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All About Cream
Secrets!
I rectified
those.
Repositioned.
Remade.
Reapplied.
'Don't tell
anyone, okay?' can take years off my face.
'I didn't
think anything like this would happen' feels so good when I rub it on my
forearms and thighs.
Cream.
Lotion.
Cleanser.
Moisturizer.
Lubricant.
These are all
my playthings.
Don't believe
me?
I can turn
doubt into a lovely scrub over a long weekend.
While you burn
incense I burn memories, and the smoke can waft up into some special
netting that catches a lot more than soot. I'd call it magic but it works
so it's science!
Add some lye
and tallow with enough heat it all drips down from the tops and into the
vat.
Vats are so
cheap nowadays if you know who to speak to and how to speak to them and
where they've been meeting a lover in secret for the past four months.
But my good
fortune is theirs, and I'm giving them buckets of my special supply and
they are giving hot oil massages to each other and thanking me profusely
and telling all their real and fake friends about my backyard remedies.
Talk of the
town. Toast of the parties.
Turning tears
into reversing years.
(I didn't come
up with this one, just some lazy headline writing by a big aggregate media
editor when they did a bio series of snap-vids)
It's not all
conspiracy gravy, though.
One of my
bosses (of course I have several) held up payment because this one fancy
customer got in their bathtub with way too much moisturizer and burnt
twenty years back onto her legs.
My arguments
didn't matter:
Sure you can
revise your digital self without reading the fine print, but that's not
true with this ultra-special line of products. Diligent literates only!
Because of how
fancy this fancy customer was, I had to take it on the chin, which is a
touch worse than taking it in the mouth.
A proverbial
demotion and a dismantling and destruction of some of my equipment in my
backyard.
I watched as
they held me down.
I held my
tongue but my eyes did all the talking.
So did the
special constable, who asked how much this was going to cost me in the
next financial quarter.
I don't like
focusing on the price.
At the end of
the day there can't be a price on beauty, can there?
Don't answer
that, my accuntant yuks.
Their advice:
just take a deep breath, just take a warm bath, and just rebuild.
I have people
on every street corner in this city who owe me a favour.
I just have to
be a bit more careful* and do more work in my soon-to-be-well-lit
basement.
*-careful in
this case means 'investing' in the special constable's in-ground pool
fund.
It's not so
much the long arm of the law as the perception of having trouble
fulfilling the orders because a neighbour or passerby might see me on the
ground in cuffs and upload a clip of it without allowing for me to get
ahead of the hot viral story with a tiny fib that it was just a massive
sexual roleplay scene.
I know how
important things can be on the surface level.
I count on it.
When the
victim comes to my office I am ready with a smile and a handshake.
Pleasantries
always get them to reveal their bank account and credit rating, and as I
wax philosophical with the rote recitation of 'the fountain of youth in a
jar', I am watching how they drum fingers, crack their knuckles, and bite
their nails.
The hands
don't lie, at least not before I get a hold of them.
We have a long
talk about their life, and I can definitely tell what they are trying to
hide. I don't pry, I dance around the issue like a ballerina with a
perfect poker face.
Soon an
appointment is made and I recognize the name of their street and feel even
better about the beginning of this beautiful, profitable friendship.
The first
hit's not free, but I can be talked into some robust discounts.
Rapping on
their door three evenings later I am hoping to get a nice walk in their
backyard garden before the sun sets.
But first I
show off my wares and pass round a few containers and bottles around to my
audience of three.
The usual
'oohs' and 'aahs' and the one guest who thinks it's all a bunch of
horseshit. I am doing all this on auto-pilot. Perhaps I am trapped in a
time-loop where only the faces switch. Now that would be something I would
like to find a way to bottle up. A timespace sheet that you stretch over
your skin and you let the matter-anti-matter particles do their thing.
Anti-matter, anti-aging, there has to be an equation that expresses both
in peace and harmony-
Sorry, I was
miles away there, ladies and gentleman.
So...do you
want your scummery or would you prefer someone else's?
There are
advantages and disadvantages with both, naturally.
Their eyes
buzz back and forth in silent consideration, worried about the next words
that would dribble out of their mouths. Will they be seen as altruistic
saints or the manifestations of problematic evil? Will they bear their
true faults in front of their friends?
I'm used to
these sorts of moments.
Who do these
financially-holier-than-thou types hate more? Themselves or everyone
around them? And how much are they really worried what I will think of
them, even though all I honestly and truly care about is their money.
So I save
their cracking skins by offering up the 'someone else' choice and they
eagerly reach forward like (fifty) four year olds.
Rubbing it on
their hands and cackling as they can suddenly imagine the agony of some
random mysterious stranger who lost their job, found a lump, or learned a
disturbing secret of a loved one resulting in all natural tears that are
now enriching and strengthening their own pores.
It may feel
good now, but it wouldn't show actual results so quickly. Plenty of
reapplications are needed, but I'll let them have this moment before going
into subscriptions and install lament plans.
One of them
seems a bit reluctant, however, and when I politely pry they lean in and
say they would like to apply the product onto a more private area that has
been causing them some trouble recently.
Being
hyper-aware that providing a complete regeneration experience of the body
and soul includes some imperious customer service I permit then to take
their leave with a 500ml jug of 'shea butter car crash survivor guilt'.
I make idle
chit-chat about totalitarianism with the other two and share an anecdote
about a fictional former client who killed their lover and got away with
it and paid me a hefty sum to use so much moisturizer to completely change
the appearance of their face-
There is
screaming from the bathroom.
The look of
surprise on the two faces in front of me expose the crows feet and deep
lines that only the largest investments in my products can fix. Right now
the entire sale is at risk, but I am confident that I can still salvage
this one.
With
unflappable demeanour and a waxy paper smile I say something beyond witty
to excuse myself and casually stroll to where I imagine the bathroom in
this mini-mansion would be.
'Just follow
the screams' is a slogan I'll have to let slip through my fingers.
She didn't
close the door all the way so I peek through the easy crack.
I've seen many
old crones' sunken clams and over the hill millionaire's shrivelled dicks
and their bulging abscesses and problematic discolourings so of course I'm
ready for the worst of the worst. I've tsk-tsk-ed wealthy widows and
explained that the only monster here is the one who peels the face mask
off too early (set a timer like an egg, Mrs. Robinson) so I'm ready to
talk this woman off the fifty centimetre ledge.
But this was
very different.
She'd removed
her sundress and was in her fashionable-yet-proper bra and panties, and it
was clear that her area of concern was her legs, which has plenty of
varicose veins and splotchy 'beauty' marks and liver spots, but the
problem was obviously where she applied my product. Because on the area of
her inner left thigh, where there should have been a wonderful
regeneration of youthfulness instead was my face.
My dead eyes,
slightly pointy nose, and nondescript lips smeared across a flap of skin
with a hint of a grin.
Even as I
opened the door wide she still didn't notice the real me, her legs spread
wide as she sat on the toilet seat, wholly focused on my doppelgänger she
got out of the jar.
Her hands were
in the classic terror pose, fingers bent inward but frozen, and I saw that
the miracle moisturizer was all over them.
It was fine
and indescribable tableau, fitting for a second-tier modern art museum,
something the MOMA or the Tate would turn down for the wrong sort of
gaudiness.
But what did
move while she didn't caught my eye.
I wasn't just
on the neatly spread cream on her legs but the blobs of it all over her
hands. Gravity was doing its work and she was dripping my face through her
fat middle-aged fingers and my face was pooling messily on the smooth tile
floor.
And I was
still smiling, in every big puddle and tiny drop.
It was pride.
My pride.
Must've got
the labels wrong back in my basement.
END |
'You do you' is the new 'different strokes for different folks, and both sound like masturbation. | |||