps this is just an example of a fine writer taking literary license.

Either way, I'm seduced. And quite desperate to know where Chapter 2 might take me...

doll said...

Deity,

do we really disappear when bound to our dominants or do we flourish and grow into someone greater than we were before?

Anonymous said...

Mmmm coffee is so good :)as are your writings which truly are a wonderful escape... and to be gone is such a nice thought. Thank you :)
lili

Anonymous said...

i always feel a little scared and excited when my owner grabs me in a firm way like that, in a very public place. it heightens the feeling of intensity that i already have every time he touches me when i know other people are noticing and wondering and maybe feeling a little apprehensive themselves.

i have never thought of the surrender i experience through my submission as being related to making me disappear. i want to be insignificant, yes, but never non-existent. but clearly some girls are all about that. :)

Deity said...

lg,
not sure why i used the first and second person like that, but it just felt right. Also using the present tense made it feel more like dictation (from that strange disembodied voice in the head).

mae,
i like my coffee strong, very bold.

bailey,
it must.

jayne,
this isn't disappearance as she was no longer there. she still existed, i just absorbed her.

lili,
it is a nice thought, isn't it?

meg,
you should know, i too feel a little scared and excited when i react this way. it's not socially acceptable, and there have been times where people have attempted to intervene.

Anonymous said...

I think so :)
lili

Mae said...

You might think this silly, but I much prefer Mocha Latte's that I have made. Bold strong coffee's are overwhelming to me, but they smell intoxicating. ~blush~