Puppets & Idols

I’d never seen anyone as beautiful as her. That’s what she was – beautiful. She was a modern day Aphrodite in all her glory. Perfect. Soft lips, two tulip petals and the voice like birdsong which escaped from her mouth. Her startling grey eyes, tinged with a hint of blue that always seem to gaze so luxuriously, the corn silk hair that flowed down to the small of her back. I’d never seen her wear her hair up once, and I’d been watching her…observing her for weeks now – maybe months. This wasn’t obsession, this was love.
I was in love with her, the beautiful woman who passed me in the street every day. The woman who knew nothing about me, but I knew her life story. Her life story fashioned in my mind – what I perceived it to be. I imagined her broken, lost, abandoned. Just waiting and hoping that someone would pick her up, hold her close, and love and cherish her. That hope kept me going; I kept telling myself ‘It’s you that she wants, you that she needs. You can save her.’

I smiled to her as she walked past on the grey Wednesday morning. Her ethereal beauty glowed from her unblemished skin. Her eyes met mine but she walked on, she didn’t grant me the pleasure of seeing the dimples form in the corners of her lips. She walked on gracefully, daintily dodging her way through the crowds of people; away from me.
I had lost her again, and that feeling in my stomach returned; that gnawing of failure at my insides. It swirled and swirled around, and I prepared from the storm, when the sickness reached my brain.
It had happened before and there had been blood shed. Lots of blood.
Blood.

I felt my hands begin to shake and retreated. I kicked open the door of the grotty flat and went for the bathroom. The medicine cabinet was the next victim of my heavy hands. I found the rusting handle and wrenched it open, causing the contents to spill to the grimy linoleum floor. I sank to my knees and pushed away the contents to find him, the straight razor. It had been sharpened somewhat more than it needed to be. It venomously, spilled its poison into my eyes. I smiled and kissed the blade.
“You love me, don’t you?” I whispered, and ran my fingers over the smooth metal. It sang out then, pleasured, purring even.
I grabbed a bag from the supposed bedroom and slung it over my shoulder, placing the razor inside lovingly.

I met the street with a smile on my face; it was going to be a beautiful day after all. I walked the familiar route to her workplace. She worked in the offices of a large company, involved in some sort of advertising. Liars and fakes is what they were.
I checked my watch, and estimated that my arrival would herald her lunch break. Someone was on my side. Someone up there was looking after me. I knew where her lunch break took her. She’d walk the few hundred metres to the staff canteen and pick out her sandwich and a 330ml bottle of juice, only ever orange or apple, I’d noticed. The canteen was unlike the offices, in that it wasn’t contained; easy for anyone to walk in and out as they pleased. I saw her leave her work building and my heart leapt in my chest. I tried to make my footfalls as soft as possible behind her when I noticed that no one had left the building with her. She was alone, and I only had a few hundred meters to make all of this possible. I quickened my pace, ignoring my need to breathe and grabbed her arms. Her soft, warm flesh in my hands made me grip tighter. She wasn’t slipping away now. I felt her body begin to shake. In fear? Of me? I’d become one of them.
I didn’t mean it. I swear I didn’t.
“Please don’t hurt me,” she whimpered.
It was an awful sound – horrible, ugly. It blackened my thoughts and I pulled her with me out of the compound. She allowed herself to be dragged around like the ragdoll she was. I was the puppeteer, master. In that moment, I was the most important thing in her life. I revelled in the sensation and walked with her faster down the empty back streets. Her whimpering had softened somewhat, and her face had flushed. It was astounding; I had made this woman everything I wanted her to be.

We stopped at the back of an abandoned building.
I touched her cheek softly and searched her eyes for a hint of something. Her eyes were dead already; soulless. I wondered if the soul had ever been there, and if she’d ever really been alive.
She flinched and I took a step backwards. I reached into the bag and pulled out the razor, smiling sincerely at her.
“This will make it better. It will all go away now. The demons will be gone, and you’ll be able to feel again,” I whispered to her and kissed her cheek.
Her eyes were squeezed shut and her face was tense. Her petal lips had flattened into one rouged line and I saw her fists, clenched at her sides. I was so close to her, I could feel her breathing, her heartbeat. I could smell her skin.
“You’re not going to scream. Are you?” I smiled softly.
She said nothing, remaining in her temporary state of paralysis. As if she was cast in marble. She was an idol.

Once. One angel kiss of the blade to her alabaster throat. Her blood was like nothing I’d seen or spilt before. As I left I looked at her stained blouse and whiter still cheeks. I smiled and left, slipping him back into the bag around my shoulders. I had made her live, and as I looked into her eyes and saw consciousness slip from her I could feel her saying ‘thank you’. I was a good person, and she loved me. We were both beautiful, and never once closer to one another.