Plastic Bodies by Kelly Moehlman Bene
“She’s walking now her skin looks blue not bruised.”
Fiction by Kelly Moehlman Bene
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She feels the beginning, the skin of plastic. A hard comfort in her hand, the control of this thing in her hand, a body. The body of a Barbie in the heat of her hand. The sweat of her hand dripping plastic paths down a body of hard. She holds the Barbie in her right, the dominant one, the hand of control. She holds this plastic body of perfection, of human body perfection, in her hand, the right, the dominant.
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And look there don’t you see the Ken doll? The Ken doll, see there. He lays on the ground. He’s naked! Can’t you see he’s naked? Oh no! Put some clothes on him quick! No but see, that’s not the game. The game, this is a game called Naked. We put Ken here like this. [She laid the plastic body on carpeted ground]. His body stays up this way, you see that? He faces up, to look up to see the girl one right? He sees her there on top of him. No no, it’s not about looking at each other. He has this thing right? He has this thing attached to him just there. Yes yes, I know it’s funny. This thing it hangs down there and when he gets excited the thing stretches out, or up really. Yeah I know, it’s not so funny once you get used to it. And then the girl one lays on top see? Stiff as a body. She’s plastic so she doesn’t flop around. And she’s cold and hard so it’s not gross. No sounds or nothin’. What do you mean, and then what? Well, then they do it. Sex. I know. Don’t repeat that we’ll get in trouble. Yeah don’t say that out loud we’ll be in trouble and I’ll be in more cause I told you. But yeah, that’s the end. Well, not the end but I don’t really wanna’ go into it. ‘Cause, it’s embarrassing ok? I don’t want to talk about it. It’s embarrassing. Well. Maybe I can tell you. But not out loud for Chrissakes. I’ll send it through our minds ok? Yeah! I can do that! Whaddya’ think? Ok ok settle down. Sit there like that, yeah cross-legged. I’ll just show you so sit there like that. You can’t move ok? You gotta’ keep real still cause that’s how the game works. It’ll end if you move ok? So don’t move.
[In a whisper so small she’s not sure she heard anything at all. Perhaps she imagined it].
“This is what the Barbies do.”
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The Barbies they start out all cold. Or no. Not both just the one. The smaller one. The one who’s smallest. Well, right here the smallest is the girl so she’ll be the one to lay out still. So still she gets cold. Real cold. Plastic gets colder than skin. So it’s good. It shows you well. You’re real cold laying there but you know you have to lay real still. If not the game won’t work. Keep still. And after a while you’re so still and you feel kinda’ numb you start to sleep, just a bit just a bit. On the edge see? The edge of sleep. And then suddenly like, the warmest warm is pressed all over you. And it feels so good. Warm warm warm streaking all over you. Your body flipped looking at the ceiling and the hand travels down your belly and it tickles a bit and you laugh a little, just a little, not too much cause you’re supposed to be quiet and still remember? Really quiet and still so you stay still when the hand kinda’ tickles you cause it feels good too. And then the hand does something funny but you don’t laugh. This time it feels good so you don’t laugh. Really good. I mean, I feel funny telling you now. It’s kind of embarrassing actually but oh well. And so that hand does these circles, really slow on that spot down there. Yeah down there above where you go to the bathroom. I know. I thought it was funny too just at first but really that’s really the spot. And there’s these slow circles there and it feels so good the shivers come. Like you get when the bath is too hot? When your momma forgets to turn on the cold until it’s too late? And you’re in there and it’s so warm you’re not sure you can sit in it but you do. Well, cause you know, you’re mom wants you to take the bath so you get in and it kinda burns. But then you get used to it and it feels so good right? It feels really good. And that’s how it feels at first. With the hand circling and petting and putting the hand
down like this. It feels so good.
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That hand. I wait for that hand at night. Years later I wait for it. In the dark. The dark carries memory, imagination. Drawn back, back to days of young.
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When his hand comes up my hip, grazing assthigh, over my lower body the fat hanging off a belly of a woman, him not caring. And that heat. The heat penetrates my cold, my body of cold, the cold encasing me completely but that heat. That heat I remember the kind that brings a hot bath shrieking skin. Delight. That hand is on wet moving but slow in motion circles and weighted. A hand with tips of tiny movement and slow and full and just right there.
And he wants more he does I know and his thing filling mine I want more too he wants I want and it’s what I want I know it must be what he wants and it’s going he’s going it’s going the repetition and I think it’s what I want he wants he wants more in and out the repetition and he wants harder I think I want he wants harder banging my tailbone ow no he needs I think I might want banging on the bones banging my breath is that my breath it’s leaving ow no banging the repetition he wants he needs I don’t I’m not sure ugh no he wants he needs he thrusts he thrusts he thrusts repeat and I don’t want no I don’t want stop and stop please stop I can’t say it I should say it I can’t he thrusts and thrusts and goes deeper harder angry he’s angry and I’m screaming but silent no I don’t I don’t want no please he goes hard angry grunts his face I can’t see his face its rage it’s rage look the rage I can’t I can’t I need out please stop please stop don’t please.
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I go up and up he’s coming down. I think he is he’s here.
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Almost. Silence. The breath I think I hear it. I can’t recall the breath at this height the ceiling but now we’re here the breath so quiet he might be sleeping I think he’s sleeping. I’m numb maybe. That body is mine I think. There is cold in the room I think. Move. Move that leg pick it up just above and move it over his just now but shh be careful. Those legs are mine I think.
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She’s walking now her skin looks blue not bruised. The moonlight slanting through glass so dirty, a window of college boy grime. She’s walking toward the bathroom just five steps three hundred they seem. Why does it take her so long? The door opens maybe it’s automatic. No. It’s moved by the plastic hand right there do you see it? The girl steps in. No lights they are too bright keep the dark. Hold onto the dark. The dark can wrap her this way nobody else can wrap her. The toes brought her here they rest on dirt of a rug never washed the body of boys, gross college boys, fills the threads. Toes scrunch to feel. Feel something. She can feel these threads so light, the stroke under her toes. Feeling. She’s feeling. She can feel. The thought sticks in her ribs and a jolt of pressure rears up out her chest into her throat exploding past two lips sounding into the night air a quick sharp pain cry, a shout of pain releasing freedom. She shouts. Quick. Short. She stops it short. Canalled by logic and control. But the trembling can’t be controlled, the cry still inside moves her body, heaves her chest with shakes unmanaged. She allows it. The restrained cry she allows it. Nobody will hear her. Nobody will see her. She’ll allow this passage of pain through silent cries. This is ok. This she can manage. In the repetition of this way, this way of sex, she learns she can handle this routine. It is her way of sex. She accepts it as true.
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Header image courtesy of Alison Antario. Visit her online, here.
Kelly Moehlman Bene is a human who tries to write some truths. She came from the Midwest, where she earned a degree in music education from Michigan State University. She recently wrote true and strange things with National Bestselling author, Lidia Yuknavitch, as a member of the Corporeal Writing Workshop. Kelly currently lives in the Hudson Valley with the mountains, green trees and her husband the musician.