Rubber
When I enter the room, my host, who has been gracious and lively all evening, holds the heavy door for me. My eyes fall upon the central column.
First glance. A figure, human-like, appears to be bound there.
"My most recent sculpture," my host says as the door clicks shut behind us, a dull sound that echoes throughout the large, open space.
Second glance. I gaze at the sculpture and walk, scribing a wide circle about the piece.
"The ropes are real," I say, astounded.
"Most assuredly."
He’s smug, pleased. I am a little annoyed at his manner, but the piece is lovely.
"Obsidian?" I ask, guessing about the black material he utilized to carve the semblance of a female body bound to the pillar.
He laughs, not loud. An irritating laugh.
"A perfect body," I add, "But too perfect, don’t you think? Such lovely breasts."
I walk closer, my heels tapping on the black tile floor, feeling a tingle in my own nipples, for a moment sensing ropes gathering my flesh into its embrace. "A peculiar effect," I murmur.
He watches me closely. "What do you mean?"
I’m about to answer, when I freeze. Certainly it didn’t move, this being, this figure that absorbs me, so black, so meticulously rendered.
The chest, the breasts, exquisitely molded, rise. Fall. The movement was imperceptible from where I stood before. And at her feet in a perfect circle, drips of her sweat fall and coalesce, delineated by the hem of her long black dress.
"My God." I think I whisper the words. But they have a grotesque effect. Because the figure reacts as though it can hear, as though it is not the fabrication of a human form rendered in the glass of volcanoes.
The "sculpture" struggles.
Droplets of saltwater splash about her feet.
Black rubber. I can see that now. I can see everything, or so I think.
