Naked, nervous, glistening with sweat, he eyed the shining plane before him. It sang like the wet lip of a wine glass or the cold steel of a blade, beckoning him to his doom. He was close enough to touch it, tumescent shaft bobbing, purplish head straining to press against the chilled surface. He stood a long moment seeing only what it wanted him to see. He was beautiful.
Then with a caress he felt it steal over him, the icy calm, the shadow. The heat leaped in his core, shooting out white-hot from his manhood, the orgasm not emptying his body but his soul. He splashed onto the mirror and was gone, now only a pale reflection, trapped forever behind glass in the moment of ecstasy.
"Tell me I'm handsome."
The mirror was silent, as it always was outside of story books. He ran his fingers over the etched glass as if willing it to come to life, tell him he was fairest of them all. Nothing but silence and a pale reflection of himself, mocking him.
He sat on the edge of the bed and eyed the spot where she had slept. He still thought he could smell her hair, feel her soft hands on his back, calling him back to bed. But she was gone.
"Tell me! Please!" He was no longer talking to the mirror, but it took the brunt of his fury. "Tell me!" His fist struck the silvery surface and it shattered, covered in blood and tears.
Grim, very grim this week. Not because the picture wasn't eye-candy. No sir. Although I have to say that it would have been a more timeless statement of art without the tattoo. Nitpicky, that's me. But what a sexy picture. I could eat it up.
As I wrote the first one, I thought of the mirror scene from the first Matrix. That wasn't the genesis of the piece; the genesis was the phrase this week, strangely enough. But I did think, "Oh hell, people are going to think I'm making a Matrix reference." I wasn't. But I have now, so I suppose there's no escaping it.
Mirrors are potent things. Reflection is something magical, even if you know exactly how it works scientifically. Why else are there mirror-worlds or magic mirrors. There are all sorts of philosophical undertones to mirrors too: is my reflection in a mirror really myself, or is it something else entirely? Do I see myself in a mirror as other people see me, or does the act of reflection change my identity? What happens to my doppelganger when I step away from the mirror.
Mirrors and magic. Mirrors and vanity. Mirrors and seeing what you want to see. It's no accident that I have very few mirrors in my house. I'm not afraid of what I look like, but all the same, I don't believe that my reflection is all there is to it.
Anyway, now I've got a question: what's with PB and the beefcake and the mirrors? This is only the second time I can recall the picture being purely beefcake, and it's the second time with mirrors. And I already did Snow White for a picture entirely unrelated to mirrors.
Since PB has instituted a new policy of link-collection, there's no longer any excuse. You still have time to write a Flash Fiction Friday for this week. THIS WEEK! It's like the future is now! Yeah, you can write it right now, head over to Flash Fiction Friday headquarters, and put your link up there with all the rest of us, and just think about how good that would feel. Pretty good, is how. Pretty damn good.
11 comments:
I like the dark side of your writing. Mirrors rarely tell us what we want to hear because most of the time they tell us the truth, even if we don't admit to seeing it.
I'd blame it on watching a Metalocalypse marathon, but I wrote these before I did that, so apparently I'm just dark as all get out this week.
Actually I didn't think you were making a Matrix reference (although I can see the parallels, your stuff is generally too original to be borrowing from anybody else in that manner). I liked both of these quite a bit, regardless of (or perhaps because of) their darkness.
Maybe I like them so much because you tend to go all fantastic like I do. Or maybe it's just because you're a freakin' great writer. Yes, that's it.
As for the beefcake question: you know, I'm really not sure. I just grab whichever pic catches my attention that particular week. Maybe my subconscious is trying to tell me something?
-- PB
Hmmm... I've seen the first Matrix many times but don't remember the mirror scene to which you refer. I'll have to pay closer attention next time I see it on T.V. ;-) I especially like the second story. Happy FFF!
Mirrors and the shadow are rich themes to plumb. The darkness is always there, it's good for the soul to bring it out into the light.
"then how do you explain the dead unicorns?"
http://video.adultswim.com/metalocalypse/dethtroll.html
Thanks for introducing me to yet another series for my overburdened DVR. :-)
@PB: I just found the coincidence interesting. And you'd better believe I go all fantastic just like you. Two great minds, etc. :)
@TemptingSweets: After Neo takes whichever color pill he takes and is being rejected by the Matrix, he touches the mirror and the mirror engulfs him. It's easy to forget that scene, what with all the explosions and so forth, especially since it comes so early in the movie.
@Oversexed Librarian: I suppose you may be right. Still, I like a happy, sexy story as much as the next gal, and I wish sometimes that I wrote more of those.
@Advizor: Murmaider murmaider murmaider. Brutal.
The first one was good, but the second much darker and richer. And so what if someone makes a Matrix connection. Literary and cinematic icons are a good thing. They give us points of reference.
Had to laugh about the beefcake stuff though. At least this one wasn't being chopped in half by a mirror.
@wordwytch: But the Matrix is so yucky ;) I actually wasn't cautioning against making the reference, just clarifying that I wasn't inspired by the Matrix when I wrote it, although I did think about it after the initial inspiration. But then the Matrix is nothing but cobbled-together references to previous mythology, reworked in a cyberpunk context. There's nothing new under the sun.
Lexi,
ROFLOL!
Methinks the red headed muse protests too much!
Then again, I'm not a fan of the Matrix either. :)
@wordwytch: The first one was okay. Just okay. Back then everyone didn't have a bullet-time special effect set-up and the concept was simple enough, the derivations of previous works were imaginative, and Keanu Reeves wasn't immediately presented as Mecha-Jesus. So I'm perfectly fine with drawing a comparison between my work and the first Matrix. But compare me to Matrix: Revolutions and die ;)
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