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She knows that he would never understand, so she keeps a part of herself hidden.  Extraordinarily hidden.  She makes sure he's deeply asleep before she sneaks out of the apartment, going out into the night to get what she needs that he can't give her.  The one thing she doesn't *want* him to give her, because she loves him.

He is a good man, a hard worker, a devoted lover, but unimaginative and uncaring of the more adventurous sides of life, of sexuality.  She's sure that he would be shocked to know of her fantasies, the dark desires that awaken her in the middle of the night.  So she hides them so deeply inside that she almost forgets for a time, until the hunger begins to burn in her again.

She takes her camera to capture the beauty of her objects of desire.  The sharp angles, the livid lines, and intriguing shadows are caught in glorious shades of grey by the unflinching lens.  She develops the pictures in her private dark room, between the weddings, birthday parties, and bar mitzvahs.   The familiar routine takes on the feeling of a sacred ritual.  She never stops to wonder about the right and wrong of what she does.  It simply doesn't occur to her to question the morality of what fulfills her desires, only what would he think if he knew?

She reverently places the photographic records of her late night forays to the mortuary in a carved wooden box her father brought her from Hong Kong when she was ten, the Christmas before the summer he died at sea, somewhere near New Guinea she thinks.  Neither does she consider what deeper meaning such action may hold.  She simply doesn't care.  She hides the box on a shelf behind books that he would never want to read, only taking them out when he goes to work or out with his friends.

She spreads the glossy eight by tens out on the floor, the hardwood making perfect maple colored frames.  She doesn't touch herself because she doesn't need to.  It's not about the physical gratification they give her, or that she could give herself using them.  It has become more spiritual than that.  The control she has over them, from placement of limbs to the very thoughts in their heads, is the driving force.  She gives them life through imagination, a more exciting and vital life than that which they probably lived.  Adventurous and rapturous, she breathes it into them, while they stare back in silent appreciation, accepting her devotion as their due.

She picks a close up of a black haired beauty, so different from *him*.  She remembers how she wrapped his arms, tattooed and muscular, around her.  Cool flesh molded to her body in the ways that *she* chose, the sharp scent of formaldehyde arousing her as it burned her nose.  She sighs as reliving the memory dampens and heats her body.  She lies back and lets the cold of the floor seep through the diaphanous gauze of her gown, cooling and enflaming as she drifts down a stream of silence.

When the door opens, she sits up in alarm with a cry of distress stillborn on her lips.  She didn't expect him home for hours, yet here he is staring at her in wordless shock.  But it's not her, but the photographs that he stares at, and she sees that he knows.  He knows what they are, what she's done.  He sees what she is.

She watches him struggle with his newfound knowledge, trying to understand, and she sees that he can't.  But he is willing to try.  As he kneels beside her and touches the pictures with the tips of his fingers, he asks why.  Not condemnation, just a serious question.

And she realizes that she doesn't know.  She doesn't want to.  She might even be afraid to know, but it doesn't matter anyway.  "Why" is not the point.  She just wants the power of playing with her dolls in peace, in the cold white-tiled silence of the dead rooms.  She wants to kiss still lips and imagine the response.  She wants complete control over people who won't talk back and won't ever be disappointed.  It seems like such a simple thing to her, but could he possibly understand?

He offers.  She rejects.  He pleads, and she relents.  His desire to please her is an overwhelming joy, but likely the most frightening thing she has ever experienced.  He is not like *them*.  He breathes and moves and speaks in a dazed whisper, until she places her hand over his mouth.

She opens a window letting the March breeze cool the room further, then traces the goose bumps on his naked skin.  It's not quite right until she lies down against him and pulls a slack arm around her.  She has to bend each finger to the curve of her breast, and then it's not his touch anymore.  It's hers.  She's made it hers.  She tilts her head back and places a kiss on his slightly blue lips, sighing at the glorious unresponsiveness.

She drifts off to sleep knowing that he could never really get it, because it's all in her head.  But he loved her enough to try.
 

The End.

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