Galatea

(Free-writing experiment to work through some random thoughts.)
My hands were wet and black and busy. They were certain, while my mind was loose and shaking in its shell.
The chassis frame was simple, smooth, and elegant. I’d chosen every dent and every scratch – each piece came with a history, a story, or a song behind it. I could have taken something fresh and new, but I wanted texture and meaning. I wanted perfection from age, like wine or history. Some things take a trip or two to settle in, and a good frame is no different. I knew it wouldn’t buckle. I knew it wouldn’t break. I knew that it could bend. All in all, that was the easiest work and I set to it with distant eyes.
What was I doing? Why? What did I hope to make, and what was I making it for? Was this perverted or was it passion? Was it both or neither, or something in between? The frame was soft and hard in places, reacting to my fingers by twisted nerve and old reflex. I could feel it, cold and firm, much firmer than it would be once I’d breathed the life inside it. What life could I breathe inside it? What was I doing? And why?
Next came the more delicate components. Lengths and ribbons of fleshy tube, all lubricated and carefully set into a bed in the belly of the frame. I built connections and made a pathway, a conduit for what was yet to come. My hands were certain, but I was not. This was delicate, but unimaginative. The interior was the same, all but the flaws, and here I had no time for flaws. The only stories here were climaxes and epilogues, and I had no mind for those. To know the destination, I’d need to know where I was headed with the work. The answer still eluded me.
I was holding the pumping piston as the juice slid between my fingers, and it struck me. I wanted this for me, for no one else. This creation was something my hands were aching for, taking heed from something deeper than my mind. I’d chosen carefully from memory and dream - each component, each fluid, each whisper and murmur and spark followed some half-remembered, half-imagined ideal. I was making something that my heart desired, and holding that heart, I placed a wet and gentle kiss upon it. The thrum of resonance was immediate – it would know desire as I knew it, in its fingers, in its frame. The mind would be the last to know.
The human work required a special touch that way.
The needle and thread were smoothly sewn, but the face was the slowest work of all. My mind had joined me, and it whispered aloud through my lips. It gave me answers, gave me guidance. I bore the muse internal, and before my eyes, a skull gave way like marble before the chisel, my scalpel in the sculptor’s trance. She looked at me, unblinking, as I set pale green jewels into their places. I let her watch as I set the height of her cheeks, the sharpness of her jaw. I slid a skin over her, working the living clay with a delicate cruelty – I left nothing out of place. Each blemish was intention, each error cut and smoothed away. I folded her lids over at the last, once I was sure those eyes looked on me with approval. Eyes should be closed for the first kiss, after all.
I breathed in my hopes and wonder, and I breathed out my doubts, my fears, and my weakness. I took a dozen flushing breaths, taking in all of the ambitions I could hope to share and letting out the stains of hard experience. She was a gentle work, and I would keep her clean. I was sure. I was certain. I was ready. I pressed my lips to hers and I exhaled, and with a gasp, she took in all that I could hope to give her.
I felt a flutter and her eyelids slowly rose. New fingers tensed and grasped my face, too hard, too clumsy. There was a moan, a scream, a moan again, and then she softened against me, she stilled. She looked at me. And with a cracking voice, she spoke. “Your hands are wet…master.”
I smiled. “Clean them, please. And thank you.” And with gentle lips and tongue, she set to work. She stained and smudged her cheeks and chin, but it was perfect. She was perfect. She was mine.