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Description
I have changed the photo! I hope you all approve.

Usually I write pieces to go with photos. Last night I wrote this monologue and selected the photo to accompany it. So the main piece here is the words. That is not to undermine the artistry of the photography. The photographer was *eckyducky and the models are ~simoneales and myself. The art on our faces is by *scottish-gardeners .

The words are mine. Select an accent and read.

A bedroom. A young man and woman are on the bed. He wears only jeans and lies on his stomach. She is painting images on his back. Monsters, flowers and deformities.

'Once there was a world where each day the weather was bought by the highest bidder. Each morning the bids would be cast and all humanity would gather around the radio to hear who had won. Once a law suit was brought against a film studio, claiming that their eighty day blizzard had caused the deaths of some twenty three people but it was dismissed almost instantaneously as ludicrous. Besides, said the learned judge, the twenty three had all been elderly and were almost certainly glad of the peace which eternal rest had granted them.'

That's the story I have painted on your back, Toby. Do you like it? There is no need to reply. You'll never see it. How can you see something which is painted on your back? You can not. There is no point in trying really.

My Grandfather used to draw on my back with the tip of his finger. Not with ink or anything. Just his finger. He always drew the same thing: a map. A moving map. It was a map of his old farm. He'd had to sell it years before I was born because of arthritis. Arthritis caused by a bullet through the knee in the war. But he said it was from seeing evil. He said that no one could survive what he saw but he was lying because, even as he said it he was drawing that map of his old farm on my back.

'And here's the boarder of Uncle Eric's property and the dam and the hay shed. Always full of snakes, that hay shed. And here comes Patchy running all the way up the paddock running all the way from her bed under the water tank to fetch the cows. I am waiting here on the veranda. I just have to whistle and Patchy is off up the long paddock to fetch them.'

Years later my first lover and I would write messages one each other's naked backs. Again, not with ink. Only our fingers. We would try to guess what the other was writing but we never managed it. Well, one day I did. I realised he was writing 'love' again and again and had been for months. All the time I had been writing 'hippopotamus' and 'herring' and 'tulip' he had been writing 'love' and I never knew.

So I sucked him off and left. Just pulled on my pants and jacket, shoved my knickers in my bag and left. My back isn't for writing 'love' on. It is for shapeless jackets and scratches, freckles and piercings. It's for me.

I don't mean to make you uncomfortable by talking about my past and all my lovers. But I think that you should be able to take it. You know, I once read a book about how you could read a person's personality by their facial features. I didn't believe a word of it but, when I saw you sitting in the mall that day, pages from that book did drift through my mind and they said that you could take it. Well, they weren't specific enough to say that you could take me talking about old lovers- it was nicely ambiguous so none of the stupid, plum aunts who brought it could jump up and yell 'I married a man with eyes just slightly too close together and it turns out that he doesn't like plum jam at all! Not one bit! What do you have to say to that, Mr Author?' But it said that you could take all sorts of crap.

Like I said, I didn't believe a word of it. I chose you because... let's say you intrigued me. You intrigued me as you sat there, drinking orange juice from a bottle with a straw. I thought 'why would a grown man drink from a bottle with a straw?' and that was enough to get me to look closer and see other things: the way you turned your toes in a fraction, the way you folded over the corners of each page of your book when you had read it, the way you licked your lips subconsciously and the way that the eyes of every person who walked passed in that mall just slide off of you. It intrigued me. How could one person fade into the fabric of society to such an extent that no one even saw him? Was there something wrong with him? Or was it that there was nothing wrong. Nothing at all. Maybe it was the masses in the mall that day who were wrong. Maybe not noticing someone is a sort of sickness. And I thought 'well, I've noticed him so what do I do now?' So I walked over and took your hand and led you away from that dingy coffee table and into the thoroughfare. It seemed the right thing to do at the time. And it made people notice you.

And it made you notice me.

You know, its like that play – the one I saw a long time ago, or maybe didn't, I don't remember- the one which begins 'Once upon a time, there was a country and all the people living in it were a bunch of fucking cunts'.

I wish I'd written those words. They seem to sum of this country; this city; this pastel painted suburb; this house; this bedroom.

Don't take it personally. I'm more a fucking cunt than you are. You are quite nice really. You speak softly, you always buy a train ticket and you have a lovely back. You have beautiful skin, Toby, do you know that? Has anyone ever told you? It sort of glows. I get the feeling that if I kissed it, it would all evaporate - paint, skin, everything- and leave you with only bones.

But I'm not sentimental enough to kiss. Lucky for you, I suppose. And you're too sentimental for it. You'd never impose your lips upon another being.

I'm using you, you know. Using your sentimentality for my own gain in the same way that I am using your beautiful back for my art. And I know you know. But at times, for a fleeting instant, I feel guilty enough to state it, to give you warning and a chance to escape. This is your chance, Toby.

She bends forward and licks his neck.

Sometimes I quite despise you, Toby. Did you know that? Don't answer. When someone speaks for this length of time, they do not wish to be interrupted and they certainly do not want their questions answered. Yes, at times I despise you. It is not your fault. I don't know who's it is. Perhaps it is the fault of those people who failed to see you sitting their with your straw, folding your page corners. Perhaps if one of them had fixed their eyes on you, just for a moment, I wouldn't have had to despite you.

But it isn't all bad, Toby, my dear. At other times I do love you. I love you desperately. So much so that I can not even reach out to touch you. And the stupid thing is that you will be lying their beside me and yet I feel as though my heart would break if I even attempted to bridge the gap between us with a careless hand. So perhaps I lied when I said I was not sentimental. Perhaps this is all a front for some deep seated tenderness. Perhaps the ink and the bids for the weather are all just smoke. Would you like that, Toby? Would you like to believe that this entire diatribe has been pretense? Or would you rather think that I believed that book? That I saw something in your face which told me that you were the one, the only one, and that we would save the world together?

Believe what you want, Toby. I don't mind. I will allow you that luxury.

She kisses his back. Lights down.

Fleur Susannah

Congratulations if you made it the whole way through! It is pretty strange stuff, I know.

Description
I have changed the photo! I hope you all approve.

Usually I write pieces to go with photos. Last night I wrote this monologue and selected the photo to accompany it. So the main piece here is the words. That is not to undermine the artistry of the photography. The photographer was *eckyducky and the models are ~simoneales and myself. The art on our faces is by *scottish-gardeners .

The words are mine. Select an accent and read.

A bedroom. A young man and woman are on the bed. He wears only jeans and lies on his stomach. She is painting images on his back. Monsters, flowers and deformities.

'Once there was a world where each day the weather was bought by the highest bidder. Each morning the bids would be cast and all humanity would gather around the radio to hear who had won. Once a law suit was brought against a film studio, claiming that their eighty day blizzard had caused the deaths of some twenty three people but it was dismissed almost instantaneously as ludicrous. Besides, said the learned judge, the twenty three had all been elderly and were almost certainly glad of the peace which eternal rest had granted them.'

That's the story I have painted on your back, Toby. Do you like it? There is no need to reply. You'll never see it. How can you see something which is painted on your back? You can not. There is no point in trying really.

My Grandfather used to draw on my back with the tip of his finger. Not with ink or anything. Just his finger. He always drew the same thing: a map. A moving map. It was a map of his old farm. He'd had to sell it years before I was born because of arthritis. Arthritis caused by a bullet through the knee in the war. But he said it was from seeing evil. He said that no one could survive what he saw but he was lying because, even as he said it he was drawing that map of his old farm on my back.

'And here's the boarder of Uncle Eric's property and the dam and the hay shed. Always full of snakes, that hay shed. And here comes Patchy running all the way up the paddock running all the way from her bed under the water tank to fetch the cows. I am waiting here on the veranda. I just have to whistle and Patchy is off up the long paddock to fetch them.'

Years later my first lover and I would write messages one each other's naked backs. Again, not with ink. Only our fingers. We would try to guess what the other was writing but we never managed it. Well, one day I did. I realised he was writing 'love' again and again and had been for months. All the time I had been writing 'hippopotamus' and 'herring' and 'tulip' he had been writing 'love' and I never knew.

So I sucked him off and left. Just pulled on my pants and jacket, shoved my knickers in my bag and left. My back isn't for writing 'love' on. It is for shapeless jackets and scratches, freckles and piercings. It's for me.

I don't mean to make you uncomfortable by talking about my past and all my lovers. But I think that you should be able to take it. You know, I once read a book about how you could read a person's personality by their facial features. I didn't believe a word of it but, when I saw you sitting in the mall that day, pages from that book did drift through my mind and they said that you could take it. Well, they weren't specific enough to say that you could take me talking about old lovers- it was nicely ambiguous so none of the stupid, plum aunts who brought it could jump up and yell 'I married a man with eyes just slightly too close together and it turns out that he doesn't like plum jam at all! Not one bit! What do you have to say to that, Mr Author?' But it said that you could take all sorts of crap.

Like I said, I didn't believe a word of it. I chose you because... let's say you intrigued me. You intrigued me as you sat there, drinking orange juice from a bottle with a straw. I thought 'why would a grown man drink from a bottle with a straw?' and that was enough to get me to look closer and see other things: the way you turned your toes in a fraction, the way you folded over the corners of each page of your book when you had read it, the way you licked your lips subconsciously and the way that the eyes of every person who walked passed in that mall just slide off of you. It intrigued me. How could one person fade into the fabric of society to such an extent that no one even saw him? Was there something wrong with him? Or was it that there was nothing wrong. Nothing at all. Maybe it was the masses in the mall that day who were wrong. Maybe not noticing someone is a sort of sickness. And I thought 'well, I've noticed him so what do I do now?' So I walked over and took your hand and led you away from that dingy coffee table and into the thoroughfare. It seemed the right thing to do at the time. And it made people notice you.

And it made you notice me.

You know, its like that play – the one I saw a long time ago, or maybe didn't, I don't remember- the one which begins 'Once upon a time, there was a country and all the people living in it were a bunch of fucking cunts'.

I wish I'd written those words. They seem to sum of this country; this city; this pastel painted suburb; this house; this bedroom.

Don't take it personally. I'm more a fucking cunt than you are. You are quite nice really. You speak softly, you always buy a train ticket and you have a lovely back. You have beautiful skin, Toby, do you know that? Has anyone ever told you? It sort of glows. I get the feeling that if I kissed it, it would all evaporate - paint, skin, everything- and leave you with only bones.

But I'm not sentimental enough to kiss. Lucky for you, I suppose. And you're too sentimental for it. You'd never impose your lips upon another being.

I'm using you, you know. Using your sentimentality for my own gain in the same way that I am using your beautiful back for my art. And I know you know. But at times, for a fleeting instant, I feel guilty enough to state it, to give you warning and a chance to escape. This is your chance, Toby.

She bends forward and licks his neck.

Sometimes I quite despise you, Toby. Did you know that? Don't answer. When someone speaks for this length of time, they do not wish to be interrupted and they certainly do not want their questions answered. Yes, at times I despise you. It is not your fault. I don't know who's it is. Perhaps it is the fault of those people who failed to see you sitting their with your straw, folding your page corners. Perhaps if one of them had fixed their eyes on you, just for a moment, I wouldn't have had to despite you.

But it isn't all bad, Toby, my dear. At other times I do love you. I love you desperately. So much so that I can not even reach out to touch you. And the stupid thing is that you will be lying their beside me and yet I feel as though my heart would break if I even attempted to bridge the gap between us with a careless hand. So perhaps I lied when I said I was not sentimental. Perhaps this is all a front for some deep seated tenderness. Perhaps the ink and the bids for the weather are all just smoke. Would you like that, Toby? Would you like to believe that this entire diatribe has been pretense? Or would you rather think that I believed that book? That I saw something in your face which told me that you were the one, the only one, and that we would save the world together?

Believe what you want, Toby. I don't mind. I will allow you that luxury.

She kisses his back. Lights down.

Fleur Susannah

Congratulations if you made it the whole way through! It is pretty strange stuff, I know.