Excerpt
from Chapter XI,
Ella's Goblin
To
return to Chapter Index click: HERE
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XI.1
Ella to Angie
Sunday, August 24, 2003 9:57 PM
How did I spend my morning, Angie? Allow me to commence by asking:
do I ever know what sort of compulsion’s going to be inhabiting
me (And “inhabiting” is certainly the word for it:
a compulsion’s like a separate being that takes up residence
within one, bends one’s every thought and action to its
will, kicks up a storm until it’s slavishly indulged!) when
I awaken? Absolutely not!
Listen: sometimes I awaken bursting with energy, glad to have
slumber over and done with, and am looking forward to the new
day with giddy impatience—simply thrilled to be alive, from
my tingling fingertips to my tingling toes. In such cases, I’m
not aware of wanting a single thing, because I’m in such
a delightfully bouncy mood that it’s an end in itself and
wanting something would only get in the way. I’m quite the
easy girl on those days: anything’ll do, as far as recreation—or
the lack thereof—goes.
Othertimes, I get up with a clearly defined thing in the forefront
of my thoughts that I absolutely crave and realize I’ll
need to obtain before I’ll enjoy any peace, often something
very ordinary: a glimpse of the 59th Street skyline from Cat Rock
in the park, or a saunter about Cleo’s Needle and Turtle
Pond and Belvedere Castle and Cedar Hill; or an egg white omelet
stuffed with peppers, onions, and mushrooms, with a sliver of
wild salmon on the side; or a jaunt to Saks or a chain drugstore
or Bed, Bath & Beyond or even a hardware store—and not
even to buy anything, simply to be in those surroundings; or a
cab ride to some neighborhood I haven’t been in for a year—the
Lamp Distinct on Allen, the Flower District on Sixth, K-Town at
32nd and Fifth, the Spanish Restaurant District on Delancey’s
north side...
Alright! These ordinary things, aside from the fervor with which
they’re craved, are precisely that: ordinary! But
what of the other compulsions that have welcomed me to a new day?
I’ve awakened thirsting to 1) put on a formal gown and wide-brimmed
hat with feathers and go by myself to rent a rowboat at The Boathouse
and row it to the northernmost shore of the Lake so I could run
my fingers through the reeds and listen to the calls of the redwing
blackbirds, 2) eat Abalone sushi (Served in their pretty pearly
shells, which I still have on the windowsill: how beautifully
they reflect the sun and gleam like miniature rainbows!) atop
the Empire State Building with my Best Girl with both of us dressed
in matching pink pleated skirts, white blouses, and silver-buckled
shoes (Remember?), 3) go to Elaine’s with Stevie in a limo
dressed as Marie Antoinette (Sure, I stole her from you; but what
are girlfriend’s for, if not to provide fashion tips? And
just remember: I was the first to be Marie in public!) and then,
midway through our dinner, traipse off to the ladies’ to
change into a pair of tattered cutoffs and a men’s denim
shirt with my hair (How I winced while doing it!) teased into
a frightful mess of a lion’s mane, 4) go—again, with
you—to Tony’s di Napoli and order “Tony’s
Famous Twin N.Y. Cut Sirloins” and sit at our table staring
into space, not saying a word, while sipping sparkling mineral
water and ignoring the steaks: wasn’t that fun? The waiter
would come over, wondering if something was amiss, and we’d
inform him we were vegetarians—that meat was sickening and
unhealthy—in a matter-of-fact tone. The waiter’s astonishment
quickly spread to the remainder of the staff and many of the surrounding
diners; continuing to serenely sit in our matching aquamarine
dresses and hair ribbons, we blankly stared at nothing for over
an hour, then paid our bill and departed with the steaks untouched
and much wonder surrounding us. And it was precisely that sort
of subdued astonishment that I wanted to bring about: all the
particulars of how to accomplish the feat greeted me in the morning
the second I opened my eyes.
That’s right, I woke up with the above doings clearly pictured
in my head, knowing I’d know no peace until I made them
actuality. And I ask: where do these compulsions come from? After
all, it’s not like I go to bed even remotely suspecting
I’ll awaken with them in my bloodstream: are they the residue
of dreams I’ve forgotten? have they been birthed in slumber
by a mischievous—infuriatingly exacting—subconscious?
Yes, infuriating for sure! It’s not like I always greet
these spur-of-the-moment obsessions with open arms and a joyful
heart! Sometimes I view them as an obstacle in the path of a peaceful
day—a hurdle that must be cleared! As I said, it’s
like another creature’s taken up residence in my body and
is calling the shots! I’m often thinking: “Christ,
here we go again!”
And why, Dearest, do I bring the matter up? It’s because
this morning I woke up wanting to be plowed silly in the men’s
room of a greasy Chinese diner! And more: I had to be wearing
a fur with nothing on underneath. So I called up Jacob. I mean,
he owed me, right? I played abducted Roman wench to his Nero,
so he can certainly rearrange his Saturday on my behalf! He had
a date with some Waspy girl, rendezvous at the Princeton Club
and then golf at the 23rd Street driving range. (Ha! It’s
not easy to picture Jacob playing golf; but, in a twisted sort
of way, the not being able to picture it—considering it
laughably improbable—makes me like him all the more: the
unpredictability thing, right?) Anyway, preppy girl had to take
a backseat to yours truly: I told Jacob what I wanted, and he
rescheduled her tout suite!
So it unfolds as follows: in obedience to the particulars dictated
by my exacting imagination, I do my hair up beehive style (I don’t
have enough of a mane to wrap it around and build a hive that’s
way up there so I added a magenta extension: when I was done I
was quite tickled with the way the magenta spiraled up in combination
with my natural black!) and put on a pair of silver stilettos,
plus my red fox coat; and nothing else, not even thigh-highs.
Jacob comes to fetch fetching me and we hop a cab to Chinatown
at Canal and Mott. Ha! Suddenly we’re in another world without
having ventured from Manhattan: lychee’s, breadfruit, coconuts,
chow mien, and roast duck are being hawked by sidewalk vendors;
eels, carp, and frogs are splashing in holding tanks; bushel baskets
are overflowing with whelk and moon snails; ginseng and ginger
root are in the windows of the drug stores; bamboo plants, palms,
ivory, and jade are everywhere—there’s an omnipresent
scent of incense...
Oh, I’m in a capricious mood, all right—Chinatown
has an immediate effect on me: it’s almost as if I’m
revisiting stimuli from a former life and being driven nuts by
it! The incense and chit-chat in Chinese and trays of fruit I
don’t even know the names of; the dirtiness (Fish heads
and chicken bones in the gutter, for God’s sake!), the clutter,
the neon signs aglow in the daylight... It all gets under my skin
and in my nerves and makes me rabbit jumpy right off, such that
I have no choice but to require Jacob to yank me into a doorway
(I don’t know how I’d thrive without doorways!) and
rough me up a bit!
We scamper down Mott past Bayard, south of the park where the
old men play chess and wild volleyball games are held: more residential
here, we’ll be less apt to be interrupted...
“I’m too damn antsy!” I declare when a suitably
isolated doorway—in a dead end alley (Do dead end alleys
even exist anywhere else in town?)—is found. “Feeling
whirled off my foundations into splintered thoughts, blurry stress,
crazy nerves! How am I to fully savor my degradation in a diner
if I’m too overwrought, jittery? So pull me in here and
take me down a peg or two, out of this tension! Lift my fox coat
and whack me, make my ass cheeks sting!”
“So you’re bored with the feathery feel of fur?”
Jacob asks. “You’re in need of violence?”
“Never mind what I’m bored with, or if I’m bored,”
I answer. “Hell, I’m not bored! I’m hopped up
nutsy! Just flog me! With a hand, rolled up paper—whatever!
Damn! What nonsense my Goblin gets me into!”
“Goblin? I’m a goblin? How can you call me a goblin
when you’re the one who wants a spanking? Sorry to disappoint,
but I have no particular need to slap you around! You’re
asking me to do it!”
“Would you just listen! I’m not calling you a goblin!
I’m talking about my Goblin, OK?—the creature
that invades me during sleep and confronts me with crazy cravings
when I wake up! Think I want to be banged in an unclean diner?
My Goblin wants it, not me! I’m Ella the enfevered tramp
who’s been whipped out of bed to Chinatown, robbed of a
peaceful Sunday, by a highly infuriating creature, and the name
of that creature is: my Goblin! Get it? (It’s
here that I lift my coat with one hand and spank myself with the
other.) Now will you please take over, before I go insane?”
“In honor of your Goblin, then,” answers Jacob as
he presses me frontwards into the wall, lifts the back of my coat
to my waist, and smacks my behind with his hand.
“Your hand only?” I taunt. “Do I strike you
as being a wilting wallflower, terrified of sterner measures?
Did I back down when Nero lashed me to the post? Huh? Where’s
Nero now, gone into hiding?”
“Nero
can come back, if you wish.”
“If I wish? For Christ’s sake, Jacob! Do you need
pinching awake? Why do you think you’ve been selected for
this mission? My Goblin needs appeasing, and... I’m not
a Princeton Club preppy, Jacob! What the hell?”
I’m feeling something resembling panic, Angie: have I chosen
the wrong man for the job?
“What the hell what, princess?” Jacob asks sarcastically—at
which I whip my head around, stare at him with a mixture of anguish
and anger. But all’s well! Much to my relief, I see he’s
unfastened his belt and is removing it...
“Ah,
yes! You like that, don’t cha princess?”
“I
deserve it!” I hear myself half-shouting. “A taste
of belt hiss and kiss, savage slashes of leather! I am
a spoiled girl, Jacob! Spoiled girls, they’re disconnected
from conflict—it isn’t healthy! So use your belt and
yell some stuff! Yell that I’m a prissy sissy and need to
be taught life’s rife with contrast; that, without a little
pain, there’s no use feeling safe! Say I’m a corporate
whore who needs to be torn from my sheltered existence, plunged
into enlightening turmoil!” (Yes, that was me missing you
and Miss Whippie, Angie! I adore the things you say during our
Miss Whippie sessions: the speeches you give while making me wince
and squirm are the mantra I cling to for comfort!)
“No talking!” Jacob commands. “No, strike that—spout
whatever you want, if you dare and are able! Soon you won’t
be capable of speech!” And, with that, he lays on a flurry
of belt wallops that have me raking my nails against the wall
as my knees grow weak.
“Spout some stuff, huh?” he continues, laughing. “OK!
Fair skin gets bruised and the spoiled idiot learns a thing or
two about the meaning of safety! The corporate slut who’s
grossly overpaid to slouch at a cushy job finds out darker forces
lurk in Chinese doorways! She begins to appreciate how well-situated
she is in life by means of some belt thwacks! She learns not to
take an easy life for granted, courtesy of my indulgent belt that
raises the welts of salvation!”
Jacob’s making fun of me, and I’m not one to tolerate
that. “Is that all you’ve got?” I ask with derision.
“When I ask a man to flog me, I expect him to be a man and
make me regret my request! I want to be cracked and thwacked and
whacked until I forget my name, get delirious, howl like a wounded
animal! I want an out-of-my-body experience induced by excessive
agony! So are you man enough for it, or just a cowering little
blowhard mouse?”
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LIAISONS
FOR LAUGHS:
ANGIE & ELLA'S SUMMER OF DELIRIUM
Excerpt from Chapter XI,
Ella's Goblin
Copyright
© 2009
by Robert Scott Leyse
All rights reserved.
To
return to Chapter Index click: HERE
