the lady

He linked his fingers and nestled his hand behind his head and felt the exquisite relief of accomplished defecation and through the slit windows above him the sky was fiercely blue. His kimono was open and its halves hung on either side of his legs like the trampled flags of an occupied nation. His paper white skin was rough on the flanks for it dried out terribly in the cold, and was pocked with what looked like claw marks and resultant hives that rose like landscape from his softening paunch (his kitten displayed a singular cruelty to all in its path and to him more than any; he chased it screaming to the cat flap and yearned while there to lynch it in majestic ritual and to watch its pretty eyes bulge, but could not quite bring himself to cross that line; they both preferred instead this daily minute torture, ever back, ever forth). He had spent almost an hour tending his sanitisations, methodically scrubbing his – in particular – genital and anal areas until the buffed skin felt more utensil than organ, a plastic expanse of functional utility that was at great remove from the conventions of emotive morality against which one might customarily assess these areas and their goings on.

 

In moments The Lady would knock. It was as he had arranged. A great many months of planning had led to this February afternoon, and he had delivered his careful instructions to The Lady’s employer in the week then passed, with a further smaller set of instructions themselves demanding absolute adherence without exception to the already provided careful instructions. His passion for endless regression being what it was, he could have proceeded with ever-increasing webs of instructional allusion, instructions for instructions for instructions for and so on, were it not for the fact of The Lady’s employer’s insistence that he didn’t. The Lady’s employer was an especially no-nonsense sort of a do-as-I-say-will-you-or-else-(makes-throat-slitting-gesture-with-index-finger)-do-you-understand-me fellow and one to whom he felt almost violently compelled to listen. Though the instructions were far too complex to discuss, their undeviating discharge was assured. The Lady was an experienced professional, it said as much on the accompanying literature.

 

THE LADY 
An experienced professional

 

For an experienced professional it was safe to assume that the undeviating discharge of even complex instructions was guaranteed. There are too few experienced professionals in this world, he thought to himself whilst shifting one buttock in his seat. Little wonder instructions counted for shit. He relished an ordered universe. He enjoyed taking instruction and he enjoyed providing instruction, and found that the taking and provision of instructions perfectly suited the disparate poles of his personality: he yearned for a life of absolute thoughtlessness, a sacrifice of self to occurrence, amply provided by the taking of instruction; similarly, the dictatorial tendencies that he secretly nurtured like youth and that he found reached their peak within the confines of the bedroom were given generous room to develop in their provision. It was perfect.

 

There were three firm knocks upon the door, as the instructions had stipulated. He unlinked his fingers and rested his palms flat upon the arms of his chair. He felt an association of emotions that straddled excitement and terror and he felt his minor genital appendage stirring. Though no visible change occurred to the appendage it slumped to one side with the distant building blood like a dropped soft ornament. He felt suddenly ravenous. The disgust he felt for his own body was exemplified in this combination. The dark hair that grew at the small of his back and into the slice of his arse and from there in on-off routes around his thighs and elsewhere was, he thought, foul, queerly monochrome set against the sallow skin, and gave him an appearance somehow of absolute malfunction, but marginally less foul, he thought, than its imagined removal. He would – and did – pay great sums for the enactment of such instructions of his exact design that would liberate him from these thoughts of such despicable self-appraisal. The kitten watched him from the carpet with profound distrust. There were a further three knocks at the door and it took focus not to answer it. He had a number of photographs of his mother framed and hanging on his wall, taken during her youth. She had been a mostly attractive woman with a very tall if shapeless body, though her face was asymmetrical and had the appearance of having been whittled into form from a harsh material, rendered angry by the struggle of a complex build. He had draped lengths of kitchen towel over the photographs as though she were Christ, to shield her from the coming acts. Although she had been dead for almost three years, or perhaps because of it, he would be unable to enjoy himself under her gaze, which in life had been morose even at times of intense jubilation. The front door handle turned and the door was rattled and pushed and he then heard the shifting of small items. The instructions had stated the location of the spare key and when to locate it and implement its use. The door opened and The Lady entered, and in a moment of unexpected reticence he drew the halves of his kimono over his penis, which was venison red at the crown and flopped like a small and hardly-filled sock from the centre of his distended mons.

 

The Lady was some five foot eight in unbranded trainers, compact and powerful looking and thickly bearded. Neither spoke as The Lady went about the essential duties, placing an Asda bag-for-life onto the small dining table that could comfortably accommodate two people at most. The Lady approached the lamp in the corner of the room and tentatively fingered the light bulb, which was cool enough to the touch, then unscrewed it carefully and replaced it with a bulb of deep green pigmentation. The light it cast was eerie and disorienting but also seductive, like watching post-watershed programmes on a stranger’s television. It was not for The Lady to question why only this one bulb should be replaced, with the room still fringed with the workaday white aura from the left-on lights of the neighbouring rooms so as to provide an almost pointless effect; suffice it to say that it was a stipulation within the preparatory phase of the written instructions that had been memorised in their entirety with brute professionalism. The Lady approached him and stood at a distance of two-and-a-half feet from his chair, a faint pencil guideline still mostly visible on the carpet from an earlier visit.

 

“Take off your dress please,” he said. The Lady was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt and removed both garments. So it had been written, so it would unfurl.

 

“Take off your knickers please, and bra,” he said. The Lady wore only boxer shorts that were shed accordingly.

 

“Touch yourself softly,” he said. “Between the legs and similar erogenous locales.” The Lady moved not an inch.

 

“Make tender love to me please,” he said rather desperately, gripping to the arms of the chair. The Lady frowned quite slightly.

 

“The instructions stipulate no such love.” The Lady carried a deep and powerful voice.

 

“Fuck the instructions!” The kimono slipped with the force of his words, the genital beneath it less noticeable than ever. 

 

“The secondary instructions stipulate no such dismissal. To defy the instructions is to negate the instructions.”

 

“Fuck the secondary instructions too. Please just…”

 

“This interaction is not within the remit of the instructions provided. My role is to not deviate. The instructions stipulate: ‘prepare Reuben sandwich in green lighting wearing underwear garments drawn from The Lady’s own collection’.”

 

The Lady returned to the small dining table and began to draw ingredients from the bag for life. The kitchen towel fell from the photographs of his mother, dislodged by movement; he squirmed beneath their contemptuous scrutiny and felt himself flushed and stood to remedy the exposure. “Sit the fuck down,” The Lady said, slicing four three-quarter inch slices of rye bread and throwing a printed copy of the instructions into his revolting lap. He glanced at them. In the event that I should attempt to deviate from the instructions myself, they said clearly, I should be reminded without exception that the world is nauseated by all I am. He lowered himself back into the chair. “The world,” said the Lady, “is nauseated by all you are.” He nodded compliantly for it was very true. The Lady whisked mayonnaise, horseradish, Worcester and Tabasco sauces, sugar and dill into a decent Russian dressing, then slathered it generously onto the prepared rye with pastrami, Gruyere and sliced gherkins and cut the sandwiches in half for eating. They looked tremendous. The two of them ate the sandwiches in silence, the Lady standing behind the kitchen table and chewing methodically, he sitting in his chair and trying not to cry. He adored Reuben’s, especially well made one’s such as this, but they were a poor substitute for the physical companionship of a lost parent. He would have to redraft his instructions. Professional or no, The Lady had only so much to work with. He was confident that The Lady’s employer would not only permit but actively encourage some orthodox sensuality.

 

After the sandwiches were consumed The Lady washed the plates and other equipment and returned empty packaging and scraps to the bag for life, and dressed and unscrewed the green light bulb and replaced the original as though change was little but fantasy glimpsed in snatches from something incredibly fast moving. Though they still were it was as if The Lady had never been there. 

 

He gestured towards the sideboard, laden with his mother’s crystal ornaments. 

 

“There’s money,” he said. “Please take it and go.”

 

“You make the arrangements with my employer,” said The Lady. “As before.”

 

 

“Yes.”

 

“See you.”

 

He rolled up the printed instructions and held the cylinder aloft.

 

“Now pop that up your pussy and piss off,” he said unconvincingly. The Lady said nothing. “See you next week.”

 

The Lady nodded and opened the door and left, and he could hear the shifting of small items and the retreat of footsteps and what must be life, he supposed, if you could call it that.