Hard & Tenderly

Hard and tenderly...

They called me "Mr. X, Indeed", the special ones that saw so deep inside the souls of those who were so lonely. I was down beneath the bottom, when my vacant staring caught them gaily parading up and down the street - followed by some stinking masses, freeing fumes and giving gasses to the brown and nearly worn out air. But they had that certain presence like the ether or the essence of the cleansing upper atmosphere. Laughing, loving, and without a doubt, they simply strode about the streets that other creatures left alone. I ran across, myself compulsive, with the feeling of a pulsing drum that pounded underneath my skin. A tingling in my tangled brain was screaming that this was insane, but it also told me, "touch it", too.  
"Stand aside", I told the masses, and with that I made my passage from the lonely to the only side. Openly they smiled to greet me, like they always knew they'd meet me somewhere walking up and down the road. I knew I must appear as someone far beyond the common come-on, so I could not say my name was Ed. So I said, "I'm Mr. X who wants to come and who expects to help and guide your efforts to succeed". They laughed a little bit at me, and then said, "Mr. X - Indeed", and hugged me somehow hard and tenderly.

Hard and tenderly...

Devotion?

Shortly after I first me them, something that I said upset them and perhaps we should have parted then. I was saying how important that they were and what a fortune could be made if they would let me try. But I did not understand why they took in and had to stand by those who were so worthless to them both. Then they got extremely angry, shouting that the seedy gang behind them may not have much value in my eyes... but they were people and were needing what we give and if you see them like you see some roaches on the floor, then the sad one must be you who sees himself as too good to do something for the weak or ones with warts. You disdain and criticize someone who has been compromised but really have no values of your own, so maybe you should leave and find some, steal or beg or maybe buy some from a smiling banker or a store.  

Something's coming, but not real soon...

At first I was too shocked to believe they would suggest that I should leave, and what was even worse was that I saw that they preferred their gutter rutting friends above my smugly strutting. And I admit it stunned and humbled me. So I begged and then beseeched them," Let me stay and you could teach some sense into the tired old mind of mine." And of course we reconciled with hugging arms and tugging smiles that left me more secure, but still in doubt. I truly loved and felt devotion from them both, but I was broken up and feeling powerless inside. I must become important to them, intertwined with roots into them, or else I'd lose my false and newfound pride.

The Thing About Them

What will happen now?

Now there was this thing about them that caused me at times to doubt them, or created conflict in my mind. Usually there was a he one, and there also was a she one, but somehow they came out differently. And one of them, when she was she, would smiles and burn a hole in me; a hole that was too hard for me to hide. Once I had a dream about her, in a field, alone outside a tiny little cottage made of sticks. It was much too small to use it, so she bumped her head and bruised it trying to get through the tiny door. Afterwards, I went to tell her, but it was a he I felt who nodded at my words indifferently. And of course when this would happen, there was still a she to tap up on my shoulder from the other side. But it wasn't her who looked then, close perhaps, but like some bookend that had come misshapened from it's mate. So I told myself there must be some way I can make them just be who I want to be with all the time, 'cause it kept me at a distance, but my senses kept insisting it was much more interesting inside.

Their Early Years  

Once when we were on a bus between some cities we discussed the things that happened in their early years. Their youngest time was spent alone while living with an uncle only half remaining from a foreign war. His upper half was well enough, but in the pants between his cuffs and where his zipper stopped, his legs were gone. And so he rolled around on wheels, self sufficient in a peeling little house he could not paint again. But it was spotless to a point two feet above the floor and warmth was in his laugh and in his smiling face. The people that they met were few and might have been disturbed by two who looked so strange, but they were not aware. For living with their stumpy uncle, who was unconcerned and rumpled, made them see things differently. They thought that we were put together randomly, just like the weather, with no uniformity in mind. But that vision only lasted for a while until he passed away and they were sent off to a home. The children there did not have parents, were all alike and always staring, as they sat on chairs above the ground. So they cried and then withdrew from those that shouted, laughed, and who were mean because of suffering inside. Once alone they heard some children shouting that a car had killed one of their pets out in the road ahead. As they approached the fallen body, blood appeared and then they saw a leg that had been torn away somehow. So they kneeled upon the ground and lifted up the leg they found and wedged it gently just below the spot where both their shoulders joined together. Then the sun, which had been setting, winked and for a moment all was dark. And when the sun returned above them, no one laughed and made fun of them, for the dog was licking at the joint, barking loud and resurrected and causing them to be respected by those who had avoided them before.

Loss of a Loved One  

I told them how my wife had fallen into sickness and to calling out her name with questions on her tongue. We had always been so happy that at first I wasn't sad because I thought my love could keep her strong. But I never thought so wrongly for the fever fought too strongly and it seemed she never fought at all. Soon she died, and I despaired upon the love seat we had shared so many times on pleasant afternoons. I tried and tried to understand why love itself could not command my true love from the comas of her mind. Now, empty, open, and forebodding, stretching out like darkened clothing somehow stained with silence and with fear. Death had brought its separation, giving me an education of a dull and slowly drifting day. I filled my emptiness with sorrow, taking what I could not borrow from the friends I finally drove away.

This is the sad part.  
Oh, it's such a sad part...

"Yes, my life was nearly ruined, till I saw what you were doing. Now I strive to keep on serving you. Life is good but I am better, for I feel at last I let her go because I finally found the truth. Sadly now, I see the answer. All her life she was a dancer, but no one ever played the song she knew."

The Touch  

As they told me other childhood stories, they knew that I stood close but never close enough to touch the holy union of their bonding that I wished to touch so fondly with my heart, and maybe somehow more. But they had a way of keeping it away, while never seeming less than big and open friendly doors. Then one day it finally happened. Just before they took a nap, we joked around the room in which they slept. They were kidding me about an incident when I kicked out some rowdy shouting something near the door. They said that I had looked afraid and if I didn't act my age, then they would have to hold me back next time. I laughed and said that it would take more than just two freaks to make me stop if someone interrupted us again. And with that we started shoving back and forth until a sudden move caught me completely off my guard. They reached around surrounding me within a wall of flesh - I found my only freedom left was in my hand which dangled up and down between their sides until I jerked and seemed to watch it flutter down upon their joint.

Fluttered down it  
fluttered down it  
fluttered down it  
fluttered down...

And suddenly a shock went through me and a moment slipped into the room that was not in the air before. Looking up we all connected in a triangle of eyes reflecting tension and unsaid excitement, too. Then it passed in nervous laughter, but I sensed a change soon after we unlocked our limbs and I withdrew.  

Fluttered down it  
fluttered down it  
fluttered down it  
fluttered down...

The Service

He really loved them  
He really cared...

So I pushed and pushed and pushed them, through the towns and through the bushes and the word was spreading like a lie. "Come and see the holy two-some. They can heal and they can do some things that no one ever did before." And so they came for holy healing, both the belching and the squealing, and the ones who maybe just were bored. Down the aisle they slowly paraded, when I smiled and masquaraded as the kindly keeper of the touch. Kneeling them along a line, I taped a tiny piece of pine upon the chin of each and every one. And then from this a copper wire stretched across a tubeless tire and ended in a round and reddish clamp. Then at once the fees were taken, and the apprehension shaken for the twins would silently appear. Full of life and love and smiling knowing not that all the while I too was smiling to myself inside. Silently I stood between them holding up the crimson gleaming circle with the ends now pried apart. Then I lifted up the cover softly like it was my lover and I felt them shudder as they sighed. As I clamped the metal on it, something like a liquid donut shimmered as the holy union flexed. Then the people screamed and shouted, as the donut grew and sprouted little bitty dust balls made of fire. And these soon enough descended down the lines that finally ended at the screams of joy and pain and fear. For soon the cripples would be walking and the dummies would be talking but no one knew exactly how or why.

Confused (By What I Felt Inside)  

I was standing at the fireplace thinking of my own desire which seemed to offer me no place to go, when I heard a little giggle, sounding like some silly piglets playing in the mud so deep and warm. So I went and looked around and from the bathroom dorr I found some sounds that had not come from there before. So I shouted, "Come on out", and soon I saw them both look out expressing fear and innocence at once.   How it started... They said that they were having fun withsomething that they found someone had left behind a basket on the floor.  
"Let me see", and so I took it with a snatch that left a crooked smile across the corner of my mouth. It was a smooth and shiny object with a purpose and a job I recognized and was familiar with. Looking up I saw one pair of eyes that somehow now were staring straight into the secrets of my mind. I knew at once it was the she thing, not the they and not the he thing looking back at me and my desire.  
Inflamed I reached and pulled her close, but then at once I had them bothoff balance and we fell upon the floor into a pile of awkward bodies, with arms and legs and elbows caught beneath, around, and in between us all. Hastily I helped them up and said that we should soon discuss and try to understand what they had found. But it was too late to do it now, but if I tell the truth, I was confused by what I felt inside.

That was a bad thing...

Fine Fat Flies  

Soon I woke when I was sleeping with a restless reaching feeling but did not know what I was reaching for. I got up and started walking, but soon found that I was stalking prey that I could utilize for more than just an easy conversation, or an evenings' inspiration. Now the time was right for something more. As I walked I thought of flies that stuck to sticky pecan pies that people put upon the window sill, and how those fine fat flies would feed until they satisfied their greed then buzzed around in panic till they died. Knowing where my feet would take me if I kept on moving, made me see myself exactly like those flies. Drawn into a situation that with some consideration never would fulfill its smiling smell. But there was no hesitation in my step or in my making sure the door was quiet when it closed. And as I walked into the darkness, I could sense a woken sharpness penetrating deep within the room. Then I touched her arm and throat, and found beneath my hand a coat of moisture though the night was not too warm. The other one was breathing deeply, so I thought he must be sleeping, but then again I wasn't really sure. "Hold me tight and be my master", someone whispered and I fastened fingers of my own around her wrists which strangely were secure behind her as I began to mount and bind her to myself with force I could not hold. Then I seemed to hear a snicker but I was so busy with her that I did not notice him until I felt him put his hands around my throat and squeeze as if the sounds I made should not escape into the air causing me to moan too loudly as I jerked on out the fire that I no longer could control. I was first to see the flashing blinding light of liquid lashing out my arms, but my convulsions spread to my writhing young companions who were lost in unabandoned cream that soon would crack and fade away. Afterwards, when it was quiet and the bonds had been denied, I told them that we should do this again. But I said it would be wrong to play these games of weak and strong together without me around to help them understand the dangers in it, for there were so many and they simply were to young to understand.

Silver, Sharp and Could Not Care  

The following day I did some walking, for my mind did too much talking to itself, and so I walked along and thought of our last episode, and that somehow it had eroded feelings from my closely guarded core. And also then I knew corruption leaked into this last eruption, and it's oily odor stayed around. Long ago I knew that I was sly, perhaps, and not too nice, but underneath I thought my goals sublime. But now, how could I tolerate behavior that could suffocate contentment in my friends and maybe more? Desire conflicted in my mind with thoughts I once had found divine and torment twisted me between the two. Aimlessly I slowly wandered, as my footsteps took me onward to a part of town I did not know.  
Soon I saw I was distracted by a window that was acting as a display for abarber's store. And what was underneath my stare was silver, sharp, and could not care about confusion or about despair. It only had one job to do. and when it cut it cut so true that now I knew exactly what to do. So I went inside and bought it from a man who never caught the tingle that it raised along my spine, electrically a pleasant tension, like a liquid in suspicion flowed into the conflict in my head. And now my feeling was well being, but I could not help from seeing that my hands were shaking as I paid. And as I left, my thoughts returned to what I told them they had learned through our ordeal of torture and delight. Yes, it was a lie I told them, not to help but just to hold them with me, but I really should have said, "Lies can often give you power like a coffin filled with flowers gives life to the living, not the dead."

Kiss of Flesh

Now it's almost over  
Now it's almost done  
There's only a thing or two  
Then we are gone...

I returned while they were eating supper at the table seated side by side upon a special stool. So I said when they were finished with their whole wheat toast and spinach, we should go back to the secret room that had only been constructed recently to be conductive to the force that grew around the twins. Once inside, we all admired it's silver gleaming pointed spire that rose into the center of the room. Up and up toward the ceiling, gracefully it stretched not yielding to the confines of the smallish room. For it pierced and open circle and vanished deep into the murky night that held its crown somewhere above. The room had been and inspiration of the twins that I had taken - building it of wood and tile and chrome. And they would stay inside for hours, while the rain dripped down the tower, sitting on a bench around its base. But this time we were not there for inspiration but to bare our other sides and feel the kiss of flesh.  
"Take your clothes off", I commanded like a bold and common banditbasking in the feeling of control. I was standing back behind them with a length of line to tie them once their nakedness had been revealed.  
"Kneel", I said becoming heated for the task had been completed and Ifelt my goal was drawing hear.  
"Hee hee hee"  
Then I heard a little snicker.  
"Hee hee... hee hee hee"  
"What was that!", I said and quickly giggles spread infection in the room.  
"Stop it! Stop it! Stop!", I said but it seemed to spread and spread.  
"Stop it or I won't show you any more!"  
"We can't believe that you're so dumb to think we needed anyone to showus what we've known about for years."  
"What!", I screamed in disbelief so certain that I was the thief thattook away their purity, I said, "But what about the other night when she and I were locked so tight and..." Laughter downed me out so I stopped.  
"What makes you think that it was 'her'", the mocking voices said withwords that sliced me open, fast and quick.  
"But I know it must have been, because I smelled her heated skinand..."  
"Don't you see there is no `she' now?  
Don't you see there is no `she' now?  
Don't you see there is no `she' now..."  
So I saw there was no she but there was only them and me, and they werelaughing in my face too loud. So I reached into my pocket and a feeling like a shock exuded from my fingertips and spread along my limbs and up my butt and focused just below my guts and made me hold my breath before the blade could finally fall at last and free me from the anger and the screaming endlessly exploding in my head. So I slit the holy union, turning it into a wound that gaped apart and bled upon the ground - causing me to fire my passion as I stared into the gash that quivered like a burned and ripped out tongue. So great upon my throbbing penis was the pull towards this venus that there was no thought of it at all. Only all consuming lust to be inflamed in base disgust and smile about it when I came inside. So I slipped my dick into it thrusting into pain and spewing blood around the room - I needed more. And so I fucked it that much harder; deep and fast I pushed apart the shoulders that were down below my waist.  
Screams were slicing up the air as eyes rolled up and teeth were bared bylips that stretched too tight and tried to tear. There could be but one conclusion to this sick distorted fusion, and of course it came... and so did I. Madly with my face contorted I convulsed and shoved apart the shoulders that I gripped so hard and I faintly recollect a ripping sickey sound of fleshy splitting as I drifted towards a big black hole. And just before I hit the floor I noticed one was rolling over showing me a smooth unblemished thigh that ended in a red eruption just below her belly button, but maybe it was only in my mind.

Pain and Pleasure  

And so my story winds on down toward and ending that's been found to come whenever all is said and done. I've lived my life and taken chances and if some were strange by standards that were less important than my needs, then I guess I could be crooked, evil, bent, and twisted, looked down upon the strings I tried to pull. But I see the strings extending up and down and never ending as we dance around our selves and jerk to all the tunes that only we hear and the voices only we fear each inside an island all alone. But the contact that we do make, as we give and take abuse, stays and its value only multiplies. Yes I'm alone, but not forgotten, for each comes and sees me often, sitting on a seat beside my bed, and we laugh and reminisce about a life that once was bliss before an act of passion made us part. Of course they'll always be together, but their bond is made of leather not the flesh and blood it used to be. They're still full of life and healing, but it has a different feeling and only for the few that seek their sort of pain and pleasure when they merge and give into insistent urgency that lives for seconds at a time. For pain and pleasure are the twins that slightly out of focus spin around us till we finally understand that everything that gives us pleasure also gives us pain to measure it by, and I also realize... that all our lives we love illusion, neatly caught between confusion and the need to know we are alive.

This is the end.

[We thank The Residents and the Cryptic Corporation for allowing us publish this text.]